Dare We Speak of Hope? Searching for a Language of Life in Faith and Politics

A South African preacher who is now the Desmond Tutu Chair of Peace, Global Justice and Reconciliation Studies at Butler University, Boesak has written a book-length sermon on hope. It arises from his experiences as an activist in the anti-apartheid movement and from reflections on the leadership of Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama. Hope is not pious sentimentality, he argues, but a conviction that the struggle for justice and human rights is rooted in God’s vision of the kingdom. He explores St. Augustine’s metaphor for hope as a mother with two daughters: anger and courage: “Anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the same.” Some readers may wince, however, at Boesak’s political views of the United States as an imperialistic country bent on world domination and obsessed with manifest destiny. And while Boesak writes mostly admiringly of Mandela, he is profoundly disillusioned with Obama’s presidency and eviscerates The Audacity of Hope, Obama’s memoir, as a political rather than prophetic work. As in much sermonizing, Boesak’s book suffers from a tendency to repeat its major conclusions. (Feb.)