by Mary Cullen

Werner G Jeanrond, Reasons to Hope, T&T Clark, 2020.

Next year is a Jubilee Year: traditionally a time to re-establish our relationship with God, with one another, and with all of creation. The theme for the 2025 Jubilee, chosen by Pope Francis, is Pilgrims of Hope. Many of us struggle to find hope among the pain and suffering we see on our television screens every evening. Where can it be found? And what does it mean to be a pilgrim of hope?

In Reasons to Hope, theologian Werner Jeanrond brings a lifetime of study and teaching to the question of what it means to hope, how this has been understood at different periods of church history, and how we might understand it today. His thesis is that the theological virtues of love, hope and faith (in that order) are not a set of skills: they are divinely infused in us to guide us to union with God and with one another. Hope is relational by nature: it ‘results from the intimate and dynamic connection between God and human beings’ (p3). Already a reason to hope.

Werner G. Jeanrond taught theology at the Universities of Dublin (Trinity College), Lund, Glasgow, Oxford, and Oslo. He is currently working on Faith and Love, the third and final volume on the theological virtues. He holds a PhD in systematic theology from the University of Chicago and an honorary DD from Regis College in the University of Toronto.

Dr Mary Cullen is editor of Open House.