Ep. 135 - When A Church Dies

Religious disaffiliation, the drifting away of Americans from their churches, isn’t a new story. But it’s certainly a true one. 

And yet it’s also not the whole story, as veteran New Yorker journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Eliza Griswold argues in her new book, Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church. 

Griswold’s is a work of ‘immersion journalism,’ reported by embedding for four years with a progressive evangelical community in Philadelphia. She stuck with the story even as heated conflicts over race, gender, and power threatened the church’s survival. 

On this episode, Griswold speaks about the book and the future of American Christianity, with Commonweal associate editor Griffin Oleynick. 

For further reading: 

• Brett Hoover on young Catholics’ waning religiosity
• Kate Lucky on the ‘ex-vangelicals’
• Julia Marley on the ‘Jesus Freaks’