Hope-ium?

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Karl Marx

“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What profit has a man from all his labor in which he toils under the sun?” Ecclesiastes 1:2-3

I don’t mean to bum everybody out. And I must confess that I haven’t yet finished Brian McLaren’s new book Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart. But in light of layers upon layers of evil saturating the world these days, I’m thinking about this:

• How do we have hope when – if the bombing stopped at this very minute in Rafah – there would still be generations and generations of trauma that would impact the future of humanity?
• How do we have hope when half of our nation believes the disinformation disseminated by people whose purpose is to seek chaos and power?
• How do we have hope when – as Miguel De La Torre has so brilliantly written – there are millions of people who have never experienced it? They include the refugee, for example, who has never had security so expecting “everything to work out” sounds like a joke.

I’m in the hope business. I believe in resurrection on this earth and beyond the earth. I believe that God can bring some semblance of good out of the most horrible circumstances. I also believe that Kate Bowler and Elie Wiesel are right about human suffering and human nature.

We who are privileged, we who have had zero experience with hunger, captivity, torture, homelessness, statelessness, or abject poverty have a number of imperfect – if not dangerous – responses when we consider the agony of the world:

• If they (the suffering) are faithful, everything will pan out for them in the afterlife, so we have no responsibilities to address their suffering in this life. (Note: this is not Biblical. Read Matthew 25)
• Being faithful primarily involves our personal relationship with Jesus and God will take care of the rest. Just so we are included in the rapture . . . (Note: the Rapture was “the Plymouth Brethren’s gift to Christendom way back in the 1830s” according to Brian McLaren who grew up in that denomination.)
• It’s not my problem and – anyway – it’s depressing to think about. (Note: This might be the height of White Supremacy.)
• It’s just the way things are. “The poor will always be with us.” (Note: For the love of God, please read Liz Theoharis.)

According to McLaren, Marx was not necessarily attacking religion. He was pointing out that the utter agony in the world – often felt most thoroughly by those who are exploited by the powerful – moves us to “seek an anesthetic to numb it.” Sometimes we numb out with alcohol and drugs. And there are some who numb out with religious hope. McLaren writes:

“The opiate offered by religion is the hope of a pain-free heaven. By dealing this drug of hope – many today call it “hope-ium” – religion offers palliative care to the oppressed between now and their death.”

Neither McLaren nor I love the term “hope-ium.” Hope is a good thing and it’s not necessarily a crutch at all. Hope is messy, ridiculous, and holy. My favorite speech about hope (which starts out being about love) continues to be this one written by Phoebe Bridger Waller and spoken by the “hot priest” at a wedding on Fleabag:

“Love is awful. It’s awful. It’s painful. It’s frightening. It makes you doubt yourself, judge yourself, distance yourself from the other people in your life. It makes you selfish. It makes you creepy, makes you obsessed with your hair, makes you cruel, makes you say and do things you never thought you would do. It’s all any of us want, and it’s hell when we get there. So no wonder it’s something we don’t want to do on our own. I was taught if we’re born with love then life is about choosing the right place to put it. People talk about that a lot, feeling right, when it feels right it’s easy. But I’m not sure that’s true. It takes strength to know what’s right. And love isn’t something that weak people do. Being a romantic takes a hell of a lot of hope. I think what they mean is, when you find somebody that you love, it feels like hope.”

The bottom line is always love. When we love people – even those suffering halfway across the world – there is hope.

How – in love – can we respond to the agony of the world? There are indeed ways. I have some ideas now, and I’ll have more after I finish the book.

Image of Brian McLaren’s new book which is not for the fainthearted. You can order it here.