Time for Hope begins with the premise that there is a crisis of hope today, especially in the west. Optimism about the future has been increasingly challenged by historical realities such as global conflicts, ecological crises, economic distress, and political disllusion. This book seeks instead to re-imagine hope in history and in life by exploring the narratives the narratives of time which shape and determine how human beings understand their lives.
Keshgegian sets up the problem of hope as located in the dominant western narrative of time. She also explores alternative views of time that attend more to the past, and to the present moment. Attention is given to views of time that are more cyclical and/in which past/present/future as converging.
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.