According to numerous surveys, organized religion is on the decline in the United States, and thus, Pulitzer Prize-winner Eliza Griswold’s Circle of Hope: A Reckoning With Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church comes at a germane time. In it, the New Yorker reporter follows the fortunes of one radical evangelical church, illuminating both the strength of its powerful, inclusive teachings and the weakness revealed when it’s battered by internal strife.
Beginning in 2019, Griswold (Amity and Prosperity) immersed herself in Circle of Hope, a church composed of three congregations in Philadelphia and one in southern New Jersey, and spiritual home to more than 700 members. Circle of Hope was the creation of Rod and Gwen White, a pair of Southern California baby boomers and self-described “Jesus freaks,” who came east in 1996 to establish what Rod called “an outpost of his counter rebellion against all the coercion going on in the name of Jesus.” In their case, Griswold writes, it meant aspiring to “live out Jesus’s teachings on love and liberation, building the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth by rejecting capitalism, redistributing resources, and addressing social ills.”
But as 2020 unfolded, Circle of Hope found itself besieged by twin crises: the coronavirus pandemic and the murder of George Floyd. The latter tragedy launched the church, whose membership was 75% to 85% white, on a nobly intentioned but ultimately deeply divisive project of instilling anti-racism as one of its defining values. Through countless meetings, services and searching conversations, Griswold skillfully observes the church’s four thoughtful, earnest young pastors—Ben White (son of the founders), Julie Hoke, Rachel Sensenig and Jonny Rashid, its only leader of color—as they grapple with that painful issue and one another.
In portraying Circle of Hope’s struggles, Griswold manages to remain both sympathetic and objective, as she reveals how difficult it can be for well-intentioned people to actualize their exalted ideals. Circle of Hope is the intimate story of one small church, but it carries within it profoundly relevant lessons for all people of faith.
