Esau McCaulley: I am a pastor and a public theologian. By vocation, I have a duty to hope. To hope, as a Christian, is never to concede that wickedness must be the end of any person’s — or any nation’s — story. To hope does not imply accepting a false peace that laments divisions without naming the evils done. Instead, hope demands a certain doggedness, a refusal to let go. The same patience that God showed me must, in principle, be available to others.