Circle of Hope

Starred review from May 6, 2024
Pulitzer winner Griswold (Amity and Prosperity) delivers a riveting chronicle of the fracturing of a progressive Christian church during a period of social and political turmoil. In 1996, “hippie church planters” Rod and Gwen White founded the Circle of Hope church in Philadelphia as an alternative to “hypocrisy, GOP politics, and rote Bible learning.” By the 2010s, they’d expanded into four congregations in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. But fissures that developed after the Whites stepped back from day-to-day operations in the 2010s deepened in 2020 as the church’s four pastors grappled with Covid lockdown policies; the disconnect between the church’s antiracism efforts and its struggles to interrogate its own biases; and questions over whether social justice efforts should be linked to political activism. Focusing on each of the four pastors in turn, Griswold artfully teases out the challenges that eventually led to the church’s closure at the end of 2023, including the gap between its utopian vision and its ability to enact it and growing tensions with the Whites, who wanted to keep the institution largely out of politics. It’s a fascinating inquest into the death of a church that doubles as a compassionate case study on the insufficiency of good intentions.

July 1, 2024
Sex-abuse scandals, financial malfeasance, and increasing politicization have driven many in the U.S. away from organized Christianity, leaving individuals to find their own ways of emulating the teachings of Jesus. In Philadelphia in 1996, former California Jesus freak Rod White created Circle of Hope, an alternative approach to worship based on Anabaptist principles. The group took off, amassing 700 followers and four thriving congregations. Circle of Hope weathered controversies regarding BIPOC and LGBTQ+ congregants and the role of women in the group, but things really started to unravel during the pandemic. Investigative reporter Griswold (Amity and Prosperity, 2018), daughter of the former Bishop of the American Episcopal Church, offers an insightful, balanced account of Circle of Hope's struggles and eventual demise. Alternating chapters profile four pastors, covering their religious backgrounds, evangelical and ministering approaches, and individual interpretations of Circle of Hope's basic tenets and guiding principles. The text suffers from repetition and scrambled chronologies and leaves many unanswered questions but effectively reveals the inner workings of a group of dedicated believers trying to spread Christianity.

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July 15, 2024
A chronicle of a progressive evangelical church that fell into infighting and eventual decline. In a landscape that emphasizes rightward-leaning evangelicalism, New Yorker writer Griswold offers the counterpoint of a "radical evangelical" church. Founded by Gwen and Rod White in 1996, Circle of Hope had grown to four congregations in greater Philadelphia by the time the author began following them in 2019. The pastors helped their members overcome painful past religious experiences and performed acts of companionship and service in their gentrifying neighborhoods. Like countless other organizations, Circle of Hope lurched toward a crisis of identity in 2020, confronting both the pandemic and the nationwide reckoning with racist systems of oppression. As each pastor attempted to lead, their shared mission and collaboration began to fray, leaving the church at a precipice. A crucial conversation about the tension among personal devotion, social activism, and institutional loyalty sits at the center of Griswold's text, especially meaningful in the current political environment. The author's own history makes her an especially powerful voice, and she offers an engaging mix of sympathy and reserved skepticism. However, flaws in narrative structure and spotty details muddle the chronology and significance of each interaction between the pastors and other church leaders. Griswold devotes much attention to shifting alliances and personal slights whose impacts seem out of proportion to their presentation, leaving more profound and pertinent themes--racism, sexism, the blind spots of founders and leaders, and the relationship between political and religious identity--simmering under the surface. The author titles each chapter with the name of one of the pastors she profiles, but she presents an array of perspectives in each section, jumping back and forth among people and events along a relatively condensed timeline. This lack of clarity diminishes the impact of Griswold's well-intentioned investigation. Tangled and murky, despite glimmers of a hopeful, alternative faith.

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