Stephen Colbert may be our most important theologian.
In accepting the Ripple of Hope Award on December 5 from the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center, Colbert invoked the image of Robert Kennedy breaking bread with Cesar Chavez on the day Chavez ended his hunger strike. For Colbert, that was a demonstration of Jesus’ words about whatever you do “to the least of our brothers that you do unto Christ himself.”
In 1966, Robert Kennedy gave a speech at the University of Cape Town at a time when South Africa still smoldered beneath the burden of apartheid. He warned against the danger of futility, “the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills—against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence.”
Few of us will bend the arc of history, Kennedy said, but that should not deter us: “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
In celebration of Kennedy’s legacy and that speech, the Kennedy Human Rights Center confers its Ripple of Hope Award to honor “exemplary leaders across government, business, advocacy, and entertainment who have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to social change and worked to protect and advance equity, justice, and human rights.”
Colbert said he had Kennedy’s words on his desk for over a decade, and he referred to them in times when he felt hopeless. Everyone, he said, has both the opportunity and the obligation “to push back on the temptation to despair.”
Despair, Colbert continued, “is very seductive, like all mortal sins.”
Colbert, of course, is a devout Catholic. “That’s just who I am,” he told Father James Martin earlier this year. “I cannot remove it from me any more than you can remove marble from a statue.”
Although he respects Protestants, he’s drawn to the crucifix. “I really am not looking to the crucifix for the victory. I am looking to the crucifix for the suffering,” he said. “Because that’s when I need the crucifix, is in the suffering.”
I had the privilege of meeting Colbert in the green room prior to and following my appearance on his Colbert Report back in 2009. He wanted to talk about faith and repeatedly referred to his late father’s words, “Follow Peter.”
I’m not prepared to follow Colbert across the Tiber—my appearance as an Episcopal priest was in response to the Vatican’s overture to Episcopalians—but I happily confirm the sincerity of Colbert’s faith. He thinks deeply about theological matters, and not merely his tongue-in-cheek comment approving the placement of “In God We Trust” on our coins and currency, “right where it belongs.”
I’ll add my own sliver of insight to his thoughts about despair.
Some years ago, a colleague asked me to write an essay about hope. It occurred to me that of the three theological virtues in the Christian tradition—faith, hope and love—hope is the most neglected. We talk a lot about love and even about faith, but rarely about hope.
It also occurred to me that hope is the only virtue that is volitional. That is, although we cannot choose love or even faith (especially if you’re a Calvinist), we can choose to be hopeful, even when forced to hope against hope.
In Colbert’s words, we have the duty “to push back on the temptation to despair.”
Colbert, in his acceptance speech, connected his vocation with his warning against despair. “If there’s any value to doing a late-night show,” he said, “it is acting as a nightly counterpoint to the daily diet of fear that we are all fed. Fear is one thing our country still manufactures, but you cannot laugh and be afraid at the same time.”
Especially in these dark days we face as a nation, Colbert offers light, both literal and metaphorical.
“So we do our best to keep it light, in light of the darkness,” he said. “If that sends anyone even a ripple of hope, it is far beyond our ambition. But it is a compliment too great to measure.”
Amen.
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An Episcopal priest, Balmer is John Phillips Professor in Religion at Dartmouth College and the author of more than a dozen books, with commentaries appearing in newspapers across the country. He is a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.
