Hoping in Africa today is far from self-evident. It is neither a natural reflex nor a spiritual luxury reserved for those sheltered from the upheavals of history. To hope, here on the continent, often means going against the grain, in a world worn down by broken promises, repeated violence, and weary peoples who no longer know where to turn. One must remember that Africa bears in its very flesh a long memory of wounds inherited from slavery, colonization, economic dependency, and post-colonial conflicts, compounded by contemporary fractures such as structural poverty, endemic injustice, political crises, forced displacements, and the disillusionment of its youth. And yet, against all odds, hope persists and survives, often where everything seems lost. Africa suffers, but it gives birth. It bleeds, but it walks forward. Hope is wounded but, paradoxically, fertile. As the universal Church concludes the Jubilee Year of Hope, it is only right to ask: what does it mean to hope here, in Africa, today? For whom? At what cost? In the name of what? What still permits hope when so many promises have already collapsed? What conditions make hope possible, not as a word, but as a force of personal, communal, and social transformation? And above all, are we not too quick to confuse hope with optimism, risking the loss of Christian hope’s subversive power?
Hope, a Virtue Passed Through the Night
While everyday language often conflates hope and optimism, Christian tradition draws a crucial distinction between the two. Optimism depends on favorable circumstances. It feeds on positive signs and collapses when times get hard. Hope, however, belongs to another realm. It is theological. It is not primarily a product of our psychology, but a trust in a God who promises and remains faithful. It endures when all indicators are flashing red, when the future appears closed and uncertain. In biblical tradition, hope is never a comfortable stance. It is born in trial.
We need only recall that the Exodus emerged from the very midst of slavery; that the Psalms give the people words to cry out, protest, and plead; that the Exile, far from being a mere accident, becomes the place where one learns to hope without guarantees. In all these stories, God does not eliminate the night. He carves a path through it. Hope does not negate lamentation; it passes through it. This understanding finds its fulfillment in the New Testament, where the Resurrection does not deny the crucifixion but embraces and transcends it. That this is so does not mean suffering is good or evil is necessary. It is rather to confess that evil is never sovereign.
Therefore, Christian hope emerges as a virtue “passed through the night.” It knows that waiting is long, that time can be cruel, that promises seem delayed. But it refuses to reduce reality to what it shows. It reads, at the heart of the visible, signs of another, more radiant future. This is why Christian hope is always understood in the ongoing tension between the “already” of the Kingdom inaugurated by Christ and the “not yet” of its full manifestation. It confesses that God has already begun His work of resurrection in history, even if the fullness of that promise is still to come.
This is also why the end of a Jubilee Year devoted to hope is not a mere commemorative exercise. In biblical and ecclesial tradition, the Jubilee is always a time of rupture and renewal, a moment when history is symbolically paused and placed before God. It is a time of liberation, of debt forgiveness, of restoring broken relationships. In this sense, the Jubilee is not just an announcement of hope. It puts hope to the test of reality. For Africa, this jubilee dimension must stir consciences: how can one hope when the night seems longer than the dawn? More importantly, where can one discern signs of resurrection in an Africa marked by so many crucifixions?
A Hope that Walks With and For Those Whose History Has Been Confiscated
To ask these questions is to recognize that Africa is not only a context in which hope is tested, but also a place where hope is invented, purified, and reconfigured. In this regard, thinking about Christian hope on the African continent cannot be done without a clear-eyed journey through memory. It bears repeating: we carry, consciously or not, a wounded history that still weighs heavily on the collective imagination and ways of thinking. The violence of the past is not merely a matter of historical events; it is also a matter of ongoing. They have left lasting traces in bodies, institutions, and even in the way people envision the future. The colonial legacy, for instance, is not limited to politics or economics. It is symbolic and spiritual. It has often sown self-doubt, internalized failure, and difficulty believing one can be the author of one’s own destiny, the subject of one’s own story. Added to this are more recent wounds: civil wars, genocides, electoral violence, terrorism, and mass displacements.
Such a bleak picture forces us to reject any theology of hope that is abstract, disembodied, or cheaply consoling. Hoping in Africa today cannot mean spiritualizing suffering or sanctifying the patience of the poor. That would betray the Gospel. Christian hope is credible only if it allows itself to be instructed by wounds, if it accepts being tested by the victims of history, and if it consents to walk with and for those whose history has been taken away from them. Such a stance, it must be said, cannot be separated from justice. It calls for more just structures, a life-serving economy, and responsible governance. Without this social grounding, hope becomes a discourse that soothes consciences without changing realities.
Hence, a primary theological task emerges: to articulate a hope that is neither religious fatalism (“we must accept”) nor magical promise (“everything will be fine”). Christian hope in Africa must be truthful speech; one that neither betrays suffering nor is imprisoned by it. Where poverty is structural, Christian hope must take the form of active hope capable of sustaining civic engagement, fighting against corruption, and defending the most vulnerable. It must also recognize the dignity already at work in ordinary acts, such as sharing a meal, welcoming a child, caring for a neighbor, and burying the dead with respect. These small acts are often more eloquent expressions of hope than long speeches.
Ultimately, considering hope in Africa must encompass its youth. Today, many young people live in unbearable tension between their aspirations and the actual opportunities their societies offer. Mass unemployment, precariousness, and the lack of credible political prospects fuel anger, despair, or the desire to leave. For many, hope lies elsewhere, outside the continent, sometimes at the cost of their lives. It is no surprise that the Mediterranean has become an open-air graveyard, swallowing in its depths African youth seeking an Eldorado. Yet, this same youth also carries dreams of justice, recognition, participation, and dignity. Civic mobilizations, cultural, artistic, and digital engagements bear witness to a hope that refuses to be silenced.
This makes urgent a pastoral approach that can accompany the youth’s exhausting questions, face conflict, and open spaces where faith is not seen as an escape but as a resource to think and transform reality. Consequently, the Church in Africa cannot content itself with being the guardian of a discourse on hope. It is called to become a credible place of hope. This requires a Church that listens before it speaks, that accompanies before it judges, that shares in the vulnerabilities of its people. A Church capable of holding together prayer and action, memory of wounds and boldness for the future.
As the Jubilee Year comes to an end, a special responsibility falls on Christian communities: to make this time of grace a point of departure rather than a conclusion. Where institutions fail, where social bonds unravel, local communities are called to be spaces of hope’s reconstruction, within parishes, ecclesial movements, and places of formation, not as a replacement power, but as a quiet ferment of the Kingdom. To hope in Africa today is to refuse to give in to cynicism or resignation. It is to believe, against all odds, that the last word belongs neither to death, nor to corruption, nor to exile, but to a stronger Life, already at work on the margins, in simple gestures, in silent struggles. One day, perhaps quietly, Africa will bloom. It will bear unexpected fruit, born of the obscure faithfulness of those who believed, prayed, and sowed, even without seeing the harvest. This is how God makes all things new, for it is precisely in the cracked soils of history that He plants the seeds of His Kingdom.
By Camille Mukoso, SJ
Jesuit School of Theology | Hekima University College
