History and Hope

 We have suggested that the only hope that we can hold is theological, religious in nature. The past, obviously, offers no particular hope. It is, after all, done with. It might give us some pointers as to the future, but only insofar as it suggests that the future will be uncertain. Other philosophies, such as Marxism offer hope for the future, but that hope is founded on a certain view of history and, history itself has demonstrated that the Marxist view of development is false. It is not so much that the Marxist view cannot develop as set out, it is more that it has not and, most probably, will not.

The past, however, makes a considerable impact on today. Consider, for example, the arguments about colonialism, imperialism, slavery and race in the contemporary world. Colonialism, at least in its ‘hard’ form of Western nations owning and running countries elsewhere is less prevalent than it was. There are, of course, various forms of colonialism still around, cultural, for example, where countries worry that their citizen’s world-view is heavily influenced by Hollywood. There are other forms, one of which I suppose we could describe as ‘capital colonialism’ whereby more developed countries supply capital to projects and industries in other, less developed, countries but own the developments and hence cream off a large proportion of the profits.

The point here is that the earlier colonialism, and its development of imperialism, made possible the latter forms. Early colonialism laid the basis for the slave trade, the slave trade returned huge profits to the colonial powers which they used to create even more profits by exploiting the colonised peoples and places ever more ruthlessly. With the ideological retreat of imperialism post World War Two the colonised countries were given their independence politically, but economically were left dependent and impoverished.

The trajectory I have described is general, but pertains to today whereby the formerly colonised countries are still dependent and impoverished, while the former colonial powers are largely wealthy, although they have problems of their own. The point is, and it is made by titles of books such as ‘Why the Rest Hate the West’, that the modern world situation is a creature of its past, and that past is contingent on the activities of nations and individuals. No one country has a ‘God-given’ right to rule the others, or even influence them. On the other hand, as the recent pandemic has shown (and will continue to do so), the nations of the world are all in this together.

If history can only explain our current situation and, perhaps, its hatreds and dilemmas, then what of the future. If hope is theological in nature, what happens to it in a non-religious world? If most people’s hope is limited to a better job, more money and the latest mobile phone, how can hope, at least in a non-material sense, but sustained?

The theological answer to these questions is promise. God, as external to the workings of the human world, has promised certain things if humans will obey his commands. Thus Abraham was promised land and family if he worshipped God, and it came to pass. The law and the prophets offered both blessings and curses for following or not God’s requirements. The point is that promise is fulfilled only in history, in what happens or not. But that history of the fulfilment of promise is in the future, at least from the perspective of the prophet.

That the promise will be fulfilled is in the faith of the believer and the believers, that is, the church that gathers around the promises. While many in churches look backwards to a better time, when the churches were full of people and the church as a whole had a bigger role in society, history really teaches us that this is only romantic sentimentality. A church full of people who are there due to compulsion (such as under the ‘Clarendon Code’ post-Reformation) or due to convention and societal expectation is not really the church that expects the fulfilment of the promises of the Bible. It might consist of those people, but many who were also present may not have been believing in the promises.

The other problem which occurs is the ‘pie in the sky when you die’ one, that is, that you have faith in a better life after death and, therefore, the nature of your current life barely matters. While this is sometimes thought to be the promise of God, and in some senses has a modicum of truth in it, in fact Christianity, at least, is a very material religion, based around historical events. The events were part of the promise, and part of the fulfilment of the promise. The expectation is therefore that God has intervened in history and will intervene in the present and in the future. The promises around which the Christian faith is built demand the expectation of God’s intervention. Deism, in this sense, fails.

Christianity, therefore, draws on the past but is open and expectant for the future. As societies evolve, the questions societies face change and so the cultural context the church mediates with its theology changes. Questions arise within that which could not have been asked by previous generations because history has moved on. Thus, for example, the remarriage of people who are divorced becomes a live issue in churches when society starts to permit it. Similarly, questions around human sexuality start when society changes to be more tolerant. Often the church is reactive to these things, but it can also be proactive, as with international aid.

The point is that the church, theology, Christians, react or act with hope for a better future now, informed by the past promises of God and their partial fulfilment in history. We expect things to improve not because of blind faith in human progress or blind faith that God will replace this world with something better, but in faith in the promises that God has made and the belief that God is the ultimate faithful fulfiller of His promises.