On Easter Hope

I've recently been thinking a lot about hope. A few months ago I wrote an essay about Joss Whedon (who is awesome). As 'research' for this essay I listened to hours of interviews with Whedon. I was particularly disturbed by this quote, "I think the world is largely awful and getting worse, and eventually the human race will die out... and it'll be our own fault." I was not at all disturbed by the fact that Whedon genuinely believes this, nor even that he would publicly admit to it. What really disturbed me was that my initial response was to agree. Looking around the world, it is difficult not to at least consider the possibility that Whedon is right. Every day there is a new study (unless, of course, we want to pretend that science doesn't exist) which demonstrates the continued, human-enacted, degradation of the natural world. While climate change is always at the forefront of the news, this is hardly the only issue that the continued survival of the world faces. Of course, in addition to being a contributing factor to climate change, air pollution also causes a great number of other environmental and health problems (http://www.epa.gov/airquality/peg_caa/concern.html). The ubiquitousity of plastic is another major problem facing the planet (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/plastic-not-so-fantastic/ and http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/06/20126681156629735.html). Plastics are causing significant problems in the water and on land.

Several decades ago the theologian John B. Cobb Jr. was already asking, "Is it too late?" (http://www.amazon.com/Is-too-late-theology-ecology/dp/0962680737) Even if it wasn't yet too late when Cobb published this landmark book back in the 70s, how much damage has been done since that time? The most depressing aspect of Whedon's ecological outlook is that it is not a simple pessimism, but an absolute hopelessness. Whedon said, "I can't believe anybody thinks we're actually going to make it before we destroy the planet. I honestly think it's inevitable. I have no hope." For Whedon hopelessness is not merely because a zero point has been reached- not just that global ecology has reached a point of no return. Rather, it would appear that Whedon's hopelessness equally stems from a view of the moral breakdown of human society- or at least large chunks of it). Whedon desires to be a catalyst for change, but doubts that humanity is capable of making the necessary change. Sometimes I wonder whether Whedon is right. Sometimes I despair.

Yet, as a Christian theologian, in the midst of the Easter season, I am reminded of the hope of the resurrection. The Easter resurrection is misunderstood if it is seen to only pertain to the future. The resurrection is less proof of a heavenly afterlife than it is a hope-giving inbreaking of heaven onto the present earth. 1 John 1:3 says, "By [God's] great mercy [God] has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ." Although he's not speaking directly of this, or any particular biblical passage, Wendell Berry well summed up this 'living hope' when he said, "Hope is a different hting from optimism. Optimism and pessimism are based on the idea of how things are gonna turn out. Hope is grounded in the present; it's not about the future. It's about the reality of possibilities, this sense of possibility that you can do better. Friends, others give me hope. Hope lives on hope." As is usually the case, Berry offered to me an important reminder. Hope is not a 'hope for...' It simply is. Hope is hope. Hope gives hope. Hope lives on hope. Whedon has no hope for the future, but the future is not where hope lives. Hope lives in the present.

Even when I look at the world and see death, destruction, and devastation, I can look around me and see people who are genuinely living well. (In particular, today I was given hope by two people- Rick Reilly's malaria net campaign through Nothing But Nets, and a college friend, Devin Chesney's newly formed social venture FairWear (you can read an interview with Devin in Forbes magazine here).) It's not only in the big things, or the major ventures either. I can look around and see genuine kindness, compassion, and love in the actions of friends, family, and strangers. I have come to realize that this is where Whedon is simply wrong. The world is not awful, the world is full of hope. Even if the planet is awful, and probably getting worse, and even if this awfulness is due to the actions of (at least subsections of) the global population, the ecological decline (and potential downfall) of the planet is not the whole story. Even if it is too late (which is certainly still an 'if') to reverse the ecological downturn of the planet, people choose living hope, and that gives me hope. Throughout the Easter season and beyond it is my goal to choose hope, or, to put it in the words of Wendell Berry, to 'practice resurrection'.