For People with Bishop Rob Wright
For People with Bishop Rob Wright
Anchored
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This is part one of a two-part conversation centered on Bishop Wright’s teachings at Clergy Conference 2026: Anchored for the Future.
Hope often gets treated like a soft word, but we don’t experience it that way when life gets real. Hebrews 6:19 names godly hope as an anchor. That hope is built on a clear conviction: God is alive, so the universe is not random and the story is not finished. That belief doesn’t erase suffering, division, loneliness, violence, or injustice. It changes what we do with them.
In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright have a conversation about the difference between optimism and godly hope. Optimism depends on circumstances and can break under the weight of repeated disappointment. Godly hope has “and yet” strength—a durable energy that holds the tension of hard facts without blinking. What does it mean to be anchored by that kind of hope, especially when the world around us feels uncertain? Listen in for the full conversation.
Read For Faith, the companion devotional.
Ultimate Hope Cold Open
Bishop WrightI'm talking about an ultimate hope. I'm talking about understanding and believing that because there's God, the universe is bent towards justice. And uh, and even though we languish from time to time and suffer, etc., etc., I believe that the end of the story, I hope that the end of the story is that is as the Bible paints it, that we will all be reunited one to the other. Uh, all of the foolishness and harm we've done to one another will burn away.
Welcome And For Faith Context
MelissaWelcome to For People with Bishop Rob Wright. I'm your host, Melissa Rau, and this is a conversation inspired by For Faith, a weekly devotion sent out every Friday. You can find a link to this week's For Faith and a link to subscribe in the episode's description. Good morning, Bishop.
Bishop WrightGood morning.
MelissaSo you have over the next two weeks, you're going to be sharing excerpts from the clergy conference, your 2026 clergy conference for the Diocese of Atlanta. Would you like to read part one, Anchored?
Reading Anchored For The Future
Bishop WrightAbsolutely. So, as you said, the title is Anchored, and uh we're thinking very much about our theme, which is anchored for the future, which comes uh to us from the book of Hebrews, uh, the sixth chapter and 19th verse. We are anchored in hope now and for the future. One of the highest privileges and most urgent tasks of Jesus' church is the proclamation and practice of a godly hope. This hope is our inheritance, identity, intelligence, and impact. Our anchor for today and for the future is God, known to us in the risen Jesus of Nazareth. So, since God is alive, I like to say we have good reason to hope. Our hope is anchored in the eternal reality of God and is the foundation of our refusal to accept or conform to the closed world of imperial reduction. Hope is how we enflesh the transforming reality that God refuses to be nullified. Hope is derivative energy, it's a derivative energy form, and it comes to us as a specific form of worship. Hope comes to us from elsewhere, but it's practiced as a promissory note, a promissory utterance here and now. What is future to us is already known to God, after all. God knows the end from the beginning.
Inheritance Identity Intelligence Explained
MelissaSo, Bishop, uh, hope is no small thing then, right?
Bishop WrightNot at all. Not at all.
MelissaI kind of like the four i's. You've got inheritance, identity, intelligence, and impact. And so why don't you just paint a picture of what is godly hope?
Bishop WrightWell, I mean, I was trying to get to that. So the reason why we have hope uh is because uh somehow we know that uh that the universe is not arbitrary, um uh that uh that there is a God above and below and through and in. And uh and the reality of that God existing creates possibilities uh that are beyond uh spreadsheets and biology uh and uh natural science. Um there are there are possibilities and uh that are laid out in the book of in the books of the Bible, six six books of the Bible, uh, where God, just by nature of being, God has shown up uh and has tilted the universe we believe towards justice and mercy and goodness. And so and so that supplies us um with uh the legitimacy of believing that there's more than than can be comprehended by our small intellects and and more to know than our eyes can tell us. And so, and so we have hope. Now, people will say, critics will say, well, that's irrational and it's not empirical all the ways, and and and and I admit all of that, and yet I am a participant in and a steward of a faith tradition uh that uh is the compilation of at least six to eight thousand years of people living in a relationship with this God, uh, and uh and these possibilities and these uh and these probabilities, as unlikely as they are, yet are our inheritance. So that's a long way to say God's alive, and so we have good reason to hope. Um, yeah.
