A Prophet is coming.

Our obsession with morality is a symptom of a deeper longing

Everyone is obsessed with morality, especially online and in politics. Every day there’s a new outrage, a new purity test, a new public trial. It feels like everyone is waiting for something: waiting for collapse, waiting for revelation, waiting for someone to rise.

I wanted to understand this obsession. And the more I investigated it, the more I realized it isn’t new. Across civilizations and centuries, humanity has carried the same story: when the world falls into darkness and evil, someone will come to save us.

In Judaism, there is the promise of the Messiah. In Christianity, the return of Christ. In Islam, the Mahdi. In Hinduism, the future arrival of Kalki. In Buddhism, the coming of Maitreya. The pattern is clear: when evil reaches its breaking point, a divinely appointed figure will descend and restore balance. The hope is ancient and powerful. Mainly because we desperately need it.

Sociologists and historians have observed that messianic expectations intensify during times of instability such as war, occupation, famine, and fast-paced cultural change. In first-century Roman-occupied Judea, apocalyptic and messianic movements rose. During colonial rule across different regions, prophetic movements emerged promising liberation. Even in modern secular societies, the archetype survives; it just changes shape.

Today, our “prophets” are politicians, celebrities, activists, billionaires, influencers. We elevate them. We project onto them moral clarity. We expect them to speak perfectly, lead flawlessly, and embody the justice we long for. And when they don’t, we feel betrayed. The structure of the belief hasn’t changed. The evil we see feels larger than us, so the solution must also be larger than us. We assume that only someone extraordinary, divinely chosen, morally pure, and historically significant can confront what feels overwhelming.

But what if this expectation is part of the stagnation? After October 7th, I remember feeling shocked by the silence of people I admired. Artists and public figures I believed would speak up, and people I assumed shared my moral instincts, said nothing about the genocide. I felt betrayed. Looking back, I feel kind of stupid. I had placed them on a pedestal they never asked for. I was the one who decided they belonged there.

As my own platform grew, I began to feel the reverse. If I spoke about one injustice, there was pressure to speak about all of them. I was expected to have the correct analysis of every geopolitical and social conflict. And if my stance wasn’t perfectly aligned with others, my integrity was questioned. Moral omniscience became the expectation. It’s impossible. And that’s when I understood: we are not just looking for commentary. We are looking for a savior.

We long for someone who is not contradictory. Not limited. Not overwhelmed. Someone who can carry the moral weight of the world without breaking. But history does not give us such people. It gives us human beings. Moses, in the biblical narrative, leads the Israelites out of Egypt and is also remembered for moments of anger and frustration. Jesus challenged religious and political authorities, disrupted social norms, and was executed by the Roman state. Muhammad preached monotheism and moral reform, endured persecution and exile, and later governed a community that engaged in the political and military conflicts of its time. Gautama Buddha was born into privilege and renounced it in pursuit of enlightenment.

Even renowned figures are far from perfect. Gandhi is revered for nonviolent resistance, yet his personal life and views remain debated. Martin Luther King Jr. is now sanctified in public memory, though he was deeply unpopular at the time of his death. Abraham Lincoln preserved the Union while holding views on race that reflected the limits of his era. Einstein reshaped physics and held complicated political beliefs. Frida Kahlo produced transcendent art while living a life marked by pain and contradiction.

These figures were not flawless. They were not simple. They were shaped by their contexts, constrained by their time, and capable of both moral courage and human limitation. Perhaps we are all hypocrites, but we are all human, and that history is carried forward not by perfection, but by imperfect people who act anyway. The pattern is consistent: those who shape history are rarely perfect, rarely universally loved, and rarely superhuman. And yet we continue searching for someone perfect.

Maybe believing in a coming prophet relieves us of responsibility. If someone else is destined to fix this, we can hold off on taking action. If someone else is chosen, we remain observers. But what if the “chosen one” is not a single individual, but a role every generation must step into? Not with supernatural powers. Not with perfection. But with agency.

What actually stops us from confronting evil and injustice? We may not control governments or command armies, but we influence conversations, families, communities, and institutions. Moral action is rarely dramatic. It is incremental. It is sustained. It is often invisible.

The idea that evil is “greater than us” can feel psychologically comforting, but it also justifies inaction. History shows that change has always been driven by ordinary people acting persistently, imperfectly, and often without certainty. If we saw ourselves as the ones we’re waiting for, something inside us would shift.

We would stop demanding moral perfection from public figures because we would understand how impossible that standard is. We would stop collapsing into negativity every time a leader reveals their humanity. We would extend more grace, not because standards don’t matter, but because we understand the weight of them.

We could begin acting without waiting for permission. The prophets of history were not superhuman. They were human beings responding to the conditions of their time. The question is not whether THE ONE is coming. The question is whether we are still waiting. Perhaps YOU are THE ONE you’ve been waiting for.