Building a Culture of Hope

Doug Gragg

Professor of Bibliography and Research; Director of Library and Information Technology Services; Officer of Institutional Effectiveness

September 30, 2011

1 Peter 3:15b

Life can sometimes be hell on earth because of the suffering we cause one another. Social conflicts can feel so intractable that we lose all hope of addressing them effectively and surrender to passive resignation. Building a culture of hope requires recalling the small victories over hell on earth that have occurred when imaginative people have enabled us to think differently about each other and to embrace our differences. Every time we enlarge our circles to include a wider range of difference, we push back the gates of hell on earth a little farther than they were before.   Read the sermon in PDF.