We know all of this because the Episcopal Church is "prophetic".

What exactly do people mean when they say that something or someone is prophetic? We are familiar with the Old Testament prophets all the way up to John the Baptist and the New Testament prophets as well, like Agabus and Philip's daughters, but what does it mean to be "prophetic" now?

Biblically speaking, prophecy generally falls into two categories: foretelling and forth-telling.

Foretelling prophecy reveals some future event or state of affairs before it comes to pass. Jeremiah, for example, was "foretelling" when he revealed the ultimate disastrous outcome of the Babylonian invasion of Judah before that outcome had come to pass.

Forth-telling prophecy on the other hand reveals, expounds, and/or proclaims divine truth in an eternal or lasting sense. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount is a great example. In one sermon Jesus revealed, proclaimed, and expounded divine law.

The truth revealed, expounded, or proclaimed can be "new" in the sense that it is new to the world (not to God) but it does not have to be.

A good preacher or teacher is standing in the "prophetic" office in so far as he or she is teaching divine truth even though it has usually already been revealed.

Equally, and still in the forth-telling sense, someone may speak prophetically when he or she applies divine truth (previously revealed or not) to contemporary circumstances. John the Baptist, for example, was prophetically forth-telling when he criticized Herod's relationship with his brother's wife.

It is in that last sense, prophetic forth-telling, applying divine truth to contemporary circumstance, that the Episcopal Church claims to have received new revelation at General Convention 2006 and on that basis, to have taken "prophetic" action in confirming the election of VGR to the office of bishop.

But all of this talk of prophecy begs the question: by what standard? How are we supposed to know whether something is truly, "prophetic"?

It's interesting to pose this question to ECUSAn hierarchs and Integrity apologists.

You'll usually get something along the lines of, "When God's people gather together Christ is present. We gathered at Convention and were moved through prayer and by the Holy Spirit who spoke through our democratic process, confirming VGR's election and affirming our (non-celibate) homosexual brothers and sisters."

I asked a friend who is very much in agreement with the outcome of GC2003 how the Church could possibly assent to such a dramatic change in doctrine by virtue of a vote of all things. I was told, and I quote: "With a great deal of deep prayer".

General Convention, in other words, is God's revelatory vehicle. Through it God speaks "prophetically."

But again, how do we know?

The bible, helpfully, provides two tests applicable to prophetic speech.

The first test applies primarily to foretelling prophecy. What is foretold must actually come true (Dt 18:21-22). Otherwise the prophecy is false as is the prophet.

The second test is applicable to both foretelling and forth-telling prophecy. This is the test of non-contradiction. Is what the "prophet" foretells or forth-tells in contradiction with what has already been revealed? (Dt. 13:1-5; Acts 17:11; Gal 1:6-9; 2nd Pet 2; 1st Jn 4:1-5:10; 2nd Jn 9)

The underlying assumption is that the eternal God who sees the end from the beginning does not change (Js 1:17). His Word, therefore, will never be overturned.

We need to be careful with this test. We are looking for bona fide contradictions not differences. The New Covenant is quite different from the Old Covenant. And yet they do not contradict each other. The purity and kingdom laws of Leviticus, for example, have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ the new Temple, not overturned.

New prophecy may very well be quite different and quite new. God does apply his truth to every age. But it will not contradict what has been said before. God can do a new thing but his new thing won't make his old thing out to be a lie.

And that's the problem orthodox people have with GC2006. The confirmation of VGR's election and the further promotion of homosexual behavior as good and blessed cannot represent new prophetic revelation precisely because it makes God's previous revelation out to be a lie. It stands in direct contradiction to what he has already revealed to be true.

I know that this is an old point but I don't think many revisionists really grasp the importance of it.

They prefer, it seems, to think of orthodox believers as modern-day Pharisees unable to see a new move of the Spirit.

In fact, Jesus' primary critique of the Pharisees was not that they cared too much about the Law and not enough about the Spirit, but that their own teachings actually stood in contradiction to the Law (Mk 7). The Pharisees' myopic focus on their own teachings and traditions over and above the true Word of God as revealed through Moses and the prophets blinded them to Jesus' true identity and to the inherent consistency of his new proclamation with older revelation. Had they been devoted to revealed truth, they would have been far better suited to notice when the Truth was revealed.

Focus on the Word, study of the Word, a firm rootedness in the Word provides a believing community with the spiritual eyes to recognize a counterfeit.

In that sense, the Episcopal Church's claim to possess "new" revelation that contradicts the old, is sadly symptomatic of a core spiritual blindness far more reminiscent of the Pharisees than the prophets.

This story first appeared at: http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/prophets_of_the_new_thing/

--The Rev. Matt Kennedy is rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Binghamton, NY.