The Future of Hope : The Possibility of Hope in the 21st Century

Examines the traditional notion of hope under the new circumstances of the secular world and asks questions of its future and its possibility in human life.

This book offers selected theological, sociological, psychological and philosophical perspectives on hope to stir its possibility in today’s church and secular society. Merkle addresses the experience of hope: the ordinary, everyday human hopes and historical hopes which impact what we hold to be important and give direction to the general meaning of our lives. Engaging with a number of theologians who treat the relationship between humanism and ultimate hope in their depiction of the Christian life, Merkle identifies hope and its counterfeits. She examines the relationship of freedom and hope and the modern shift in a theology of hope that includes the range of desires for emancipation operative in the human family. Merkle discusses a wide number of important issues such as: the relationship between faith and ideology, human anthropology and its role in secular society, and models of conversion in their relationship to hope. She reflects on the significance of the parable of the talents in secular society, as well as scrutinizes the transformation and requirements of synodality as movements of hope in the church.