WHERE can we find hope in a world in which political, economic, and ecological crises now over-shadow the optimism of the period after the Second World War? It may not be surprising that, as Trump occupies the White House for a second time, many North Americans are looking at their values and how they affect the rest of the world. Hot on the heels of Jesse Zink’s Faithful, Creative, Hopeful: Christians in a crisis-shaped world (Books, 21 February) comes this from Norman Wirzba, sub-titled Hope in a time of crisis.
His central thesis is that hope can be released when people, working together, find the commitment and often the necessary courage to overcome old prejudices and barriers and to challenge what is now taken for granted or assumed to be unchangeable. He writes movingly of communities in which this has happened. On the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, it was saving refugees on a sinking ship, while watching many of their family members drown, that caused the Italian group to see such immigrants in a totally different way.
The same happened in a Canadian town when building new relationships with indigenous people whose land had been appropriated by past generations. Elsewhere, an adventure in holistic agriculture opened up a fresh understanding of the natural world and a new relationship to the earth itself.
He has a particular admiration for what Desmond Tutu achieved in South Africa, showing that, while past injustice should never be swept aside, there is an alternative to revenge. Truth-telling and forgiveness, however hard they may be, can lead to genuine reconciliation and a new way forward.
As much as I loved this book, and hope and pray that the many examples that he gives can be encouragers and levers of change, I am left with some nagging doubts. He wants a new relationship with nature, he applauds architects who build for people rather than prestige, but, in addition to what can be achieved in rural areas and small-town America, his book could do with some more examples from the teeming urban areas where most of the world’s people now live.
He is not an idealist: he recognises the extent and strength of what stands in the way of what he seeks; but does his emphasis on personal and communal initiatives give enough attention to the structures of power? He rightly observes that capitalism has betrayed Adam Smith, and laments how Silicon Valley epitomises technology serving individual wealth rather than any love of humanity. His final chapter on a hopeful economics begins to address this, welcoming the growth of co-operatives, but fighting finance capitalism will require much more than that.
Finally, is such human effort sufficient? To put it bluntly, where is God in all of this? He quotes Deuteronomic law, advocates the Pauline image of the body, and embraces an understanding of our interrelationship with the rest of Creation which is very Franciscan, but in no clear theistic framework. We must nurture this sacred gift, he says, but with no indication of the Giver.
Do we not need more than the combined, even sacrificial, commitment of right-minded people to change a world in which, as in his own country, power now rests firmly in the hands of the likes of Donald Trump and Elon Musk?
The Rt Revd Michael Doe is an honorary assistant bishop in the diocese of Southwark.
Love’s Braided Dance: Hope in a time of crisis
Norman Wirzba
Yale £20
(978-0-300-27265-9)
Church Times Bookshop £18
