This book begins with the premise that there is a crisis of hope today, especially in the modern/postmodern west. For many, including the baby boomer generation that came to adulthood in the 60s and 70s, optimism about the future has been increasingly challenged by historical realities such as global conflicts, ecological crises, economic distress, and political disillusion. Often the religious response to historical despair is to remove hope from history to an afterlife or from ethical action to aesthetic experience. This books seeks instead to re-imagine hope in history and in life by exploring the narratives of time which shape and determine how human beings understand their lives. Within those narratives, human beings are habituated to think and act in ways that may no longer be fruitful. The book, therefore, proposes new habits that are more life giving and hope producing. It outlines practices meant to cultivate these habits. The book sets up the problem of hope as located in the dominant western narrative of time, which is derived from Jewish and Christian perspectives. In this narrative, God is directing time and history toward the eschaton, which is not only an end, but a culmination and a resolution. The plotline of this narrative of time, which is also the story of redemption, is linear and comedic. In modernity, the linear vector of history was also understood to be progressive. The movement of time and history was toward a better future. "Time for Hope" examines and criticizes this dominant view of time and looks at attempting to revise or correct it. It also explores alternative views of time that attend more to the past, especially a traumatic past that cannot be resolved by any future fulfilment, and to the present moment. Attention is given to views of time that are more cyclical and/or which focus on past/present/future as converging. The most familiar example of such convergence is in ritual or liturgical time that seems to offer an alternative experience that holds promise for learning to tell time differently. The goal of the book is to offer a remedy for hope, not only by proposing alternative narratives, but by suggesting specific practices and habits that will lead to thinking about and living in time differently. The book outlines a theology of hope that is life giving and thus appropriate and adequate for the historical, social, and theological challenges of life today.

This book tackles the core problem of how painful historical memories between diverse religious communities continue to impact, even poison, present day relations. Its operative notion is that of healing of memory, a notion developed by John Paul II. The different papers explore how the painful memories of yesteryear can be healed in the framework of contemporary efforts. In so doing, they seek to address some of the root causes that continue to impact present day relations, but which rarely if ever get addressed in other contexts. Strategies from six different faith traditions are brought together in what is, in some ways, a cross-religious brainstorming session that seeks to identify the kinds of tools that would allow us to improve present day relations. At the end of the conceptual pole of this project is the notion of hope. If memory informs our past, hope sets the horizons for our future. How does the healing of memory open new horizons for the future? And what is the notion of hope in each of our traditions, so that it might be receptive to opening up to a common vision of good for all? Between memory and hope, the project seeks to offer a vision of healing and hope that can serve as a resource in contemporary interfaith relations.

This book seeks to re-imagine hope in history and in life by exploring the narratives of time which shape and determine how human beings understand their lives."Time for Hope" re-imagines hope in today's world. It begins with the premise that there is a crisis of hope, especially in the West. Global conflicts, ecological threats, economic distress, and political disillusion are eroding optimism about the future. Often the religious response to historical despair is to turn away from hope in history and to focus on a better afterlife or to forego ethical action in a search for pleasure and beauty. This book seeks instead to change thinking about hope in history by exploring the narratives of time that shape and determine how human beings understand their lives.The goal of the book is to offer a remedy for the crisis of hope. It not only proposes alternative narratives of time, but also presents specific practices and habits that will lead to thinking and living differently. The book outlines a theology of hope appropriate for the historical, social and theological challenges of life today. It tells a life-giving story.

When a loved one dies, somebody inevitably says the death was God's will. The same claim is made when a person is cured of cancer. In a war, both sides often argue that they are carrying out God's will. Faithful people search for God's will for their lives, especially when they are faced with a decision, such as which job to take or whether to have another child. What is meant by God's will? How does God act? What is the character of the God whose will is expressed in and through our lives? This book answers these questions in relation to a broadly Christian perspective. Based on the traditional premise that everything we assert about God is metaphorical, this wonderfully written book presents a range of ways to imagine the nature of God and of God's power and will: from a personal but distant God who is fully in charge and in control, through more gentle and engaged images of God, and ultimately to a non-personal view of God as the energy for life in the universe. Each perspective offers distinct images for God and for the way in which God's will operates; each is assessed for its strengths and weaknesses. With deep insight and clear, inspiring writing, Keshgegian ultimately offers a way to imagine God and power that redefines the whole idea of God's will.

Though the church has often been complicit in regimes of domination that have perpetrated abuse, persecution, and violence, Keshgegian reminds us that the witness of the church is to remember for transformation. Such remembrance is shaped by the narrative of Jesus life and ministry, death and resurrection--knit together in the promise of incarnation. The church as a community of remembrance honors and preserves memories of suffering, evokes and validates memories of resistance, and actively supports, embodies, and celebrates memories of connection and life affirmation. In particular, Keshgegian draws our attention to those who have suffered childhood sexual abuse, victims of the Armenian genocide and the Jewish Holocaust, and other historically disinherited peoples and groups. With such powerful memories of suffering in mind, she insists that redeeming memories is the purpose and mission of the church. Keshgegian challenges us to understand that the redemptive potential of the memory of Jesus Christ will be made known and realized by the capacity of that memory to hold and carry not only the story of Jesus, but of all those who suffer, struggle, live, and die.

"In Redeeming Memories Keshgegian contributes a unique and well-developed amendment to the growing literature on theologies of memory. Too often, she notes, experiences of suffering and abuse are treated as though they are absolute. Yet these experiences characteristically encompass ambiguity and doubt. In order to 'face the past in new ways, ' survivors must first enter back into their experiences, 'undigested and disconnected, ' without certainty. Transformation occurs when it is not only the suffering that is remembered, but when 'instances of resistance and agency' are incorporated into the 'testimony and witness.' Keshgegian develops her understanding of how remembering is redemptive in two sections. The first considers contemporary movements of communities that have suffered childhood sexual abuse, the Armenian genocide and the Jewish holocaust, and historical marginalization. Keshgegian herself is Armenian, drawing from a wealth of examples from her family's stories in explaining her understanding of the dynamics of remembering. In part two, she turns to a theological reconstruction of memory, where we are called to understand witness as 'withness' that moves beyond solidarity with victims to 'active participation in redemption.' We are charged also to tell the story of Jesus Christ in complex ways that honor the fullness of life as well as the cross. Finally, we are invited to understand worship as a time when 'we remember God and God remembers us'--the church as a place where remembering past suffering walks hand-in-hand with responding to present need. Keshgegian's book is beautifully written and well argued, compelling us to enter into the ambiguous, redemptive work of memory it so well describes."--Cynthia Rigby, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in Religious Studies Review, Volume 29 Number 3, July 2003."