To believe, to suffer, to hope, and to transform

towards a Christian spirituality in the twilight of Christianity

Abstract

This article examines the challenges of Christian spirituality in the contemporary world by engaging in dialogue with four key authors: Tomáš Halík, Mário de França Miranda, Byung-Chul Han, and Ailton Krenak. Starting from the recognition that we inhabit a context of institutional crisis of faith, marked by the exhaustion of experience, the expulsion of the other, the neoliberal logic of performance, and the advance of necropolitical structures, this study seeks to understand how the Christian tradition can respond creatively to this time of twilight. Halík offers a spirituality of resistance in which faith, suffering, and hope intertwine as a path toward maturity and purification. França Miranda proposes a dynamic ecclesiology in which the Church is understood as a historical reality in continuous conversion, called to abandon models of power and reclaim the centrality of the Kingdom of God. Han illuminates the social processes that generate exhaustion, narcissism, and superficiality, emphasizing the urgency of recovering interiority and listening as practices of alterity. Krenak, in turn, confronts the utilitarian and destructive logic of modernity, affirming life as enjoyment and care, and inviting a renewed connection with the Earth and the diversity of beings. By integrating these perspectives, the article suggests pathways for a Christian spirituality capable of resisting contemporary forms of emptiness, rekindling the meaning of the other, and renewing the Church’s mission amid the transformations of the present world.