This book just casually caught my eye, so I sampled it and promptly put it on my Wish List because it sounded just right for me now. I started reading and was very much enjoying the book and then I came to find out, well after I’d started, that it received lots of excellent reviews from good places.   Maybe I still have some kind of instinct. 

Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, 
Power, and Justice in an American Church
by Eliza Greisald,  8/24
Read by Jennifer Pickens
11h 57m
Rating:   8.75 / Christianity 

At Audible it’s categorized under “Religion and Spirituality > Christianity.”  That’s fine – I wouldn’t say I’m a Christian, but I’m definitely an interested student of the history and contemporary issues as well as the theology. And back in the 1970s I was very curious about the “Jesus Freaks” and even almost joined a local group but … 

Circle of Hope is the name of a group of churches in and near Philadelphia which were similar to the “emergent church movement” of new evangelical churches.  They were Christ-centered Protestant groups, but not as formal mainstream evangelicals.  They are also more “progressive” in terms of women’s issues and LGBTQ matters. 

They were never an actual part of the emergent movement but I use the language to describe it. They describe themselves as radical Christians but that’s a very loose term. There are many of them in some areas like Philadelphia.  Some are so radical to eschew civilization – kind of like anarchists. More mainstream groups don’t consider them to be preaching the word of God.   

They cared about and worked toward ending racism, poverty, and war, but after a decade personal relations and a couple other issues really strained.  

The narrative gets so detailed that for awhile I thought this was fiction but no, it’s the story of one community church (with several locations) and it’s racially diverse, earnest, and progressive staff.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington,_Philadelphia (Fishtown)