While religious minorities go back and forth between being scapegoats and props, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu has demonstrated that municipalities can play a key role in making their religious minority residents feel welcome as equal citizens and valued stakeholders.

Despite the gloomy outlook, there are several reasons for hope this Advent season. This is not nearly the darkest period in American or global history, and there are good reasons to believe that the US still possesses all the tools needed to revitalize the country and stabilize the international system. The question is whether we will use them effectively.

Hope is, fundamentally, the conviction that things can be different, that what is badly wrong with the world is not ultimately irreparable. Like the Christian calendar, which mirrors the rhythms of the year even as it points to something beyond, hope directs our vision to a better world just beyond the horizon.

Joseph and Mary’s expectations were rooted in submission to God’s plan: that was their basis for hope. We, too, can have hope in God, trusting that he will care for us and lead our families.

That Jesus Christ’s two advents are set against the backdrop of a region rarely associated with good news is ironic, but this year that irony is less obvious. Good things are happening in the Near East if you know where to look.

During this season of Advent, the patriotic American citizen can find much for which to be hopeful. For the American Christian, we are reminded of our ultimate reason for hope.

This is a message of Christmas hope—that the consolation of history is found in the Spirit of God, available to all who trust in the name of Jesus Christ as Lord.

Here is the bad news for Beijing, and the good news for the West. Despite genuine concerns over how an increasingly multipolar world will erode the human rights consensus, the agenda still remains a major obstacle to ideological competitors—both at home and abroad.

Considering our blessed lives as a people, in spite of all, we cannot give up on hope. Jefferson spoke for each one of us: “I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear far astern.”