Overview

Where can we find hope when the world seems so hopeless? Ours is not the first generation to pose this question. Across different eras and cultural contexts, people have sought ways out of despair. This volume assembles voices of hope drawn from multiple generations, faith traditions, scholarly disciplines, and regions of the world. These voices range from Thomas Aquinas and Pope Leo XIV to Jane Goodall and Imtiaz Sooliman, and from Desmond Tutu and Jonathan Sacks to Amanda Gorman and Yahya Mahmmoud. Together, they remind us that hope is not the same as optimism. It is neither an emotion nor a feeling. Hope is a personal and public practice, a way of living in tension, oriented toward what is not yet. It is something we practice because it is good in itself. This book is an invitation to join this conversation and explore whether and how it is still possible to be surprised by hope in our own time and our own contexts.

Full Product Details

Author:   Jan Jorrit Hasselaar ,  Mark van Vuuren ,  Julieta Matos Castano ,  Erik Borgman
Publisher:   Pallas Publications
Imprint:   Pallas Publications
ISBN:  

9789048577347

ISBN 10:   9048577349
Pages:   224
Publication Date:   11 May 2026
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

Table of Contents

Introduction Thomas Aquinas: Hope means participation in God’s love Frederick Douglass: Hope in finding one’s voice and the freedom of becoming Reinhold Niebuhr: Saved by hope Viktor Frankl: Hoping as a response to the circumstances of life Paul Ricoeur: Hopeful language? Etty Hillesum: Hope as inner resistance Nelson Mandela: Hope that changed the course of a nation Jürgen Moltmann: Suffering hope? Johann Bapt ist Metz: Hope from remembrance of suffering Martin Luther King Jr.: The infinite complexity of hope Desmond Tutu: Hope, suffering, and witness Frits Goldschmeding: Hope as a basis for finding a new economic direction Jane Goodall: Hope rooted in nature and relationship Pope Francis: Hope does not disappoint Václav Havel: The certainty that something makes sense Audre Geraldine Lorde: Hope is where the sun meets the earth Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew: The hope of transforming the world John D. Caputo: Hoping against hope Charles Snyder: Hope as a positive motivational state Allan Boesak: Hope and the language of life in faith and politics Martha Nussbaum: Hope against fear and passivity Jonathan Sacks: A life in service of hope Russel Botman: Hope as embodied public practice Pope Leo XIV: United in the oneness of Christ Thabo Makgoba: Hope as a liberation process Imtiaz Sooliman: Hope in the face of disaster Christian Wiman: Hope as loyalty to one’s deepest yearnings Geordin Hill-Lewis: Cape Town – a city of hope for all Malala Yousafzai: Hope in education for all Amanda Gorman: Believing beyond disaster Yahya Mahmmoud: Hope is in creating hopeful memories Autumn Peltier: Hope carried through water Can we be surprised by hope once more? List of contributors and editors

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Author Information

Dr. Jan Jorrit Hasselaar, theologian and economist, is Director of the Amsterdam Centre for Religion and Sustainable Development, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is research fellow of the University of the Western Cape (South Africa). Hasselaar chaired the working group ‘Sustainable Development’ of the Council of Churches in the Netherlands (2011-2018).

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