Hope in the Midst of Destruction

As Professor Smith already pointed out in class, the article, "A Different Kind of Courage," by Charles Taylor (a book review of Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation by Jonathon Lear), describes the Crow people as going through a situation very similar to that of the Israelites during the sack of Jerusalem. In fact, I believe that the two situations are nearly identical with respect to religious hope, the only difference being that the Israelites have progressed to an even more desperate state than the Crow.

Just as Lear's book describes the Crow as completely losing their culture because the conquering Americans took away the basis of all their values (the coup). Everything the people used to celebrate had to do with increasing or defending their hunting territory, and in a reservation, territory was no longer an issue at all. Then, everything else became completely meaningless because their whole culture had revolved around it. In the same way, the Israelites' way of life totally disappeared after the Babylonians took over their city. Their society centered around their religion--their beliefs, their leaders, and their behavior (i.e. social and dining etiquitte). With the Babylonians' sack of Jerusalem, huge numbers of Isrealites were killed, and those who remained had no temple-related structure left to which to cling. They were so desperate just to survive that they resorted to all kinds of behaviors specifically prohibited in their books of law--even murder (of close family)!

Yet, remarkably, neither the Crow nor the Israelites (at the very least the writer of Lamentations), gave up hope completely. They had what Lear called "Radical Hope," because they hoped for something they couldn't understand, believed in something to come that was still fully unknown. For the Crow, it was Plenty Coups' dream that they would be able to transform their culture into something that would survive among the white men. For the Israelites, it was Jeremiah's conviction that God is faithful and would not abandon them forever (Lam. 3:23, 31). The difference between these two hopes is that Plenty Coups' hope relied upon the Crow themselves to bring it to completion. In order for them to survive as a people, they needed to make the effort to understand the white culture and adapt themselves. The Israelites, on the other hand, cried out repeatedly for God's mercy--for Him to do the work in saving them from their enemies.

I believe that the two responses differ in this respect because while the Crow still had their health and the ability to learn about the conquering culture, the Israelites had been completely demolished. Everything they stood for was gone, and even their food was almost gone. I'm not an expert on war tactics, so I don't know if it would've even been slightly possible that such a decimated group of people could have overcome such an opposition, but I do know that it's very, very unlikely. Therefore, the only hope that they could possibly have left was to rely on God's grace alone. And this decision was made even more natural by the fact that they believed that God's wrath had been the cause of their destruction in the first place, so if God started it, God could end it.