Resistant Hope

Many books on the market are designed to help us through times of suffering. They all offer answers and proposals for why we suffer, for what purpose is to be found in this experience, and for how can we go forward after our life has been shattered. Most approach the subject from the perspective of defending God. Historically the great and not-so-great thinkers of the Christian community have demanded that followers not blame God for their suffering or hold God responsible for the pain that they have experienced. Others have taught that God sends and uses pain to correct the wandering, wayward believer.

I have found that the majority of these answers leave readers without hope. Through several years of teaching about suffering and a concept in Christian theology called theodicy, and through listening to the personal stories told through anger and tears, I have struggled to recover teachings that open our hearts to God's promised hope. Resistant Hope is the result of my faith journey. This book does not set out to defend God. God does not need my defense. Resistant Hope is about how God works alone and through us, to teach us to fight back when we stand at the abyss of despair. Resistant Hope is a pathway to finding hope in the midst of the pain of daily life and at the moments of greatest grief and sorrow.



""Resistant Hope is a breath of fresh air in the midst of the current dreary view of humanity and God's intentions for life. Rev. Elaine Siemson reintroduces us to the life-giving wisdom of St. Irenaeus of Lyon, an early Christian theologian who speaks to the human experience of suffering and hope. Readers will be encouraged to re-frame the question of suffering while learning how we have arrived at our current understanding. Resistant Hope offers the opportunity to engage personally with the writings of Irenaeus, as well as opportunities for small group conversation to share in wisdom. Enjoy!""
--Rev. Kathie Nycklemoe, Parish Pastor and Spiritual Director

In Resistant Hope Elaine Siemsen successfully retools the theodicy debate along Irenaean lines, offering her reader an open universe in which evil and suffering are more inevitable than calamitous and in which Christ grounds not only our eschatological hope that good will ultimately overcome evil, but also our immediate hope that evil and suffering can, will, and should be resisted. Like Harold Kushner in When Bad Things Happen to Good People she reframes the question, from ""Why is this happening to me?"" to ""What now?"" and in the process provides a pragmatic response to the problem of evil that avoids theologies of harm and stands firmly on the side of the sufferer. Her book will appeal to all who lament the damage that more traditional theodicies can do to innocent victims and who seek a Christian theodicy of practice.

--Elizabeth Galbraith, Associate Professor of Religion, St. Olaf College


Elaine Siemsen is a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She has served congregations in Illinois, Minnesota, and Iowa. She has taught at Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana; Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota; and St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota. She is the author of Constructing a North American Theology through the Work of Joseph Sittler: Embodied Words (2003). Her work has been published in The Lutheran, Lutheran Partners, Dialog, and Currents in Theology and Mission. Elaine and her husband, Dennis, both originally from Chicago, Illinois, live in Rochester, Minnesota.