Note: This is part of a series of short posts, in the lead-up to the election, from leaders reflecting on hope and/or resistance.
By Rev. Nick Peterson
Hope, for me, owes nothing to politics. The extent to which we think hope alongside and within the American political apparatus is discouraging at best and soul-killing at worst. At present, the religious right imagines American politics as the right site to enact a near-theocratic rule of law. Holding fast to an American exceptionalism established by the puritans, the right’s religious imagination appeals to a moral yesteryear that never was. Meanwhile, the left opts for a liberal humanism that, on the one hand, narrates inclusion and acceptance as an American God-given birthright. While on the other, liberals insist that the unceasing acts of anti-black violence are not reflections of who we are. On both sides, hope is a means to America.
Continue reading “Hope as an Intervention upon America’s Antiblackness”