The intent of this newsletter is to move away from divisive and damaging views of faith and religion towards a more hopeful faith. The non-profit organization which I help to run seeks to articulate hopeful theology.
We talk a lot about hope.
So, this morning, at the Evolving Faith conference that I am attending (online), I was struck by the thoughtful words of Professor Miguel A. De La Torre, who, in his presentation, argued that hope is for the comfortable and the privileged. He said that much of Christian theology has been aligned with colonial power. He called a faith that does not grapple with the realities of the marginalized and oppressed more satanic than Christian. He was direct. During his talk he said that the organizers of the conference told him in advance that he should speak about hope. It was at this point that he mentioned hope as a privilege of the comfortable.
De La Torre is a professor of ethics at a theological school. I am not familiar with his work and writing, but I was highly engaged by his talk. I note that a quick search shows that he was ordained by the Southern Baptist Church. I’m guessing that it’s been a while since he has towed the party line.
His words about hope are leading me to consider how I speak about hope and about how our organization aims to articulate hopeful theology. He mentioned theologian Jürgen Moltmann and how Moltmann said that despair is the opposite of hope. De La Torre wanted to clarify this. He gave the example of people who risk their lives to travel from some countries in Central and South America to the United States. He said that if they were despairing they would simply stay where they were. He identified the presence not of despair, and certainly not of hope, but of desperation. Such people, De La Torre said, are not filled with hope, they are driven by desperation. There is a lot to consider in this insight.
De La Torre went on to speak about the value of troublemakers and tricksters in cultures that are oppressed and colonized. He did not present an idealized vision of success or progress. Instead, he realistically pointed out that the oppressed are most often aware that their dissent and resistance will not lead to change. The motivation to cause trouble to the powerful and oppressive comes from something deeper than the hope for change. It comes from a system of ethics, a theological view, or a way of seeing the world.
When I hear talks like this I become aware, again, of how much I do not know. I become aware, again, of the call to listen to voices that have so often been ignored, marginalized or silenced. I also feel compelled to sympathy for the “burn it all down” view of things.
In no way am I casting myself as oppressed or marginalized, but this leads me to recall a song that I listened to repeatedly during the months of difficulty and conflict before myself and others left the church where I had been pastor for 15 years. It was a Coldplay song called “Cold Rush of Blood to the Head”. The opening lines are;
“I’m going to buy this place and burn it down.
I’m going to put it six feet underground.
I’m going to buy this place and watch it fall.
Stand here beside me baby, in the crumbling walls.”
I didn’t actually want to burn it all down or see the place fall, but I am moved, in hearing De La Torre’s warnings about hope, to see that there are many things worth burning down and that sometimes desperation is present where hope seems impossible.