Helpless Hopelessness is Disempowering

And the difference between hope and optimism

by

Perspectives

Jan 31, 2026

I realized after fourteen months of dumbfounded mainly-silence that I had succumbed to hopelessness about the US, the country that I love and that it was time to snap out of it.

There are three problems with hopelessness.

One: it closes its eyes to reasons for hope; therefore, in the name of realism it misses key parts of reality.

Two: it is profoundly disempowering; therefore, it takes the hopeless one off the field of fighting for a better reality precisely when everyone’s best efforts are needed.

Three: it may be conceived as a luxury, available only to those who can imagine living without hope and still surviving; therefore, hopelessness may be an expression of social privilege.

Hearing lectures by Catherine Keller (Drew) and Chris Tirres (Santa Clara) at Austin Seminary this past weekend involved becoming reacquainted with hope.

For Keller, it’s hope amid ecological devastation.

For Tirres, studying the spirituality of Gloria Anzaldúa, it’s hope amid Latine oppression.

I wrote down this quote from Keller: “Biblical hope is not optimism…It is the embrace of a desired possibility — to realze, recognize and actualize the possible…to embrace a hope is already to begin an action — active embrace of hope already helps to bring about some outcome.” This implies that lack of hope may well cut off movement toward any action and thus any change one might wish to see in the world.

In my words: helpless hopelessness is disempowering.

Contrast that helpless hopelessness with this line from Anzaldúa: “Caminante, no hay puentes, se hacen puentes al andar.” Translation: “Voyager, there are no bridges, one builds them as one walks.”

Which may mean that, at least if one has the power to do something constructive — something at all, anything really — to give in to hopelessness is irresponsible. If you don’t see a bridge to a better world ahead of you, start walking, and build it as you go.

Keller quoted bell hooks to this effect: “to be hopeful is to be responsible for the future.”

I think I now know this about myself: as a white liberal-leaning man of a certain age, I was born and raised in an era, and maybe even in a version of Christian ethics, that taught me optimism based on visible progress, with a really nice backstop of social advantage to keep me safe no matter whether progress continued.

But that was optimism based on social circumstances. What we now need is hope based on far deeper wellsprings.

The traditions that can teach us this deeper hope are not provided by the privileged. They are offered by those for whom hope is and has always been most difficult and therefore most necessary.

Maybe that is why James Baldwin resonates so much with me and so many others these days. And so I close with some of Baldwin’s greatest lines about hope:

“I cannot afford despair... You can’t tell the children that there is no hope.”

“Hope is invented every day.”

“Yet, hope—the hope that we, human beings, can be better than we are—dies hard; perhaps one can no longer live if one allows that hope to die.”

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

And then the one that summons me right now:

“The hope of the world lies in what one demands, not of others, but of oneself.”

The Rev. Dr. David P. Gushee earned his Ph.D. in Christian ethics from Union Theological Seminary (NY). Over a full 30-year career, he’s been a devoted teacher and mentor as Professor Gushee to college students, seminarians, and PhD students. He’s also led activist efforts on climate, torture, and LGBTQ inclusion, and continues to be a keynote speaker at churches, forums, and universities. This post is republished from his Substack blog.