Who Does God Speak Through?

Thursday night Joyce and I went out for our almost weekly date night. We normally do this on Tuesday night, but that was the night she spent in the hospital and that hardly qualifies as a date. We had been wanting to see the new X-Files movie since it opened last week and decided to go see it. (We also went to the very upscale semi-Mexican restaurant Taco Bell). We needed to go soon after it opened because, in general on Guam, unless a movie is an action or blockbuster film, it doesn't stay here very long. (We were 2 of the 4 people in the theater for our showing) Both of us enjoyed the movie. It had all the same elements- suspense, plot twists, weirdness, science fiction standards, religious references and relationship issues- that we enjoyed in the TV series. Basically, if you liked the TV show you will like the movie. The characters, though looking a little older, are still the same. The movie kept you guessing right up to the end with a bit of a gruesome ending plot twist. Just like with the TV show, we were still left with questions as the credits rolled.

One question the movie asks is "what kind of person does God speak through?" One of the main characters in the story is a psychic pedophile ex-priest (I thought well-played by Billy Connolly) who is having visions about kidnap and murder victims (he is often seen in the story on his knees pleading for forgiveness from God). The FBI is hoping to use him to lead them to the criminals. The priest thinks the visions are from God while Scully thinks that God would not speak through a convicted pedophile, so he is either a scam artist or his visions are from the devil. In the end the viewer is left struggling with this question. As a Christian, of course we recognize that God speaks ultimately and authoritatively through Jesus as revealed in scripture and then secondarily through gifted people in the church. But could God speak through others, even outside His church? I think the stories of Balaam and Caiaphas (John 11.50-52) for example would answer that in the affirmative. I think the idea of the "image of God" in man, marred as it is by sin, would indicate that any artist, athlete (maybe even a televangelist, see Philippians 1.17-18) etc. could become a vehicle for God to express himself in beauty, rescue, order and goodness. Is God's mercy big enough to speak even through a repentant pedophile priest?