The Pope’s Anti-Political Politics
By Samuel Gregg D.Phil
Christian Post Contributor
Tue, Dec. 18 2007

“Hope.” Like the word “love,” it's overused today, but that’s the fundamental theme of Benedict XVI’s new encyclical Spe Salvi. Just as his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est explored the subject of love, Catholicism’s theologian-pope has chosen to focus on an indispensible dimension of the Christian message.

Today hundreds of theologians insist upon talking about everything except the essences of Christian faith, regarding such matters as “not relevant” to contemporary concerns.

In Spe Salvi, Benedict demonstrates perhaps without intending to - how wrong such assumptions are. A powerful theme of this encyclical is that a world without hope, or which reduces hope to creating earthly utopias, facilitates a view of politics that not only enslaves, but kills.

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