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

"Eliza Griswold likens her style of immersion journalism to hitchhiking: You might think you’re headed to Vermont, only to find yourself lost in Las Vegas. Something of the sort happens in her nonfiction book Circle of Hope. She spots the hipsters and spiritual refugees who make up Philadelphia’s Circle of Hope church, and she embeds with its four pastors, expecting to tell a story about modern Christians emulating Jesus’ earliest followers. But the story takes a sharp left turn as the church confronts the COVID-19 pandemic and its own racial missteps. It’s not a happy ending – the Circle, in the end, is broken. But animated by Griswold’s sharp eye and deep empathy for the church’s idealistic but flawed leaders, the book is more than worth the journey."