Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church

Long-listed for the National Book AwardA New Yorker Best Book of the Year (So Far) and a Los Angeles Times Must-Read“As gripping as any novel.” ―Kevin Canfield, Minnesota Star TribuneFrom the Pulitzer Prize winner Eliza Griswold, Circle of Hope is an intimate portrait of a church, its radical mission, and its riveting crisis.“The revolution I wanted to be part of was in the church.”Americans have been leaving their churches. Some drift away. Some stay home. And some have been searching for―and finding―more authentic ways to find and follow Jesus.This is the story of one such “radical outpost of Jesus followers” dedicated to service, the Sermon on the Mount, and working toward justice for all in this life, not just salvation for some in the next. Part of a little-known yet influential movement at the edge of American evangelicalism, Philadelphia’s Circle of Hope grew for forty years, planted four congregations, and then found itself in crisis.The story that follows is an American allego