Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety

Richard Rohr once again gave me a loving punch in the gut and slap in the face with this one!

This book has been used by a morning study group with great success. Father Rohr provides excellent discussion themes and realistic (new) ways to obtain win-win results. St. Francis is a needed role model in today's time of fear and retribution. I highly recommend this book to anyone -- red or blue. In fact, it should be required reading!

This book blew my hair back as I was reading it. It turned my parochial understanding of Christianity on it's head and soothed the cynicism I held in my heart toward Christianity. If you're already a member of the choir, familiar with Rohr and more modern and adult theology, there's nothing I can say to you.If, however, you're out of the loop like I was this book will change the terrain for you.There is a lot of language that seemed rather technical or in the vein of Catholic jargon. However, the notions he introduces of what true faith is, the question of being in or out of the system, the system of the church, seeing the universe as sacred, the great chain of being.These are rich, ancient and vital topics exposed in a new, refreshing and adult way. Rohr gives us permission, implores us, actually, to put away our crayons and step into an adult understanding of and responsibility for our faith.I think this book has changed the course of my life.

"One must live in a state of permanent dissatisfaction with the Church." Wow! (a quote Rohr uses in the book by Italian Monsignor, Richard Guardini, early 20th century) "And one cannot separate Christ from His cross. And one cannot separate Christ from His bloody painful Church." Rohr teaches (to me at least) that we should live Christlike behavior instead of our pompous duality, always joining hands to be against some other "thing/persons/religion/denominations/etc. He set fire to my weakened human condition that I seem to whine about all time to myself. We must suffer to get to the light at the end of the tunnel, but we "must" go through the darkness of the tunnel to get to the light. I loved the book.

It amazes me that a person who writes as much as Father Rohr can be as fresh and insightful as he is in each new book. Hope Against Darkness is nothing short of brilliant. As I understand him, Rohr argues that the spiritual searcher of today is caught between the modern and the post-modern worldviews. Both are no longer acceptable, but both contain strengths we ought to retain as best we can. The anxiety that arises from this ambiguous state of homelessness is the dis-ease he treats in this book, and his remedy is a richly creative appeal to Franciscan spirituality. Simply wonderful! A book to read, re-read, and give to others.