“the great sin of white north-american middle-class protestantism is shallow hopelessness, ‘cheap hope.’ we cannot be said to have a gospel because we refuse to know enough of the bad news to prepare our collective soul for the good. our insistence upon being and remaining positive and optomistic is what prevents us from exploring deeply the meaning of hope, biblically understood. we want to have easter sunday without good friday- or better, we desire a friday so ‘good’ that it is no longer for us a sybolic mode of identification with the suffering world.” [douglas j. hall, confessing the faith- 1998.]