Circle of Hope

A conversation with the Pulitzer Prize winning author, Eliza Griswold

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Today’s Cottage Zoom gathering was a rich and meaningful discussion of Eliza Griswold’s new book, Circle of Hope.

The story is about a progressive evangelical church in Philadelphia, founded in 1992 by Rod and Gwen White, who had been converted in the Jesus Movement in the 1970s. After founding and leading a church in Riverside, California, they moved east and started Circle of Hope as a radical urban community of Jesus followers.

Eliza accompanied the four young pastors, the leaders who followed Rod and Gwen at Circle of Hope, from 2019 to 2023 as they wrestled with “Founder’s syndrome,” generational divides, the pandemic, and political tensions. She paints a vivid picture of the congregation, bringing a tender empathy to understanding the trials of clergy, and witnesses a crisis that leads to the church’s painful end.

The book is haunting in its honest portrayal of faith and the struggles to live one’s beliefs with integrity in community.

In this informative, moving, and surprisingly personal conversation, she talks about her journey as a clergyman’s daughter who also lived with a denominational crisis that shook her own family.