Reflections on Hope

Bob Woodward in his book, The War Within, reports that the veteran Foreign Service officer David Satterfield, who had the opportunity to observe President George W. Bush at close range for several years, concluded:
If Bush believed something was right, he believed it would succeed. Its very rightness ensured ultimate success. Democracy and freedom were right. Therefore, they would win out. (p. 407)
That attitude – that right will prevail – captures the essence of the Christian hope.

Unfortunately, history frequently has proved any expectation of that which is right or good prevailing in the present wrong. Consequently, Christian leaders have often espoused the more cautious view that God's justice will establish the right and good only when the fullness of the God's kingdom is established. This thinking predictably induces in many a less than diligent inclination to work for justice in the here and now. Karl Marx famously focused on that tragic result, characterizing the Christian hope that right would eventually prevail as a tool for capitalist exploitation of the masses, future rewards promised by capitalist exploiters to compensate the exploited masses for their present suffering.

The social gospel movement, initiated in the U.S. in the late nineteenth century by Walter Rauschenbusch and others, sought to correct the otherworldly emphasis that then dominated the Christian hope with an emphasis on building God's kingdom in the present. The social gospel movement disquieted both many capitalists and theologians, who preferred the stability of the status-quo to the tumult inherent in striving to create a more just society in the present. The controversy that Martin Luther King, Jr., and the twentieth century Civil Rights movement in the United States sparked was in many respects a loud refrain of what had happened when the social gospel movement first debuted.

Focusing on a future hope is not only less disruptive in the present but also demands less from us. However, if we would walk faithfully in Jesus’ footsteps, then, like him, we must choose the more difficult path defined by justice and love. The fullness of God's kingdom may not emerge in my lifetime, or even in this generation, but that does not excuse me from working toward that goal. This is what Jesus did. Doing so led him to an early and an ugly death. We realistically cannot expect – though we must always hope – that the consequences of our efforts will produce better results in the present.

The expectation that right would prevail in Iraq and Afghanistan had two fatal flaws. First, expecting that right (e.g., democracy) would prevail in the near term expresses incredible hubris in one’s ability to control the world. No one person has that degree of control over his or her own life, let alone the lives of millions. Second, intrinsic to right prevailing in the world is that those who work for right to prevail must do so in a manner consistent with right. This is why Jesus chose the way of love rather than the way of the sword. Just War Theory provides a framework for ascertaining those few occasions on which the exercise of military right is morally necessary. Alas, the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan fall woefully short of satisfying that ethical standard. Only the choice of the governed and not external coercion can birth true democracy.

I admire those who constantly strive to help right prevail in the present and learn from those who do so seeking to embody the right, the just, the loving. I also know that I must prepare to cope with life when right does not prevail, for the present has no guarantees. The current U.S. policies in Iraq and Afghanistan sadly fall short of those standards.