Hope in 2010

Is it possible to hope today?

Rev Dr Michael Spence is the current Vice-Chancellor and Principal of my alma mater, the University of Sydney and he is also an ordained Anglican priest working in a voluntary capacity at St Mary's Anglican Church, Waverley (the church in which Jessica was baptised and in which we were married). He recently participated in a panel event hosted by ABC Radio National as part of the Sydney Festival titled Hope 2010: Crisis, Catharsis, Renewal. Dr Spence's contribution is worth listening to as someone in high office giving an account of the hope that is in him. To give you a taste, here are some quotes:

"Love - self-giving, self-sacrificial, unsentimental, others-oriented love - is at the centre of reality."

"Acceptance is the opposite of hope. [...] Hope claims the right to look for and struggle for a world in which all those enemies of love - hate and all its children - are defeated."

"Resurrection is possible. There can be real victory over the enemies of love, both in our own lives and more generally."

"There are just as many pathological reasons for belief as for unbelief."

The fact that he made it from ontological difference to Babe in two sentences was particularly impressive.
H/T Matt.