We should, however, pay attention to the fact that the prophets characteristically spoke poetry. They proceeded by image, metaphor, and allusion that could not be reduced to a program and that could not be co-opted by the dominant ideology. At best prophetic testimony is not didactic or instructional; it is rather a bid for emancipatory faithful imagination, in the conviction that imagining outside the ideology will evoke fresh waves of energy and courage and generative obedience.
