Changing the Narrative

DURING THE Easter season Christians commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, after the devastation of Good Friday, when Christ was crucified. From darkness to light, from pain to healing, from despair to hope, from defeat to victory, from death to life. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the foundation for our hope as Christians, even—and especially—when it’s hardest to have any hope, like at a time such as this.

I often quote Hebrews 11:1, which says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” especially around Easter. I often paraphrase the text as, “Hope means believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change.”

It’s appropriate that, as Christians, we believe in a radical hope, a hope that often comes “in spite of the evidence.” Easter Sunday, which we just celebrated, is the perpetual reminder of the hope that comes when things seem most hopeless. We Christians say we are a resurrection people, and Easter Sunday both reminds us and dares us to prove it—that we are a people who can live our lives in hope, despite the evidence.

In Parkland, Fla., students who survived the horrific mass shooting on Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have decided that in the absence of leadership from older generations and elected officials in stopping the gun and mass shooting epidemic, they are simply unwilling to let their classmates’ deaths be in vain.

After the horrible massacre at Sandy Hook in 2012 yielded no meaningful federal gun reforms, many felt that the gun debate was effectively over, and that the NRA had won. These brave Florida students have decided in the face of unimaginable personal trauma that “there’s nothing we can do” is a lie and an unacceptable outcome.

They’ve launched a new movement of high school students who will soon be voters, organized major protests in Florida, Washington, D.C., and around the country, and given much needed hope to gun safety advocates that the NRA will not have the last word. They are changing the narrative, which is what will finally change policies.

ANOTHER ISSUE that has seemed hopeless much of the time, including demoralizing setbacks in 2018, is the debate over our country’s broken immigration system. Despite the defeat of legislation that would have protected DACA recipients and other Dreamers and offered them a path to citizenship, these brave young people, who are Americans in every sense except their documentation, are continuing the fight to stay in the only country they have known and protect their families as well.

The way the Dreamers have told their stories and come out of the shadows since the Obama administration’s establishment of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) in 2012 has led to overwhelming public support for them staying in the United States—as many as 80 to 90 percent of the American people support that. President Trump’s deadline for ending DACA came and went in March, and the ongoing legal battles leave the status of the program—and therefore the ability of Dreamers to remain in this country with their families—in limbo.

And yet the Dreamers have refused to return to the shadows and have also refused to be used as bargaining chips as this administration seeks to fundamentally restructure legal immigration in this country in ways that will keep families apart. Their courage has, again, changed the narrative, which will ultimately change policies.

The degree to which our society still operates as a patriarchy, and the reach of misogyny, toxic masculinity, sexual harassment, and sexual assault in our culture, can make it hard to have hope that these structural forces will be overcome anytime soon. And yet the #MeToo movement continues to force a reckoning for sexual predators, as powerful men in public life continue to be exposed and disgraced.

I have especially found hope in the Time’s Up campaign, in which women in the entertainment industry—inspired by the stories and experiences of farm workers and others—have launched a legal defense fund for survivors in any industry experiencing sexual harassment or assault in the workplace who want to tell their stories and expose their attackers.

It is striking that it is precisely on these issues that seem so big and hopeless—and occurring in the context of an administration and a party that have proven explicitly hostile to addressing these systemic problems—we’ve nevertheless seen these signs of hope.

These examples remind us that the resurrection hope we have in Jesus Christ flies in the face of the evidence of this world, and yet we believe in spite of the evidence. Thanks to the courageous actions of the people most affected, we may finally be seeing some of that evidence change.