The creation, and collapse, of a progressive evangelical church

THEY CONGREGATED in an opioid-plagued district of Philadelphia, dressed in “thrift-store chic” garments and T-shirts emblazoned with phrases such as “There are no good billionaires.” They melted AK-47s into garden equipment, for the Bible instructs people to “beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks”. Some of the group were former Quakers, Jews and atheists, but most were evangelical Christians fleeing “hypocrisy, GOP politics and rote Bible learning”.

Eliza Griswold, a Pulitzer-prizewinning journalist (and wife of The Economist’s visiting senior editor), first encountered Circle of Hope in 2019. The radical outpost of evangelicals was trying to reclaim moral authority from the Christian right by following Jesus differently, she observes in a new book. They preached Christ’s socialist teachings, renounced wealth, set up in poor, violent areas and established food banks. The daughter of a former bishop in the Episcopal church, Ms Griswold immersed herself in the Circle as a means of understanding the radical evangelical movement. She ended up chronicling the church’s demise, and pointing to a broader trend in religion in America.

Circle of Hope was founded in 1996 by Rod and Gwen White, “hippie church planters” from southern California. They sensed a growing feeling of disenchantment among believers: “People have been dominated, abused, bamboozled, threatened and diminished in church for ages,” Rod wrote. By the 2010s Circle had 700 members across four congregations in Philadelphia and New Jersey.

As the Whites ceded day-to-day leadership to four younger pastors, disagreements developed about what it really meant to be guided by Christ. The first cracks appeared in 2020 with the onset of the covid-19 pandemic. Pastors bickered over social distancing and digital gatherings.

The cracks grew deeper as a wave of protests against police brutality spread across America. Some wanted to pursue anti-racism efforts. Others felt that Circle of Hope should not concern itself with politics. “I don’t want to go to the church of Black Lives Matter,” one member said.

According to the book, Circle’s only pastor of colour took to posting online about racial justice and holding meetings only for ethnic-minority members. He pushed Rod and Gwen White out of Circle, leading to accusations that he was launching a power grab. Yet another fissure developed over same-sex marriage. Circle maintained a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. One pastor went rogue, however, and conducted Circle’s first queer wedding.

Much of the conflict within Circle arose from an “alpha-male power struggle” between two younger male pastors, one of whom diagnosed the Whites with “founder’s syndrome” (a term usually used to describe business leaders who maintain excessive control and influence as a company develops). Two female pastors attempted to steady the church, but were often relegated to mothering and baking.

Eventually Circle’s followers stopped following. The decline reflects a national trend. A study conducted by Pew predicts that Christians will shrink from 64% of Americans in 2020 to as few as 35% by 2070. In the last 25 years around 40m Americans have stopped attending church, many of them disillusioned by scandals over sex, abuse and corruption. In 2019-21, overall church attendance in America fell by about 5%. Circle lost members at four times that rate.

As Ms Griswold writes, churches are “messy places”; believers’ attempts to do right often go wrong. Today the church has ceased to exist, along the hope it once proclaimed. ■