Where Are the Voices for Optimism?

Things are getting better all the time! That was the near universal view of the Western world in the 19th century. People were optimistic, and they believed in progress.

Today, there is near universal pessimism in the Western world. Hardly anyone seems excited about the future, and few are filled with wonder as they contemplate what the world will be like 100 years from now.

Compare the science fiction novels of the 19th century to those of today. Many of the novels of the 19th century brim with enthusiasm about future discoveries. Today, the dystopian novel is the most popular. This illustrates the pervasive optimism of the 19th century and the pessimism of today.

So, what happened? Well, two world wars and a decades-long threat of nuclear annihilation have a way of knocking the optimism out of you. World War I sent a shockwave through the Western World from which we certainly have not recovered.

But when we look at the big picture and all that could have gone wrong in the 20th century, you notice two things. We lived to talk about it, and a lot of things are actually going relatively well. True, there are problems in the world, but there are lots of opportunities. Millions have come out of poverty. World travel and communication is better than ever before. Trade is as robust as ever. Even on the religion front, religions are growing and thriving all over the world.

In regards to the Christian faith, the majority of followers of Jesus now live outside of the West because Christianity has grown so much in the southern hemisphere. In spite of the growth of Christianity, there is general skepticism among Christians about the state of the church in the West. In part, this is due to the decline of Christianity in Western Europe. In America, church attendance has been the same for decades, though the influence of Christianity has waned in the non-church going society (see Ed Stetzer on this here).

Evangelical Christians might defend pessimism by pointing to the decline in family and sexual ethics. This decline is true to some degree (I am speaking from an evangelical perspective). However, even here the news is mixed. Today, parents spend more time with their kids. Also, while less people than in past decades say sex before marriage is wrong, more people than in the past say adultery is wrong! (See the statistics on this in the book Upside by sociologist Bradley R.E. Wright). I remember talking to some folks about this, and they would not believe it. They were also fans of the television show Frasier. I pointed out that the characters on the show seemed to have no problem with sex before marriage. However, the characters clearly believed adultery was morally wrong. For example, in episode 17, Frasier tried to save Niles from having an affair with Daphne and seemed horrified that he would do so. I believe this illustrates the general ethos in America.

Another way someone might defending pessimism is to ask, couldn’t something go radically wrong and devastate our society? Yes. There’s no question that this is true, but it also might not. When I was in junior high, I read Larry Burkett’s The Coming Economic Earthquake (yes, I was and am a nerd!). I bought into it. I thought we were facing an imminent economic collapse. Then . . . it didn’t happen. I heard predictions like this again and again as the years went by. They all turned out to be false. The trouble with these sorts of predictions is that they have some, albeit a very small, plausibility, and the effects are so disastrous that they are hard to ignore. The American economy has been on the upswing for a long time. If I had started with the belief that this would continue, I probably would have been better off.

Another argument in favor of pessimism is the many daunting challenges we face today or could face in the near future. But look back at the 20th century. There were incredible challenges, and many things went really wrong. However, people also rose up to meet them. Men and women took leadership to challenge global tyranny and to build the good things that we are experiencing today. We can do the same thing, and our children can too, by the grace of God.

Speaking of our children, they are often the focus of our pessimism and anxiety about the future. We sometimes have almost a paranoia about our children, and, let’s be frank, things can and sometimes do go very wrong. However, most children experiment with the same dumb things we did, learn from it, and move on into adulthood. When it comes to our children, where is there a voice that says, our children will do greater things than we did and past generations did? Who has a vision for our children accomplishing greater things? It’s easy to look at their weaknesses and extrapolate them into the future, but we had enough weaknesses to warrant pessimism. But where are the voices for optimism?

From a Christian standpoint, we not only believe that our children are made in the image of God with tremendous potential for good and for evil. We also believe that God will be present in the future. He has been at work, is at work, and will be at work. This gives Christianity a basic future orientation and a note of cautious optimism. I like how Isaiah expresses it: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” (43:18 19).

Reinhold Niebuhr summarized the Christian perspective in this little phrase: “If hopes are dupes, fears may be liars” (The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness, 176).

I hear a lot of spokespeople for our fears, but where are spokespeople for our hopes? Where are the voices for optimism?