Hope in Troubled Times: A New Vision for Confronting Global Crises

by Bob Goudzwaard, Mark Vander Vennen, David Van Heemst

We want to have it financial strength, secure homes, clean air and water for our children. With the latest technological advances available, we deserve to have every dilemma resolved. Isn't that the way it's supposed to work? Hope in Troubled Times dares to say "no." Poverty, terrorism, and overtaxed land are planetary problems that make even believers despair. But the authors point to Christ as the source of hope. Our choice is obvious. We work together, learning to live unselfishly, or we watch civilization sink further into the abyss. With a foreword by renowned human rights activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Hope in Troubled Times provides realworld solutions to lifethreatening problems. The authors show that with God's guidance we can knock down the idols that stunt clear thinking.

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2007

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Brilliant, deeply challenging - can't recommend this essential book highly enough.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

The thesis is that we are not who we think we are. He have not done justice and loved mercy. We have done what we've wanted as a nation and built up our military to protect ourselves from the consequences. But there is still hope if we start forgiving third world debts (like the Hebrew year of jubilee) and changing global economic policies to allow these countries to benefit from globalization. That way we can keep our post cold war promise to curb military spending and help our poor. It's more important to do justice and love mercy than be the most powerful nation in the world. One of the myths that that the book explodes is that we give more to world relief than any other country, but when you compare first world countries by percentage of giving we lose our ranking pretty dramatically.

The authors should have interacted with their critics more and cut out some of the jargon.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the end of the Cold War, two competing visions for the new world order emerged, both in the Hegelian tradition of “thesis” and “antithesis.” One view, defined by Francis Fukuyama in the 1992 book “The End of History and the Last Man,” proposed that Western liberal democracy was the ascendant victor of history, and that a new liberal democratic globalism would define the remainder of human existence. The other, represented by Samuel Huntington in the 1996 book “The Clash of Civilizations,” proposed that a new global conflict would be waged on the battlefield of identity, with competing civilizations vying for cultural dominance.

Hindsight has revealed that both analyses were naïve. Against Huntington’s side, the world is increasingly globalized and capitalist. Against Fukuyama, there has never been a period with greater political populism and economic inequality. What is going on? For the authors of “Hope in Troubled Times,” both analyses missed the point by failing to dive deeply enough into the root causes of peace and conflict. For Goudzwaard et al., the source of crisis is ideology and idolatry, not identity.

“Hope in Troubled Times” begins with a summary of global crises, commenting on the ways that most proposed solutions tend to fail. The book is focused on three particularly intense loci of conflict: terrorism, the environment, and poverty. The authors identify three ideological sources behind all of these issues: identity politics, material progress, and guaranteed security.

Remarkably, this book was published in 2007. Every major evidence of modern populism and nationalism—the Brexit vote, the Yellow Vest protests, the elections of Erdogan, Trump, López Obrador, Bolsonaro, Orban, and Duterte—was nearly a decade in the future when “Hope in Troubled Times” was written. It seems that these developments took the liberal democratic left virtually by surprise. However, “Hope in Troubled Times” sounds like the authors visited the future. Moving from a highly relevant and timely discussion of nationalism, the authors investigate the ideological sources of these movements, which they classify as a kind of idolatry.

However, the best thing about “Hope in Troubled Times” is not its accurate diagnosis of problems. It is the fact that it actually prescribes solutions, which offer a cause for hope, healing, and life. Taking an impetus from Keynesian economics, the authors propose that the world is defined by self-reinforcing spirals: either downward spirals of crisis, or upward spirals of hope. Informed by a Christian ethic, the authors propose that heterodox impulses from individuals, organizations, and states—conscious choices to “turn the other cheek” on the stage of international disagreement—can dismantle destructive cycles, introducing new, constructive ones.

“Hope in Troubled Times” is a genuinely hopeful book. It presents a practical, timely narrative of redemption that emphasizes justice, peace, and economic foresight. Today’s world can be confusing and disheartening. But even amid crisis, there is redemptive hope which leads to action.

[Jim Darlack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought provoking and convicting. The only reason I gave it 4/5 instead of 5/5 was that it left me wanting a much more robust discussion of solutions and remedies... Still, I highly recommend as an expose of how ideology intertwines with idolatry and corrupts even the most "noble" of societal goals.

[Karen Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will probably need to read this book again.