Rage and Hope: 75 years of Christian Aid

Christian Aid as a charity has now been in existence for 75 years; a double-edged anniversary, being a testament both to much good work done and to the ocean of continuing need which seems to be swelling rather than subsiding. To mark the anniversary they have brought out a new book of prayers, Rage and Hope. We attended the online Book Launch which featured interviews with the current Director of Christian Aid, Amanda Khosi Mukwashi, and the three previous Directors, including Michael Taylor (once of this city). We commented to each other afterwards that remarkably little was said about the actual book, but I ordered a copy anyway.
Rage and Hope is a collection of 75 prayers, each with its own introduction which is frequently longer than the prayer itself, and a brief biographical note about its author. The prayers are divided into 4 sections, Remember, Resolve, Resist and Reimagine. The collection covers a lot of topics which are currently causing misery in our world, and provides valuable if unwelcome reminders of things many of us would prefer to ignore, especially at the moment when we are so drained after a year of living through a pandemic. Most of the prayers are powerfully expressed and beautifully written.
I think it is fair to say that the collection is stronger on rage and lament than it is on hope. Michael Taylor said in the discussion at the launch that the hope comes because however bad things are, they can always be made a little better. Some of the other speakers struck a more optimistic tone, but the tension between the idea that lament galvanises the lamenter to take action, and the traditional belief that prayer will persuade God to act and change things, is obvious throughout the book and makes for an uneven feel. Prayers which praise the power and goodness of God while detailing the terrible suffering of the innocent are not easy to read.
I must admit to some personal disappointment that this is not a worship resource that it will be easy to dip into for material. Although it is expressed to be for both individual and communal use, it is not a prayer book in the mould of its much-used predecessor of the 1990s, Bread of Tomorrow. There is no subject index, although some topics recur, such as gender-based violence, and many of the prayers are situation-specific or cannot be voiced (as written, without editing) from outside the affected community. A number of them reference the current pandemic and (hopefully) will quickly become dated. Nevertheless, it will be a valuable book to have when we want to say, “This is not how the world should be”.
Gwyneth 20/4/21
Three prayers from this book framed our New Year Zoom gathering in January 2022