1 Corinthians 13:13 refers of course to the theological virtues, but the hope I want to talk about here is not the theological virtue, but what I might call its shadow on the secular plane. This hope is not the same thing as optimism. Suppose, for example, a man sees a plane crash. Pessimism might keep him from running to the crash site, because it would make him assume the worst; pessimism is the projection of the vice of despair on the secular plane. Optimism might also keep him from running to the crash site, because it would make him assume everybody is OK; optimism is the projection of the vice of presumption on the secular plane. Hope sends a man running to crash site knowing that it might be bad, but hoping it is not so bad as to be beyond all help. Hope is not ignorance nor a refusal to face reality; it is the determination to do one's best even though it may take circumstances beyond our knowledge or control to achieve the desired result.
Hope has sent countless immigrants to America, each wanting a better future for himself and his children. Hope sent settlers to the west, knowing that the farm or ranch would never achieve its full potential in their lifetimes but that with enough time and effort, it might support many generations in the future. Hope sent men in debt or in trouble with the law to the frontier where the sought to escape their past mistakes and re-invent themselves.
Democracy is bound up in hope -- the hope that the best solutions for problems will emerge and be accepted by the majority of the population if free and open debate is allowed, the hope that the majority of citizens will put the common good above their narrow, personal interests, the hope that the divisions of the past do not condemn us to endless conflict against each other.
The USA is so closely tied to the virtue of hope that it is arguably the special vocation of America to exemplify hope; yet today America has given up on hope. We no longer believe in free speech or democracy. We no longer love the prospective children of our prospective children enough to sacrifice for them. Sin increases not because we are more strongly tempted than previous generations, but because we no longer hope to resist sin. We still feel guilty, of course, which is why we are so anxious to slander all our ancestors; it is the only way left to feel we have accomplished something, or at least that no one remains who has the right to disapprove of our choices.
The USA was never held together by a common ethnicity or a common religion; it was only held together by this common vocation. Now that that has been definitively rejected, the USA as we have known it is in its death throes. Oh, the names and titles may be recycled, but they will no longer mean the same things.
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