Book Reviewed: Ream, Todd C., Jerry Pattengale, and Christopher J. Devers, eds. Habits of Hope: Educational Practices for a Weary World (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2024) (Amazon Associates Link)
Journal of Christian Teaching Practice, Volume 12, 2025 (January – December)
Reviewed By: Donna M. Elkins, PhD
Reviewer Affiliation: Campbellsville University
Total Pages: 148
ISBN-13: 978-1-5140-1069-3
This edited volume is a rare attempt to apply the practice of hope to the current culture and activities in higher education. In the foreword, Amos Yong of Fuller Theological Seminary writes that the book “recognizes the perils of our age but refuses to dwell on such due especially to the Christian hope that fuels our lives” (xi). Editors Todd C. Ream, Jerry Pattengale, and Christopher J. Devers state in the introduction that the hope we feel dictates how we live and should lead us to engage in work. “This book extends that theological logic concerning hope to the work humans called to the academic vocation do” (2). The book’s threefold purpose is to (a) emphasize that a focus on the world to come is the proper context in which to cultivate hope; (b) establish how critical hope is to the Christian academic vocational call; and (c) detail practices that can grow hope for all Christians who serve in or around an educational role.
Opening chapters provide some background for considering hope and how it applies in the daily work of education. The first chapter provides a theological understanding of hope and links that hope through Christian humanism to education. The second chapter provides a general promotion of the integration of faith and learning, especially as modeled in the collaboration of scholars, administrators, donors and students at Wheaton College. The remaining chapters focus more specifically on educational practices including conversation, diversity, reading, writing, and teaching. A concluding chapter presents the story of Jesus walking with two disciples on the road to Emmaus after His resurrection as an exemplar of diversity and conversation that points to the difference between just serving in a role and engaging with others in a spirit of hospitality with habits of hope.
The audience for the book is not only Christian academics, but also administrators, board members, denominational officials, and practical theologians. Authors in the book are faculty and administrators at a range of higher education institutions, including Indiana Wesleyan University, Nashotah House Theological Seminary, Westmont College, Johns Hopkins University, University of Notre Dame, Wheaton College, Calvin University, Pepperdine University, and Fuller Theological Seminary, as well as Trinity Forum, a place for conversations about life’s greatest issues in the context of faith.
The first chapter, titled “The Cross Our Hope” and written by Kevin G. Grove of the University of Notre Dame, begins by contrasting the hopes of an academic career that impacts the present world with the ultimate Christian hope of eternal life. Quoting Moreau, Grove contends that education is an act of resurrection and a communal undertaking. He advocates for the unique modality of using education to teach Christian hope and invite students into the larger mission. To illustrate, he shares the invitational statement he includes at the top of his syllabus to bring students into the understanding that the classroom is a place of community and not merely a place of transaction. Phillip Graham Ryken of Wheaton College expands on this topic in the second chapter with an emphasis on the integration of faith and learning. He views faith-learning integration not just as making minor changes around the structure of a class, but as teaching students to “think Christianly about everything” (34) as well as “love Christianly and live Christianly” (35). He refutes the belief that the liberal arts “belong to the earthly order of nature…not to the heavenly order of grace” (35) by arguing that human learning is a manifestation of God’s common grace. To illustrate, he shares details about Wheaton College’s faith and learning seminars. Higher education is always an expression of hope, Ryken concludes, because it places hope in students that learning will make a difference for them and for others, adding to their ability to lead meaningful lives.
Following these two foundational chapters, the book shifts to focus on specific practices that convey hope in education. Cherie Harder, president of the Trinity Forum, writes about conversation as formation, a practice that “not only transmits information and cultivates learning, but also forms one’s imagination, intellect, and relationships, and, thus, one’s character” (52). She also provides some brief tips on practices such as listening, giving time, asking questions, and reading widely as ways to foster meaningful conversations. In Chapter Four entitled “Inclusive Excellence,” Kimberly Battle-Walters Denu of Westmont College argues that higher education has an obligation to prepare students for a pluralistic and diverse society, addressing nationalism, white supremacy, and Critical Race Theory as conflicts the public will have to confront in the future.
In Chapter Five, Hans Boersma, Anglican Priest and current professor at Nashotah House Theological Seminary presents reading as an inherently hopeful practice. He advocates for slow reading practices, such as those found in lectio divina, rather than cheapening this learning practice through speed reading for mere efficiency. Likewise, in Chapter Six, Jessica Hooten Wilson of Pepperdine University encourages the use of historical writing to remember the good and not forget the evil. In writing about both the good and evil, she argues, we illuminate the lack in the present world and create a longing for the good. Writing can also serve to be prophetic and bring to the surface things hoped for but unseen. Like the Biblical prophets, the Christian fiction writers of today are “the Lord’s dissidents in the world” turning our eyes to the unseen, she writes. Poetry gives voice to the longing we feel and cannot describe; and poets, even those imprisoned for their words, hold great power. The greatest threat to civilization is not to our bodies but to our souls, she claims, and writing can feed the soul toward hope and good. The final section of her chapter cautions against the ease and efficiency of writing with Artificial Intelligence (AI). How can we learn hope if we overcome every writing inconvenience with AI? Like Boersma, she questions whether quick and efficient is a win and ends the chapter with a few suggestions for incorporating reflective writing, emphasizing the writing process more than the product and the reading of Scripture in writing classes.
In a chapter titled “Arduous and Difficult to Obtain,” David I. Smith of Calvin University asks teachers not to settle only for those small things they can control in the classroom, which can undermine the development of hope. Regarding this problem, he quotes Walter Bruggeman: “We are people grown weary of waiting. We dwell in the midst of cynical people, and we have settled for what we can control” (112). Discussing the definition of burnout (which can come from intensifying requirements) versus demoralization (which occurs when one can no longer enact values that motivate and sustain work), Smith points to some examples of syllabi and texts that misguidedly begin with negative comments about the difficulty or quantity of material to be covered or apathy expected from students. He reminds the reader that teaching is inherently an act of love and benevolence, an act for building community, and advocates for phrases in the syllabus and group work in classes that emphasize what we learn from each other through practicing justice, patience, and humility, not just covering course content.
In the concluding chapter, Jon S. Kulaga, president of Indiana Wesleyan University, writes that hope requires us to believe not only that God is able but also that He is willing. To practice habits of hope that a Christ-centered college education can provide, we must first believe in the efficacy of and need for an education at that level. He argues, however, that our ultimate hope must be in the life to come which gives meaning to the work we do today. He concludes that questions about ends are essential, and though we often cover despair with activity, we must stop to consider the purpose of what we are doing in higher education today.
I walked away from this book encouraged with the ideals of education once again but with few practical thoughts about how I can carry this forward in my daily vocation as an administrator at a Christ-centered university. Though there is no statement of this in the title or opening, the book does focus squarely on higher education and does not seem as applicable to lower grades. As I read through the classroom suggestions, I could not help but think about whether and how this could apply in Christ-centered schools where large number of students are not Christians. Though the book offers a few strategies and ideas for how to carry these practices into the typical classroom, the focus is more on mindset and approach to working in higher education than specific practices. The volume rarely speaks in detail to the challenges of current day students or the regulatory and assessment practices that strangle the time of faculty and administrators and instead commends a return to the larger hope that called us to work in the academy in the first place.