MelissaWell, okay, so I get inheritance, I even get identity. Yeah, I've just never equated hope with intelligence.
Bishop WrightYeah, so what I mean by that is it's it's our particular way to parse things, and so and so uh a life lived over over time and circumstance with God, uh, I believe uh creates a certain divine intelligence. Um it's based in uh pattern recognition. Um, and so and so uh uh Abraham uh was doing just fine uh by himself, and yet uh with a conversation with God, uh he was invited to move. Uh later on, Jesus, uh Jesus' mother Mary was doing just fine uh on her way to to marriage, uh, and yet the angel Gabriel, we believe, came to her and created a whole new future for her. And on and on and on. Moses was doing just fine. Uh and and and so so the the Bible, if if it's if it's anything, is is 66 books and an infinite amount of stories about how people hoped in God, found God trustworthy, and then experienced a future that they didn't ask for or could imagine, far beyond they could ask or imagine. So, so I I think what I mean by intelligence uh there is this cumulative uh sense of God's patterns and character features as told to us over the millennia. Uh, and uh and what that creates in us is this um permission uh uh to look to the horizon uh beyond the natural world uh and yet in the natural world uh for for God's help, aid, guidance, wisdom, uh, provision, etc.
MelissaOkay, so I you kind of alluded to all of what even is hope. Because I guess there's so many people who say, you know, just don't give up hope, right? Hope floats. How would you just like if you had to explain hope and a godly hope at that? What is the most foundational thing of why hope is even important in the first place?
Bishop WrightWell, hope is and yet. Yes, the news says what it says. Yes, violence is on the rise. Uh, yes, um loneliness uh is an epidemic. Uh yes, uh we're divided. Uh yes, uh there's more wealth in the hands of fewer, and there are more people who are struggling day to day for basic needs. And yet, uh and yet uh uh keeps me from uh totally being uh consumed by despair. Um it's not a fable. Again, it's based on the testimony of those who have gone before. It's something that we have to, it's a calculus that we have to live with, those of us who believe our whole lives. Uh and so hope does not uh squint when it comes to the hard things. Uh hope lives in tension with the with the catastrophe and dislocation and division and violence and grief. Uh and yet it is that it is that durable. I like to say hope is militant. Um it it it just uh it will not break uh under pressure. It's fire retardant is another way to say that. Um and and and and at the at the kernel of it, at the center of it is if there is God, therefore. So so so, yes, all of these things that we could list uh that are negative in the world, and yet there is God. I mean, 400 years of bondage, uh chattel slavery for the Hebrews in Egypt, uh, and how many generations prayed and nothing happened? Um, and it seemed that the heavens uh were not receiving any messages. And and yet there came a day uh when uh you know Moses saw the bush and it was time to act. And so, and so because of this uh historicity, um, because of our hysterical narrative, uh faith narrative, uh now we find ourselves in difficult situations. And and what keeps us, what is the firewall for us from total despair, giving in absolutely to despair, is uh and yet. And that's hope. It's an energy. Uh Walter Brugerman talks about hope being similar to an energy, and that's why I say hope is a derivative energy. Uh, hope exists because God exists. Without God, you know, you only got up optimism, right? And uh and and optimism is much more fragile than hope. Optimism, as I like to say, is is just three consecutive disappointments from despair, right? And hope can take disappointment and still have a militant yeah, but yeah.
Stewarding Hope In Real Life
MelissaSo you also have impact here. Hope is our impact. I yeah, I'm just wondering, how are we to be about hope? What's our role in it, other than hoping?
