Among the many causes of anxiety in today’s world are global concerns to do with social and economic inequality, the imperative of sustainable development, and the link between the damage we are causing the natural environment and climate change. These raise human – that is, moral and spiritual – questions about who we are, our destiny, how we can be helped to flourish, and what we hope for.

Hope Rediscovered is about being re-oriented in the face of such challenges. Bishop David Atkinson, who has an abiding interest in Christian ethics, pastoral theology and science, has put some key questions to the Gospel of John – a text which says much about human flourishing (‘life in fullness’), and which draws heavily on Wisdom themes from the Hebrew Bible about understanding our human place in creation, and about practical living.

Like his followers, Jesus was beset with conflicts within ‘the world’. The first-century Christian community, to which the Gospel was first addressed, discovered how to live hopefully in the way of Wisdom, energized by God’s Spirit. The focus of this timely book is deep, practical wisdom for a troubled world.