Interrogating “Hope” – Pastoral Theology of Hope and Positive Psychology

Abstract

In the past three decades, pastoral literature has become rich in insights about hope and about what hope therapeutically can achieve. This article is an attempt to evaluate critically this recent development. It suggests that the pastoral theology of hope constructed in the past thirty years has been forgetful of certain unique features of Christian hope, due to its strong inclination toward positive psychology. This merits special attention because a danger may be lurking here in what pastoral theologians once called “pastoral care in therapeutic captivity.” Since a complete discussion of a topic so complex would be too lengthy, this article focuses mainly on the works of Donald Capps and Everett L. Worthington, analyzing how their conceptions of “hope” are wittingly or unwittingly shaped by the positive psychology of hope. This article takes the theory of C. R. Snyder, a positive psychologist renowned for his theory of hope, as the representative of the latter. In the final section, this article uses Moltmann's theology of hope to assess critically the notions of pastoral hope constructed under the influence of positive psychology.