Coping with Chaos: Biblical Patterns

The Hebrew Bible assumes that chaos is ever present. Its various genres offer strategies for coping with the inherent instability of orderly life, and all of them depend on the partnership of humans with God in preserving the goodness of creation. In emulation of the message of the prophetic canon, one of these genres, people of faith are called to never lose hope, commit themselves to both social and ecological justice, and to resist both apocalyptic fatalism and demonization of social and political rivals.