Voices of Hope: Rediscovering and Building Hope for All
Voices of Hope: Rediscovering and Building Hope for All
edited by Jan Jorrit Hasselaar, Mark van Vuuren, Julieta Matos Castano and Erik Borgman
Central European University Press, 2026 Cloth: 978-90-485-7734-7 | eISBN: 978-90-485-7794-1 (ePub) | eISBN: 978-90-485-7793-4 (PDF)
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
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.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
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).Mark van Vuuren is associate professor of positive organizing at the University of Twente, the Netherlands.Julieta Matos Castaño is a research associate at Vrije futures Universiteit Amsterdam and a practitioner in the field of futures thinking and design Netherlands.Erik Borgman is a lay Dominican and professor emeritus of public theology at Tilburg University, the Netherlands.
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