I’ve been reading Barack Obama’s book ‘The Audacity of Hope’, and it’s reminded me that this most beautiful and encouraging of virtues is in desperately short supply at the moment. The media are full of stories that reflect humanity at its worst: fear and darkness, violence and extremism. Perhaps because of this Mr Obama’s election seems to shine all the brighter. He will be inaugurated today as the 44th President of the United States of America, and so it seems like a good time to reflect on the Christian virtue of hope
In the UK where I am based we are currently going through a vicious and depressing recession which, at this moment, looks like it might turn in to depression. Government ministers have spent the weekend locked in negotiations with bank executives, planning to lend vast amounts of money to the lenders. The sums involved are enormous. A figure of £200bn has been mentioned in the press - that’s £200,000,000,000 if you want to write it with a stupid number of zeros. In many ways we seem like a bankrupt nation. The national debt, the amount of money owed by the government as a result of borrowing, has grown dramatically, and will be a financial burden for decades to come.
In addition to this, as a nation we are bankrupt in the sense of being without the hope of the kind that Mr Obama presents. The foundation of his offer of hope is the shared values of his nation, the principles of the US Constitution, the dreams and plans of the founding fathers. The problem for us in the UK is that our sense of shared values, the base from which a UK version of Mr Obama might work, is fast disappearing. The notion of cohesion and community in the UK has been eroded to the point where the citizens of Britain have become a disparate group of people who happen to be living on the same Island, but with less regard for, and understanding of each other than would have been the case fifty or even twenty years ago. This sort of vacuum is a breeding ground for distrust, extremism, and intolerance.
Our nation is becoming more lonely, more drunk, and more frustrated. We fear and despise the young people around us; we spend money that we haven’t got, just as our government spends money that it hasn’t got. All of these things are the antithesis of hope. Reasonable people look on with frustration at the poverty of our own political process, and they are forced to the extremes to find any dialogue that seems authentic. It’s instructive to note that, because of his authenticity, Barack Obama has a tendency to draw people to the middle ground and because he does this without resorting to a compromise of principles, people who would not normally communicate start to speak and listen to each other. This is fertile ground for hope.
A sense of hope and purpose are essential for the health of a nation, a community, and an individual. We should not be surprised that ‘Obamania’ has flourished in the UK; when there is a lack of hope at home people will turn to find it where ever they can. Certainly the election of a black president has a special resonance for people of colour and they are right to celebrate Barack Obama’s achievement; but hope transcends colour, we are all drawn to the it.
In fact, people will always hunger for hope, for purpose, for something to believe in and aim for. The attention given to Barrack Obama, not just as President elect but as a symbol for people’s aspirations, is a lesson for us all. Perhaps his success will be an encouragement for people of integrity and vision in the UK who also want to bring hope to our own fractured nation.
Tags: Uncategorized by andrew chamberlain
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