Eliza Griswold's new book Circle of Hope is a cautionary tale about placing too much hope in your church

The Long Game

Eliza Griswold's new book Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church is about a church in Philadelphia that was started by a couple who became dramatic converts to Christianity in the 1970's. They became Jesus people.

And unlike many others in that movement, they stayed pretty radical. Griswold's book tells the story of this couple's attempt to hand the church off to the next generation. It doesn't go well.

I thought the book was an example of something I’ve lived, experienced and observed: placing far too much hope in what a local church can do and provide.

Griswold is a contributing writing for The New Yorker and directs the Program in Journalism at Princeton University. Her 2018 book Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America, won the Pulitzer Prize.