In an age marked by deep polarization, climate anxiety, systemic injustice, and institutional fatigue, it can feel easier to retreat into despair than to keep working for change. But hopepunk offers another way—a narrative posture rooted in fierce hope, moral courage, and the stubborn belief that goodness is worth fighting for.
Coined by writer Alexandra Rowland in 2017, hopepunk is a literary genre and cultural movement grounded in the idea that hope is not soft or sentimental but defiant. It tells stories of people who resist apathy and despair, who choose community over isolation, and who persist in loving the world—even when it’s broken. These aren’t stories of easy wins or naïve optimism. They are stories of grit, grace, and the costly work of healing and justice.
For ministry leaders and people of faith, hopepunk resonates deeply. In many ways, it mirrors the biblical call to be people of hope: to live as resurrection people in a Good Friday world, to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to seek the kingdom of God even when it feels far off. These stories offer more than escapism—they offer spiritual imagination. They help us reframe leadership as an act of discipleship: one rooted not in control, but in compassion; not in certainty, but in faithful persistence.
In this book club, we’ll read stories where resistance looks like community care, where healing begins with honest lament, and where leadership means showing up with integrity, humility, and heart. As we journey through these narratives together, we’ll reflect on the theological threads woven through them—hope as a spiritual discipline, love as a form of protest, and justice as an act of faith.
So come ready to read, wrestle, and be renewed. Because in a world that tells us to give up, we’re here to say: hope still matters. And it’s worth living for.
We hope you can join us.
