Hoping Against Hope: Confessions of a Postmodern Pilgrim - Softcover

Caputo, John D

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1451499159 ISBN 13: 9781451499155

Publisher: Augsburg Fortress, 2015

Synopsis

John D. Caputo has a long career as one of the preeminent postmodern philosophers in America. The author of such books as Radical Hermeneutics, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, and The Weakness of God, Caputo now reflects on his spiritual journey from a Catholic altar boy in 1950s Philadelphia to a philosopher after the death of God. Part spiritual autobiography, part homily on what he calls the nihilism of grace, Hoping Against Hope calls believers and nonbelievers alike to participate in the praxis of the kingdom of God, which Caputo says we must pursue without why. Caputo s conversation partners in this volume include Lyotard, Derrida, and Hegel, but also earlier versions of himself: Jackie, a young altar boy, and Brother Paul, a novice in a religious order. Caputo traces his own journey from faith through skepticism to hope after the death of God. In the end, Caputo doesn t want to do away with religion; he wants to redeem religion and to reinvent religion for a postmodern time.

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Review

In Hoping Against Hope, 'God doesn t exist, God insists, and God insists with so much love and grace that the omnipotent Daddy you don't really believe in anyway gives up the ghost. But John Caputo's gripping narrative is told with such adventurous honesty and irresistible humor that you don't need to agree with him you just don't want to stop reading him. --Catherine Keller, author of Cloud of the Impossible

Every page of this book brims with the characteristic humor, heart and wisdom that has made John D. Caputo a patron saint for so many postmodern pilgrims. With a passion and desire reminiscent of Augustine's restless heart, here we are invited into Jack's own confessions, prayers and tears, which leave him -- and us -- hoping against hope for the wondrous beauty harbored in the name of God to come true. By helping us reimagine the very way we conceive of religion (without religion), Jack writes for those of us who live our lives somewhere between belief and doubt, who aren't quite sure what to make of God, who maybe don't even believe in God, yet feel overcome by an unconditional call of love and wonder that will not let us go. Jack doesn t claim to know where such a call comes from, but he does know that our response to it could very well mean -- perhaps -- the difference between life and death, figuratively and otherwise. This is Caputo's best book yet, and a great introduction to his thought. --Phil Snider, senior minister of Brentwood Christian Church, author of Toward at Hopeful Future, and founder of Subverting the Norm

About this edition

• Publisher: Augsburg Fortress
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1451499159
• ISBN 13: 9781451499155
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 226