“A Harrowing”: Review of Eliza Griswold’s Circle of Hope

Reading Pulitzer Prize winner Eliza Griswold’s new book, Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church (just out from Farrar, Straus and Giroux), reminded me a little of the experience of watching Hulu’s The Bear: talented, sincere, but very broken people trying to do something good and noble together—and not always succeeding. Featuring a lot of emotional intensity, strong language, and a fair bit of yelling. Profoundly painful, but utterly compelling. In his blurb, Christian Wiman observes: “This is a lucid, tough, sad, heartening, and ultimately very wise book. It will be a beacon and warning to anyone caught up in this country’s social turbulence.” 

It feels very much like a necessary book for our moment. (And perhaps a good follow-up to Steve’s blog yesterday). 

Many RJ readers are no doubt familiar with the growing body of literature of the past decade or so that centers on conservative evangelicals. By contrast, Griswold takes as her focus what she calls “radical evangelicals,” Christians coming out of an Anabaptist tradition, committed to peace-making and pacifism, poverty and progressive politics. Indeed, Griswold is initially drawn to the work of the Circle of Hope church when she attends a “guns to plowshares” event, where members of Circle of Hope are very much in evidence. 

I suspect, though the book doesn’t say this explicitly, that Griswold (whose father was the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church for a time) thought she might be able to witness a different mode of contemporary American Christianity. After all, the Circle of Hope had been “founded in 1996 by Rod and Gwen White…[h]ippie church planters from Southern California,” and had evolved into “a vibrant collective of some seven hundred people,” spread across “four thriving congregations: three in Philadelphia and one in New Jersey.” 

Griswold chronicles Circle of Hope as it is transitioning from Rod’s leadership into a model with four different ministers, one for each of the congregations, who meet regularly as a team. As she begins, she finds a church heavily invested in its community: organized in cells, church members care for each other and their neighbors through debt reduction and hospitality, thrift stores and “compassion teams.” Intrigued, Griswold asks the four ministers if she might “embed” in their church as a journalist to understand “a group of people attempting to live with Christ at the center of things.” And they agree.

As a piece of journalism, the book is truly impressive: over the years she is embedded (starting in 2019), Griswold is granted extraordinary levels of access and trust—and the vulnerability of each of the four ministers (as well as other church leaders and members) is evidence in the staggering level of detail Griswold provides. Griswold notes, for example, that she attended “more than one thousand hours of Zoom meetings, in addition to visiting church events, worship services, firepits, hikes, and people’s homes to interview 119 current and former members of the church, along with their families.” 

As richly textured as the book is, it is also a masterclass in neutrality. It exemplifies to the very highest degree one of the principles I stress to my students: that writing about other people and their ideas is part of how we love our neighbor as ourselves, of how we do not bear false witness. In the same way, I tell my students that they should characterize the scholars and writers with whom they are interacting in a way that honors them–in a way that their research would be recognizable to those about whom they are writing. Griswold excels at portraying each of the “main characters” with nuance—it is incredibly fair-minded in trying to represent the back stories, motivations, principles, and shortcomings of each person. And in trying to characterize justly the growing distance between them.

Because, for all the good it was doing and the lives of faithfulness it was seeking to promote, Circle of Hope struggles. Because of COVID-19, of course, but also because of leadership issues. But much of the struggle comes as they try to move to being anti-racist in practice, not simply in rhetoric, and to move to become more welcoming in measurable ways.

What the book narrates, then, in often extremely painful detail, is the exceptionally difficult work of community. Even as the four ministers are united in their desire to serve Christ and their community, even with a commitment to what seems like a common vision, Griswold‘s book shows just how and why these efforts are so fraught. So often, I think, we believe that if we could only get everyone oriented in a similar direction around an issue that resolution would come. If we could just get rid of “that guy” or help people think differently on a subject, then all would be well. But this book gives the lie to that: the ministers are all progressives with excellent bona fides, with the “right” ideas, and it’s still very hard going. They agree on principles, and yet the situation just becomes more and more messy.  

It’s hard to discuss the book without spoiling it. But in some ways, the process they all go through is as instructive as what ultimately happens. To be honest, that process was deeply depressing and sad to read about. But it made me wonder what might be learned from watching good-hearted people (mostly—you can make your own decision about the four ministers) be hurt and hurt each other and their extended communities. How easy as an outsider to see where forgiveness might have helped or better listening or forbearance. But can’t the same be said of all of us in our communities? Nadia Bolz-Weber put it this way: “I devoured this book. It made me examine the cost of centering my own self-regard, the need to see oneself as a ‘good person.” Exactly.

Despite the sadness I felt through much of the book, many reviewers point to it as ultimately hopeful. In the final section of the book, “A Benediction,” Griswold agrees: 

Despite being cautious about what a reporter might make of their faith, and, later, their fights, [the four ministers] allowed me to witness the many things they lost….And yet, in the midst of each blow, they continued to lay bare as much of their mess as they could to me, because the Spirit had led them to say yes….The four pastors humbled each other, or perhaps “harrowed” is the better word: raking one another’s souls, like fields, and freeing them to grow. It’s uncomfortable to accept our flaws, let alone having them pointed out to us, hearing how we hurt one another and ourselves by clinging to received ideas. In some ways, this is the work of the exegete: to examine a story or an experience for what it reveals not only about the world, or God, but also ourselves and what, in our embodied consciousness, must grow, or die. 

I was quite struck by Griswold’s idea here. What needs to die for growth? Even as we love the metaphor, we have a hard time with seasons, especially when it means letting go. If we are Reformed people, we also tend to believe that right thinking leads to right action. Don’t get me wrong: good theology is important. But how much harder it all is than just having our doctrinal ducks in a row. Lived out theology requires more capaciousness than we usually have. Right thinking can only take us so far.

Eliza Griswold‘s compelling writing made me truly care about these pastors and their community—and to grieve for them, even as where they end up at the book’s conclusion might—surprisingly—be better for all of them, personally and in their ministries. I’ll leave it to you to decide.

Above all, Circle of Hope is deserving of all the attention it’s receiving because it’s an unflinching look at the true cost is of trying to make change. It does not downplay it, and the cost is remarkably high. It presents a vital challenge every person of faith would do well to consider.

Photo by Rasmus Landgreen on Unsplash