“Being optimistic is based upon a trust in our capacity to achieve something out of nothing or in some cosmic notion of fate. Christian hope, however, is different. It is reasonably skeptical of the human capacity to bring good out of the deepest tragedy because humans lack the power to do so. It also rejects the concept of fate because fate has no power over death and no power to redeem injustice. Things do not just get better because fate makes it so. Instead, Christian hope trusts in the sovereignty of God and patiently anticipates the novel, unprecedented possibilities that divine grace inspires for the future.
Christian hope acknowledges that God is actively working in the world. Whereas unrealistic optimism can lead to illusions and delusions, Christian hope is a living hope essentially connected to the present as it critiques the injustices that plague both the human and nonhuman “least of these.” Unrealistic optimism that leads to illusion and delusion does not demand that humans seek solidarity with and act on behalf of the oppressed, as it relies on the inevitability of goodness to overcome, consequently it supports the unjust status quo, even if only unwittingly. Christian hope, on the other hand, fosters solidarity with the least of these and demands action from those who believe in the resurrection. Christian hope is intrinsically active, as it requires one “to do justice and to love kindness”; it does not merely sit passively and wait for God to clean up the mess. “

— Chris Doran , Hope in the Age of Climate Change: Creation Care This Side of the Resurrection, (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers) 2017, p.59.