Bishop WrightDoes that make sense? Yeah, sure it does. So, so if I hope and if there's and yet, and if there's but that is the gift I share uh in the work that I do. Um, you know, I like to say that the the work of faithful people uh is to be good stewards of hope wherever you find yourself. And so and and so we we go places, and and it's again, we're not we're not sort of these these naive, all these negative characteristics uh uh or caricatures rather of hopeful people is that sort of they're they're naive and um you know untested, unsophisticated, those sorts of things. That is actually not what hope is. Uh hope hope can be quiet. Um, hope shows up in a particular way, hope holds a posture uh when all the data points in certain directions. Uh and when there are uh serious difficulties, bone-jarring uh, you know, difficulties, catastrophe, as we see in the prophet Jeremiah, uh, when everything he looked at was falling completely apart. Um, you know, he interrupts himself uh, you know, in his sort of lamentation about all that's going wrong. And uh and he says, yes, but God has a future and a hope for us. Um and so I I think we're just the people who are the stewards of that wherever we find ourselves. And it doesn't mean we don't use the data, and it doesn't mean we're not really clear about uh uh all the ways that the the arrows are moving in the wrong direction, but but somebody has got to be the garrison, I think. And so so hope is a garrison, uh, and hope always makes room. I guess that's what I really want to say is that wherever we find ourselves, we're the stewards of uh that space that I believe needs to be wherever we are for God. Uh and that doesn't have to be loud and obnoxious, and it doesn't have to impose its will on other people, and yet we can hold the space uh for hope, um for uh a possibility, um, yet undiscovered, uh seeming seemingly unlikely. And we can hold that over time. I think that's the other thing we need to say is uh faith and hope uh are not microwave popcorn. You don't push a button in two minutes, you get the results. Um it's militant hope is durable. Uh and so and so hope is elastic because it gets stretched over time and circumstance. And so, you know, we think about um we think about chattel slavery in America, for instance, and how many people hoped for freedom before freedom became a reality. And uh, you know, Gloria Steinem uh has died recently, and uh, and how many generations of women hoped for equality in the workplace, uh and equality of opportunity and equality of wage before, you know, and it still is not a complete reality. Uh, and yet it's it's it's a it's a dogged determination uh coupled with the buoyancy that hope provides um that keep people moving when situations seem absolutely ludicrous, frankly, and unlikely.
Godly Hope Versus Everyday Hope
MelissaSo, Bishop, can you kind of unpack the difference then between anchoring in God's hope, like a divine hope versus uh a hope in, say, a political figure?
Bishop WrightYeah, I mean, again, uh hope, again, this is why I make the point of hope a godly hope is a hope in God, right? And and so that's the difference. I mean, yeah, are there other genres of hope out there? Absolutely. Absolutely. I hope the Pittsburgh Steelers win the Super Bowl this year, right? I mean, you know, that's got that's got absolutely nothing with God. And I I might pray to God that God make my hope a reality. Go birds, exactly. Uh yeah, see, there we are. Now we've immediately run into the uh division division. Yeah, and so I have that genre of hope also, you know. I uh, you know, uh my sports team uh or or or or any some such, right? Uh, you know, we're we're looking at the uh we're looking at the in the in America, we're looking at the November elections coming up, and I and I have some hopes about that. Um, is that grounded in God? You know, probably not. It's probably got grounded in uh in my preferences, like everybody else has preferences. So we have competing hopes. We find ourselves with competing hopes sometimes. Um, no, I'm talking about an ultimate hope. I'm talking about understanding and believing that because there's God, that the universe is going to be the universe is bent towards justice. And uh, and even though we languish from time to time and suffer and et cetera, et cetera, I believe that the end of the story, I hope that the end of the story is that is as the Bible paints it, that we will all be reunited one to the other. Uh all of the foolishness and harm we've done to one another will burn away and we'll be reconciled into one true reality, that we are all we are all of the same thing and all from the same loving God. So I think that's the distinction I would make. And so, you know, there's a lot of hope that is just uh it's good stuff and it's it's uh day-to-day stuff, but I'm talking about an ultimate hope, and I'm talking about ultimate meaning and ultimate purpose uh for those who believe.
Closing Thanks And Subscribe
MelissaI love it, and I'm looking forward to part two. Bishop, thank you so much. And listeners, thank you for listening to four people. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Bishop Rob Wright or by visiting www.forpeople.digital. Please subscribe, leave a review, and we'll be back with you next week.