In recent months the word “hope” has appeared repeatedly to me in books, conversations, and chapel talks. I am thinking primarily about Dean Jordan’s chapel series on the topic and conversations with friends struggling with their faith. My reaction to these encounters with hope in the context of Christian faith has been one of frustration and confusion.
I refer to two definitions of hope. The first definition I discuss is hope as a conviction that life has some deeper meaning, as this seems closest to the idea of hope that most often comes up in relation to Christianity. The attitude appears to be that Christianity has a monopoly on meaning, manifesting itself in sayings like “Christ is our only source of hope” and “How could life have any meaning without Jesus?” This attitude is nonsensical. There are millions of atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, and Muslims who have managed to find meaning elsewhere, just as there are multitudes of totally hopeless Christians.
Also, why does life need to have some deeper meaning? Is it not enough to simply accept life for what it is? It takes an unhealthily inflated sense of self to believe that an individual needs to have some cosmic significance in order to be happy. This inflated sense of self and identity leads to a host of other issues, including a compulsive need for affirmation, an obsession with monitoring oneself, and an insatiable craving for recognition. I have often found that the only way in which the Christian faith does give meaning to anyone at all is in addressing these symptoms of self-absorption, yet even it rarely satisfies, as evidenced by Christians struggling with the same major psychological issues as non-Christians.
The second definition I will discuss is of hope as an expectation for positive things to come. In the temporal sense, Christianity certainly fails to provide this sort of hope. Christ promised persecution, division, and poverty to his followers. Of course, that’s a radical reading, but so is prosperity gospel teaching. It seems as though the consensus amongst mainstream believers is: “The Christian life is a better life, except for when it is not.” Same for prayers. “God answers prayers, except for when he doesn’t.” In other words, your life here on earth will be more or less the same with or without God. If it is better or worse, it will be based on your personal discipline and adherence to Biblical wisdom. Therefore, Christianity offers no more hope of earthly satisfaction than any other creed that imposes behavioral regulation. Buddhism offers about as much hope of this variety. Probably even more, since it extensively addresses the problem of suffering.
As for eternal hope of this sort, Christianity does not have a monopoly on paradise. Many world religions have promised a blissful afterlife to obedient adherents. Perhaps Christians do have an advantage over atheists, but atheists don’t care. That advantage only exists if heaven is real. Otherwise, Christians are merely delusional. If one values hope over sanity or rationality, I suggest he or she simply invent a contrived belief system that can provide more hope of every variety. Eternal hope is not as relevant as many pretend it to be.
The average Christian, at least in my experience, does not seem to live in an eternally-minded way. Take, for example, the many bright young students here at Houghton preparing for medical school when prolonging life means delaying heaven. Why study environmental science when the Earth will inevitably pass away? Why study the cosmos when souls are so much more important than stars? Should we not all be tirelessly devoting ourselves to making an eternal impact? Why even study extra-biblical material when that is the primary document in which the Master of Creation revealed himself?
As a final note, the purpose of this article is not to list objections to Christianity, though I would happily do that in an alternate forum. Rather, it is to argue that faith is not some sort of mental tool to give life significance. It is an actual set of beliefs about the nature of reality, which should result in one losing oneself rather than continuously seeking to build oneself up. And if you do find that Jesus is merely a tool in your mental or spiritual health toolbox, rather than a historical human being that called you to lose your life to find it, perhaps you should reconsider what you actually believe.
Tyler is a sophomore majoring in math.