A skeptic will say that such a sense of God’s purpose is entirely determined by their community. But charismatic evangelicals say that God feels more real when he startles them—when he tells them to do something surprising that they would never have chosen on their own. What makes Barrett unpredictable is the possibility that she will interpret God as speaking in ways that she, and the broader conservative world, might not have anticipated.
In my research on charismatic evangelical Christianity, I have seen that people experience God as doing surprising, startling things, and that their sense of being surprised by God becomes proof that they are acting as he wills. I met, for example, a man who joined the Word of God (the community from which People of Praise developed) and became a charismatic evangelical pastor. Ken Wilson founded a church in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with hundreds of congregants. He led that church for decades. Some years ago, his associate pastor met the woman who would become her wife. The church wanted him to fire her. But Wilson had prayed intensely about this, and he refused. He believes that it was God who changed his mind. The church then asked him to leave too—and he did.
Amy Coney Barrett is a woman who has lived out a radical critique of the modern world. She will be less vulnerable to the peer pressure of other judges than many might be, because she has a powerful moral compass, developed out of her own experience in prayer. Yes, she will likely oppose Roe v. Wade if the opportunity arises. Yes, she will likely take conservative positions. But she has a radical streak and an intensely personal God, and we should expect some surprises from her.
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