What does it mean to have hope—real hope? Gospel hope? And what does hope look like when we are in the midst of questionable, unsettling, or unsure times?
Is hope naïve? Is it dangerous? When is it appropriate? What kinds of circumstances and challenges can we entrust to God? And how do we hope in God humbly, without viewing him as a cosmic vending machine, granting our own personal wishes in exchange for our faith?
These are some of the questions the CSA team wrestled with this summer as we reflected on the vulnerable communities we work with and hear from. And in the process, we marveled at the many unexpected ways Gospel hope has shown up in the lives of people dealing with injustice.
Stories of the Faith
Like many Jesus followers in recent years, we’ve noticed the prevalence of stories about the declining role of faith for many communities. From the “rise of the nones,” to features on abandoned churches being renovated into condos, to stories of people leaving churches because of political polarization– narratives about Christian decline are easy to find.
Some Christians respond to these stories with countering narratives of a triumphant faith. But this impulse plays into the surrounding world’s definition of power and success. E. David de Leon, a theological adviser for CSA, paraphrased Dr. Willie James Jennings from a discussion on the Western church’s “addiction to mastery and power”:
…the church has a complicated history of offering a Gospel married to violence and conquest, presenting God’s love for and claim on the world as a form of theological and intellectual imperialism. We have inherited this legacy, and it has left us with real difficulties in how to embody zeal for the mission of God in the world.
The antidote to cultural cynicism about Christianity isn’t simple stories with happy endings, or stories about church growth—rather it is authentic and compelling stories of how Christian hope empowers people to deal with the messy, dangerous realities of living in a broken world.
Hope and Justice
For Christians working in the justice space, hope is neither trivial nor abstract. In his book The Fabric of Hope, Glenn Tinder writes, “Hope is as necessary to life as light and air. Fear weakens and paralyzes us. … Hope draws us into the future and in this way it engages us in life.”
Over the course of our work at CSA, we’ve gotten to see and hear so many stories of great faithfulness unfold. These stories are always driven by hope in God’s promises. That hope is the animating force in the most compelling stories about faith in the face of injustice—it’s the “why” that moves people from despair to lament to action. It’s why people “run with perseverance the race marked out for them” (Hebrews 12:1–3), even if they know they won’t win the race.
This kind of persistent hope is hard to maintain for anyone who pays attention to the many ways in which the world around us falls short of what we know it was supposed to be. For people who spend the majority of their time actively working in the justice space, it can be nearly impossible. Maintaining hope isn’t something we can do alone. For those who hunger and thirst for justice, it’s important to have a community of friends who can help us stay anchored in the Christian hope that fuels our work in this world.
“I’ve pondered the power of the stories we tell,” de Leon reflected. “These stories are connected to our sense of the missio Dei. How might I pay more attention to the better stories that are being lived out now? And what life might be breathed into the Church if we told each other more of these stories?”
Reflect and act
This article was born out of a series of conversations and research projects the CSA team took on this summer. You can use the following questions as journaling or discussion prompts to join us in some of our conversations and to find opportunities to put your own hope into action.
- What is the difference between despair and lament?
- What expressions of brokenness or injustice are you most attentive to?
- How does hope in God’s promises empower us to move from despair to lament? From lament to action?
