Comment magazine has selected Hope College as the first institution to pilot a new community subscription program called Comment for Groups, providing additional resources for students, faculty and staff as they consider how the historic Christian faith can help meet the world’s deepest needs.
Comment is a quarterly magazine of public theology that serves Christian leaders and culture makers with rooted, fresh ideas for the faithful practice of public life. Featuring essays and reviews, the magazine is the flagship publication of Cardus, a non-partisan think tank dedicated to clarifying and strengthening, through research and dialogue, the ways in which society’s institutions can work together for the common good.
“We’re grateful and excited about this partnership with Comment,” said Hope College President Matthew A. Scogin. “Here at Hope, we believe that we have a responsibility as Christians to run toward the world’s biggest challenges and work together to address them. Comment takes on the issues facing our society and the world, encouraging readers to think deeply and faithfully about them while also exploring how to move forward, which is exactly what we seek to teach and model at Hope.”
Through the partnership, beginning this fall, all Hope students will receive unlimited digital access to Comment at comment.org, and all faculty and staff will be offered complimentary print copies of each issue of Comment and unlimited digital access. As a Comment for Groups institution, Hope will also receive an exclusive monthly newsletter with suggested articles and questions designed to stimulate meaningful discussions and encourage the development of a moral imagination.
The connection between Hope and Comment began shortly after the July 2021 launch of the college’s “Hope Forward” initiative. “Hope Forward” is a tuition-free model that, once fully implemented, will enhance access to a Hope education by asking students to give to the college upon graduation rather than requiring them to pay for their education in advance, emphasizing the concepts of generosity and community.
“Hope College is the embodiment of Comment’s mission,” said Anne Snyder, who is Comment’s editor-in-chief. “Not only is it an institution that is creatively seeking to subvert the broken logic of what higher education is for, but it is doing so with pragmatic smarts, joy, and the backing of an idea long embedded within 2,000 years of Christian social thought. It is a delight for us to get to partner with a university that is taking our shared heritage seriously and putting its more mischievous elements into practice.”
“Hope College is the embodiment of Comment’s mission. Not only is it an institution that is creatively seeking to subvert the broken logic of what higher education is for, but it is doing so with pragmatic smarts, joy, and the backing of an idea long embedded within 2,000 years of Christian social thought.”
—Anne Snyder
Snyder interviewed Scogin about “Hope Forward” on Comment’s podcast, “The Whole Person Revolution,” on Jan. 27, 2022. She subsequently presented an address at Hope on April 20, 2022, discussing generosity of spirit as a crucial virtue for a successful society. This past spring, she participated in the keynote panel discussion during the college’s March 8-9 “Catalyst Summit,” which grew out of “Hope Forward” and brought together thought leaders from a variety of fields to consider new ideas and spark meaningful conversations about how to fix higher education’s broken funding model.
Watch highlights of Anne Snyder and other presenters from the Catalyst Summit