A theology of Hope

In all of the current madness swirling about because of my beloved country, I try to remember what it means to be children of the Promise, looking ahead and anticipating a future in which humanity itself is resurrected out of sin and past death. What is at stake is so much more than our political freedoms, our access to the polls, our faltering, our international capital, the assurance that our unsteady steps toward racial and gender equality will not have been for nothing -- even human rights (at least to the extent that "human" means only "American citizen") .

What is at stake in our times -- my time; why am I so often loathe to own it? -- is the opportunity to call down the Kingdom, to love and to hope for Love beyond even our most threatening political reality.

I am reminded today that, yes, the cross was a political tool. It served a political function; it sent a political message. It ensured the rule of an imperial power and protected an empire that paved the way for much that was good in the world, and much that was evil.

But the Cross and the God who bore it was lifted far above the political realm of the day--"ahead" of it, as Moltmann would say. Anticipating a brighter dawn. As a follower of that Cross, am I not called to do the same -- to live lifted and to lift up whoever may need lifting? (I'm looking at you, Boston's homeless. I'm looking at me, too, and seeing how many bars I've placed over my heart in the name of my own safety.)

The cross went up over Jerusalem. Its shadow, however, eclipsed the entire world. That is the Promise we are to bring back into the present. It is not all meant to be realized only in the future.

Relatedly...

"To the Editor:

President Bush's characterization of Amnesty International's criticisms of United States human rights abuses as ''absurd'' is ironic (news article, June 1).

If our reports are so ''absurd,'' why did the administration repeatedly cite our findings about Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war? Why does it welcome our criticisms of Cuba, China and North Korea? And why does it cite our research in its own annual human rights reports? [This is true. Amnesty is one of the few international human rights monitors that immigration officials will respect when attempting to mount an asylum claim based on persecution. The U.S. State Department regularly draws the majority of its country conditions reports from Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, especially in those countries in which it no longer has a diplomatic presence.]

No amount of spin can erase the myriad human rights abuses committed by United States officials in the ''war on terror.'' The United States cannot simultaneously claim that it ''promotes freedom around the world'' while detaining tens of thousands at Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and in Iraq and other locations without charge or trial and allowing those civilian and military officials responsible for orchestrating a systematic policy of torture to escape accountability.

Instead of attacking us, President Bush should insist upon a truly thorough, independent investigation of those who tried to circumvent global prohibitions on torture, and he should open all detention centers to scrutiny by independent human rights groups.

Only then will the world be able to judge whether it is Amnesty International or the president whose perspective deserves to be called ''absurd.''

William F. Schulz
Exec. Dir., Amnesty International
New York, June 1, 2005"