Raise a standard against the walls of Babylon! Set up a blockade; station watchmen; prepare those in ambush…Raise a standard on earth, sound a horn among the nations,  appoint nations against [Babylon], assemble kingdoms against her. —Jeremiah 51:12, 27 Twenty-five hundred years ago the prophet Jeremiah called the world to stand against the rapacious kingdom…

From Covid and climate change to the erosion of democratic norms and the decline of a shared sense of truth (and the list could go on), two things are clear. First, we are living in an age that tests our ability to sustain hope. Second, if despair dominates hope, we will be unable to meet…