Instagram recently solved a nagging question for me.

When you go to the Instagram search bar, pictures from accounts you may want to follow pop up. One day a few weeks ago, I clicked on a picture. It was one of those block-quote memes. You know the type, where someone quotes someone famous or a tweet for whatever political cause is on their mind.

The meme, whatever it was, appealed to my own morals, so I clicked the profile. And I found myself in a cesspool. This person, whose bio said they’re a theologian with a focus on feminist theology, was chock-full of dreary garbage. A lot of junk about “the Establishment” this and “free thinker” that and “state-affiliated propaganda.” Think of the stereotypes of the smug conspiracy theorist calling people sheeple and telling them to wake up, and that’s this person’s page.

As I scrolled through this page, I had a thought: This person is hopeless.

Let’s talk about that.

There are a couple definitions of the word “hopeless.” There’s hopeless as in incurable, i.e. “It’s hopeless to put her through chemo. The tumor’s too advanced.” There’s hopeless as in unable to improve, i.e. “Ted Mosby is a hopeless romantic.” There’s hopeless as in a situation that seems unwinnable, i.e. “The score was 38-68 with 10 seconds left on the clock. It looked hopeless for the Hornets.” There’s hopeless as in unable to be done, i.e. “The house is too damaged. Trying to flip it is hopeless.” I’m not talking about any of those definitions.

I’m talking about hopeless as in without hope.

So, what is hope?

Like its antonym, hope has several definitions. There’s hope as in wanting something to happen or for something to be true: “I hope the coffee shop isn’t too busy.” There’s hope as in expecting with confidence: “Your mother’s doing good, I hope.” There’s hope as in something or someone with a high rate of success: “Get Baker on offense. He’s our only hope.” There’s hope as in desiring a goal: “I’m hoping 2023 is a good year.” I’m not referring to any of these definitions. All of these definitions are based on uncertainty. I can hope my favorite coffee shop is slow and then walk in to find it wall to wall. Someone hoping for my mother’s well-being won’t cast a hedge of protection around her. A team using their star player doesn’t guarantee a win. And as the last two years have proven, all the well-wishes for a new year in the world has no effect on the outcome of the year.

John Piper wrote a whole article on the type of hope I’m talking about. To quote from it directly:

…biblical hope is a confident expectation and desire for something good in the future. Biblical hope not only desires something good for the future — it expects it to happen. And it not only expects it to happen — it is confident that it will happen.

John Piper, “What is Hope?”

When I said that this person posting their memes about the Establishment and Obama being a war criminal was hopeless, that’s what I meant. Conspiracy theories–because let’s be real, that’s what this person is trafficking in–are inherently hopeless. Conspiracy theories give godlike power to human communities and institutions, be they the Jewish community, the rich, world governments, or the medical industry. Conspiracy theorists dress up their hopelessness with strands of truth, using the real instances of politicians’ lack of morality or the government rallying around the wealthy to convince people that X, Y and Z was a false flag operation or that George Soros is making the population dumber with chemtrails.

I feel like I’m getting off topic. Hopelessness.

There are a lot of hopeless Christians out there today, traditional and progressive. Under the traditional umbrella, you have the Christian doomsayers, the people who scream “Rapture!” at the drop of a hat. There’s also the sheer mess that is the religious right. January 6th is back on a lot of people’s minds with the congressional hearings starting this week, and I distinctly remember feeling deeply unsettled on January 6th as the news broke. The fact that anyone would attack the Capitol, let alone thousands of people, because they didn’t like the results of an election is scary enough, but it was what was in the crowd that disturbed me. Rioters carried crosses and Bibles, flew flags that said “Jesus 2020” and “Jesus is My Savior, Trump is My President” and some who broke into the Senate Chamber paused the vandalism to shoot God a thankful prayer.

Many an adjective has been hurled at the January 6 rioters: “violent,” “seditious,” “treasonous.” All of these adjectives make sense, but I’d throw one more adjective on the pile: “hopeless.” The people who stormed the Capitol had various reasons, but the supposed Jesus followers who picked up a gun or an axe handle did so because they had no Biblical hope. Even though they claim to believe in a holy book that says our Heavenly Father will rectify all wrongs and make a new heaven and a new earth, they may profess belief in this hope, but in their hearts they don’t believe it. They’ve been conditioned to believe that God can only work through certain people. (*cough*REPUBLICANS AND CONSERVATIVES!*cough*) And so when the enemy, those demon-possessed leftist Democrats, looks like they may have a shot at taking back the Oval Office, they’re not protesting, they’re firing the first shot of a holy war.

Hopelessness is also a problem in more progressive denominations, as Ms. Feminist Theologian Conspiracy Theorist above proved. (BTW, don’t hate on feminist theology because of this article. Feminist theology is a fascinating field, even if one person who studies it has a wack Instagram.) Although, I think progressive Christians can sometimes blunder into hopelessness rather than actively cultivating like the religious right does. Many progressive Christians are former fundamentalists, who fled the stuffy churches of their past and saw a more liberal denomination as a happy medium between the dead theologies they fled and atheism. But because there’s so many residual bad memories associated with religion, I think progressive Christians can focus too much on what they aren’t–the pack of judgmental hypocrites that Christians can prove themselves to be–rather than what they are: salt and light and God’s hands and feet until He returns.

And speaking of that, I need to make a disclaimer.

Up to this point, you may think my message is “Let go and let God.” NO. NO, IT IS NOT. Having encountered that line of thinking, I can say it’s nearly as noxious as those who say “God is a Republican” or Christian conspiracy theorists. I’m a firm believer that we as Christians are called to be people of action, to display radical love and make people see Jesus in us. I’m a part of the Assemblies of God, a Protestant denomination, so sainthood isn’t something I’m down with, but if sainthood was an aspect of Protestantism, I would want our saints to be Christians who took action. People like Martin Luther King, who paid for his divine calling to fight for black rights and labor laws with his life. People like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian who refused to bend God’s Word to support the Third Reich and went to the gallows for being part of an assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler. People like Nelson Mandela, who sat in a jail cell for years for protesting South Africa’s apartheid laws and followed his Heavenly Father’s call to not only forgive his oppressors, but use his newly given power as President to lead South Africa into a nationwide reconciliation.

In fact, these people are prime examples of the power of Biblical hope. Many people think Martin Luther King knew, possibly through divine methods, possibly through being informed prior, that death was waiting for him in Memphis, Tennessee, based on certain things he said in his final speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.” If that is the case, the hope King had was so strong that he went to the metaphorical gallows with his head up, using his final hours to let others drink from his deep well of hope.

I’ve been going on and on about Biblical hope, so it feels appropriate to conclude by letting the Book itself have a say about hope:

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

John 16:33, NIV