Pictured above is the Reverend Dr. William J. Barber, II. Reverend Barber is Pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church, Disciples of Christ in Goldsboro, North Carolina. He is the architect of the Forward Together Moral Movement that gained national acclaim with its Moral Monday protests at the North Carolina General Assembly in 2013. The cover of his book, Revive Us Again, is pictured below:
Chapter Six of Revive Us Again bears this title: "The Call To Be Positioned As Powerful Prisoners Of Prophetic Hope." According to Barber, that phrase, "prisoners of prophetic hope," originated with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and it struck me, as I read that Chapter 6 excerpt from Barber's book, that "prophetic hope," as he and Dr. King were defining it, is something quite different from the kind of "pious hope" that is, perhaps, the way "hope" most usually appears to many of us.
A "pious hope," to cite to the Cambridge Dictionary, is "something that is unlikely to happen."
In fact, for many of us - and probably for all of us, sometimes - when we start "hoping" for something we are automatically telling ourselves that it's not going to happen. "At least we can hope," we might say!
"Prophetic hope" is a different thing. What I learned from Dr. Barber's discussion is that "prophetic hope" isn't based on the possibility ("don't we hope") that something good might happen. "Prophetic hope" accompanies a determined effort and commitment to "make it so," to cite to a fictional character whose statements to that effect indicate that "anything is possible."
In fact, "prophetic hope," I believe, is nothing other than the kind of "possibility" that I am always celebrating as "my category." That kind of "possibility," that kind of "prophetic hope," is the right kind of hope to have, because that kind of hope is a personal commitment to "try," to do whatever can be done to realize the "hope." Dr. King, and Reverend Barber "organized" and "acted" to realize the "prophetic hopes" to which their lives were (and are) dedicated - and with great and transformative success, too.
Prisoners? Why that word? How willing might we be to chain and bind ourselves to a task that is defined by our greatest and most glorious hopes? Isn't this, in fact, exactly what we are, all of us, called to do?
Let us imprison ourselves to the prophetic hope that this world will survive, that neither Global Warming nor nuclear war will erase from this Earth all the greatest of humanity's possibilities - that we can, and will, defying all our differences, live together, in peace, and in a shared and prosperous community .
A "pious hope?" No. A prophetic call to "Lean In," and to lead our lives dedicated to the achievement of our deepest needs and aspirations.
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