On the Heels of Every Hope

by

A United Methodist Insight Column

Anyone who's read my writing for even a short while easily can discern that I am a film buff. I'm such a compendium of cinematic minutia that my family refuses to play "Trivial Pursuit" with me unless I'm handicapped by having to answer an entire card correctly. I don't get into the holiday spirit until I've watched "It's a Wonderful Life" at least twice.

This Advent, however, I'm not thinking of George Bailey's redemption but about the despair in a scene from Cecil B. DeMille's epic, "The Ten Commandments." Joshua (John Derek), cast as a stonecutter for Egypt's massive building projects, tells the water girl Lilia, whom he loves, that he thinks God has forgotten the Hebrews in their slavery. Lilia (Debra Paget) replies, "We must have hope."

Realist Joshua rebukes Lilia's childlike faith with a snort: "On the heels of every hope walks Dathan." Whereupon Dathan (Edward G. Robinson), chief Hebrew overseer and collaborator with the slave masters, slithers into the frame casting lascivious eyes over beautiful, chaste Lilia before he spies beefy Joshua ascending a rope to resume his stonecutting.

It's a scene totally out of place with the Christmas story, but the events of this past year have drilled Joshua's retort into my prayers: "On the heels of every hope..."

The year 2023 has had more calamity than many of us can bear.

The climate crisis brought us the hottest year on record, but the recent United Nations climate conference produced only a minimal commitment to moving away from the fossil fuels that are burning up our planet. Climate change has exacerbated natural disasters as some 1,700 people in the United States died from the summer's heat, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In the Horn of Africa people are starving from drought, burning up from fire, drowning from floods. The National Centers for Environmental Information report: "The U.S. has sustained 373 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including CPI adjustment to 2023). The total cost of these 373 events exceeds $2.655 trillion."

We hope that someone will find an instant cure – without us having to change our wasteful lifestyles – before our planet's environment becomes fatal to all life.

On the heels of every hope ....

War rages again – or still – in so many places: Ukraine, Sudan, Somalia, Syria and other parts of the Middle East. Ukraine's defense against Russian aggression threatens to bog down as international support wavers. Evidence of Russian soldiers' war crimes mounts. In the Holy Land where Jesus was born, outrage at Hamas terrorists' atrocities, which killed 1,200 Israelis, has been compounded by the disproportionate military response of the State of Israel, which has now killed an estimated 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, with 2 million people displaced.

We hope that war will become obsolete yet our leaders refuse to back down from dreams of conquest.

On the heels of every hope ...

As the temporary disaffiliation process runs out the clock on its Dec. 31 deadline, some 7,600 U.S. churches have left the United Methodist denomination since 2019. Recent secular headlines have trumpeted that departures total 25 percent of the 30,000 U.S. congregations, but only a few have delved beyond the dry statistics to document the human agony that the disaffiliation movement has caused. While right-wing groups gloat at the exit numbers and take gleeful self-righteous credit for the exodus, faithful remnants grieve losing their lifetime faith communities, friendships and even family members. An increase in "Blue Christmas" services this year in Texas testified to the mourning across the UMC that impedes ministry and mission.

We long for what has been lost, even as we hope that new "remnant" congregations signal rebirth.

On the heels of every hope ...

What frightens – no, terrifies – me most, however, are the polls showing that nearly a quarter of American Christians support the corrupt comingling of religion and politics known as Christian nationalism, or even "white Christian nationalism." Like the One Ring in JRR Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings," Christian nationalism has no redeeming qualities; in my mind I hear the voice of Ian McKellen's Gandalf growl, "it is altogether evil."

One of our faithful correspondents, Eugene Buccelli, regularly sends links to articles about the monstrous threat of Christian nationalism to American democracy and religious freedom. Paul Graves' column last June on the "un-wokeness" of Christian nationalism prompted Geno to ask: "What are we doing to educate, inform and discuss the impacts of Christian Nationalism?"

The answer to his inquiry among United Methodists is: not nearly enough. Where once courageous pastors denounced the sins of racism, sexism, homophobia, capitalism and empire-building colonialism, those pulpits are silent. In a sense, we've been victimized by the same twisted beliefs and prejudiced attitudes of Christian nationalism that have been a detectable undercurrent to the disaffiliation movement. Insight's contributors haven't always used the "Christian nationalism" label in their disaffiliation commentaries, but their writings have described the same aspects as those who espousing the unholy marriage of right-wing political extremism with debased scriptures: desire for power, greed for money, disdain for a common good, untruths galore, and collaborations with those they think can sate their lusts. The allegation that the fight is over LGBTQ acceptance forms a smokescreen for their true motivations.

We hope that Christian nationalism's false god will be overthrown by knowledge and reason. Thankfully several authors this fall have published books outlining the grave danger, and we hope that those who read the books will be awaken by their clarions.

Yet we know that those who most need to be awakened to the dire threat facing us are those least likely to read the authors' fact-based wisdom. On the heels of every hope...

As a result of the UMC's break-up agony, our historic Wesleyan voice for social justice, so needed in the face of Christian nationalism's spread, has been silenced. Our energies to proclaim Jesus' whole gospel of personal transformation and social holiness have been diverted into battles with members beguiled by deceitful promises that they will be better off unfettered by United Methodist ties.

This Advent we've experienced an atmosphere like that of first-century Palestine. War, pestilence, famine, and oppression darken our revels. Yet if there's any message at all to the Christ event we celebrate, it may be expressed best in the poetry of mid-20th century theologian Howard Thurman:

  When the song of the angels is stilled,

  When the star in the sky is gone,

  When the kings and the princes are home,

  When the shepherds are back with their flocks,

  The work of Christmas begins:

  To find the lost,

  To heal the broken,

  To feed the hungry,

  To release the prisoner,

  To rebuild the nations,

  To bring peace among people,

  To make music in the heart.

This Christmastide, I pray: Gracious Three-in-One God, fix our eyes upon the promise that came, comes, and will come again in Jesus, the babe of Bethlehem, Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace. Let us feel your Presence to strengthen our spirits and lift our hopes. Dry our tears so we can see signs of renewal all about us and tell their stories. Fill us with faith that transcends our fears. Energize us to proclaim the truth of your unconditional love and boundless grace when confronted by death-dealing events. When our courage fails, call forth our baptismal vows to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, for these make the kin-dom of Heaven in our midst.

On the heels of every hope, may we see Jesus.

Veteran religion journalist Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, an online news-and-views journal she founded in 2011.