This chapter explores how a Christian theology keyed to doctrines of creation, sin, and redemption interacts with the vision of life as a planetary phenomenon developed by David Grinspoon’s book Earth in Human Hands. It comments on distinctive human capacities and our limited abilities to anticipate or control relevant outcomes, chronic corruptions that keep us from choosing Earth clearly or consistently, and how hopes for renewal and redemption compare with Grinspoon’s idea of a “Sapiezoic Eon” when we shall manage the planet for good.

This chapter discusses how MacDonald’s view of childhood played a significant part in making his view of life and death. MacDonald often writes in his works and in letters to his family that we do not lament the death of anyone whom we love, because death is an entrance to ‘more life’. This view can be attributed to MacDonald’s deep devotion to his Christian faith and his affinity for the German Romantics, but the process of his arriving at this firm belief could also be related to the intimate relationship with his family that he developed in childhood. Drawing from this biographical context, the chapter details two views of children in his works: children whose purity brings them inherently closer to God and children whose innocence manifests as stubbornness and ignorance, but who can mature with the help of others. It particularly considers Ranald Bannerman’s Boyhood (1871) and The Princess and Curdie (1883) to show how remembering childhood or inventing happy memories of childhood through storytelling helps the protagonists endure hard times and heal from spiritual disease.

This introduction outlines the focus and scope of the study, explaining its motivation, remit, and overall aim. It offers brief thoughts on relevant interpretive issues, explains the structure of the book, and provides brief summaries of each of the subsequent chapters.

Discussion on the rationale and potential for religion and being religious today. Naming Luther as a viable conversation partner with his theology of grace and hope, and particularly his freedom perspectives.

In contrast to liberal democracy, which translates constituent power into processes and institutions of representation and government, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri place a premium on constituent power: inspired by social movements, such as Occupy Wall Street, they argue that the constituent power of a multitude should not be translated into the constituted powers of a state. Doing so would deprive the multitude of its revolutionary and radically democratic potential. Pure constituent power seeks to repeat in perpetuity the exception of the revolutionary founding moment of democracy. That Hardt and Negri rely on increasingly theological models in their account of constituent power and revolution highlights the antidemocratic tendency of their conception of “constituent governance.” A political theology that seeks to make the exception permanent is not compatible with democracy. The enactment of pure constituent power in the democracy of the common inevitably leads to what Carl Schmitt described as “sovereign dictatorship.” Hardt’s and Negri’s “constituent governance” is an arbitrary form of governance without any checks and balances.

This concluding chapter acknowledges the difficult topic the authors have sought to address: race. Done right, it is a tough conversation and not something normally reserved for polite dinner conversation. Providing an overview of critical race theory, the six key tenets that were detailed in the book and their application to social work, the authors review the key tenets and sections of the book. America is the country it is today because it profited from chattel slavery, physical and cultural genocide as reflected in the contemporary Make America Great Again movement. Despite over four centuries of three steps forward and two backward, the authors reflect on the overall purpose of this text: the praxis of hope. Hope is discussed conceptually with a call for readers to serve as examples of a world that can move us beyond our current condition.

This chapter troubles and redraws the hegemonic geography of a binary world that answers to Global North and Global South. It does so in order to track what is termed a “deep-time history Anthropocene of the Global South,” which is not necessarily contingent upon sameness of regional geography and nationality but predicated upon comparable and entangled experiences of the Anthropocene memory. It deemphasizes statehood by being attentive to the entanglement of human and planetary histories and identities along a spatiotemporal axis. Using the conceptual lens of “narrative archaeology,” the chapter rejects the late eighteenth century historical model of the Anthropocene, contending that for the Global South, it is much longer, going back to a spatiotemporal stretch of slavery and genocide in Africa and the Americas, besides the legacies of colonialism. While the chapter is basically a theoretical exploration, it complements the formulation with the analysis of texts across a range of geographies in the Global South. It concludes that there is nevertheless an enduring agency for resistance and hope through which identities of the Global South continue to withstand the negativities of the Anthropocene.

This chapter explores the significance of adopting a posthuman approach to placemaking as a strategy for cultivating hope and resilience amidst rapid global change. Drawing on posthuman theory, the author argues for moving beyond human-centric perspectives to embrace interconnectedness with other species, technology, and the environment. To strengthen a ‘psychology of place’, the author recommends recognising our kinship and deep psychological bonds with non-human entities and environments, embracing Indigenous knowledge systems, and fostering ethical relationships with technology. Practical strategies include designing places that encourage multispecies interactions, promoting local biodiversity, and integrating cultural rituals and ceremonies that reinforce communal and ecological bonds. Furthermore, fostering collective dialogues across communities to repair human and ecological relationships is emphasised. Ultimately, the chapter calls for a transformative approach to placemaking that prioritises ecological and relational repair, recognising shared vulnerabilities, and actively cultivating inclusive environments where diverse forms of life collectively can thrive.

This chapter follows Tocqueville in arguing that civic culture must support formal learning in schools and colleges, by providing a social spirit of reflective patriotism. A particular challenge given America’s civic fracture of angry polarization, but also widespread apathy, is to motivate citizens to care about America, citizenship education, and a discursive patriotism; thus, civics now should emphasize stories of American hope and achievement, forging an e pluribus unum out of our pluralism. It then develops the sections: (a) E Pluribus Unum and Civic Hope: Jazz, Constitutionalism, Religious Liberty – with subsections on (i) American Story and Song, Especially Jazz – featuring the Ray Charles version of American the Beautiful, Justice O’Connor and Wynton Marsalis in conversation, and jazz pioneers such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman, (ii) The Declaration and Constitution as Achievements of Harmony, and (iii) Religious Liberty and Pluralism as American Harmony, featuring George Washington, Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The final section reflects on the future of white supremacy, challenging the notion that it is an intractable, unchangeable force. While acknowledging its stubborn persistence over three centuries, the final reflection argues that describing racism as “timeless” or “complicated” often serves to justify inaction. It points to recent global protests following George Floyd’s murder as evidence of growing solidarity across different justice movements. These intersecting struggles against various forms of oppression – from police violence to denial of indigenous land rights – suggest increasing recognition of how different systems of power reinforce each other. The conclusion emphasizes that major social systems have fallen before, and encourages readers to imagine a future beyond white supremacy without limiting themselves to short-term or small-scale thinking.