Common Good

Review: Becoming Neighbors

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Cover image of "Becoming Neighbors" by Amar D. Peterman

Becoming Neighbors

Becoming Neighbors, Amar D. Peterman. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802884121) 2026.

Summary: Seeking the local common good through shared tables, neighbor love, building together, and faithful presence.

Many of us have despaired as we look at the deep national divisions in the politics of our country. Why can’t our political representatives come together for the common good of all our citizens? I’ve about concluded that this is a quixotic quest and only a work of God can change things, which I still pray for.

But there is an old saw that “all politics is local.” Furthermore, while we are instructed to pray for our leaders, we are commanded to love our neighbors. In this book, Amar D. Peterman takes that command seriously and presses into what that love might look like in the real neighborhoods where we live. This follows the pattern of the incarnation, where God took on flesh and broke bread with real people.

In fact, Jesus spent a lot of time at tables. Peterman reflects deeply upon this as a core practice of neighboring. He explores why we would desire this and roots it in love of God and those with whom we share the table. In fact, we join what God is already doing in our neighborhood. We recognize God has already been loving our neighbors and we love them in God. So we look for good in those we encounter, believing the good God is present. We believe community is possible because the God who is present is community, the eternal fellowship of three persons in one Being. And because of the diverse nature of our communities, the goodness we encounter is a potluck. Each dish reflects the story of our neighbors.

Neighbor love isn’t a feeling but something we do. Peterman outlines six practices of neighbor love: compassion, humility, translation, resonance, lamentation, and accompaniment. The last four spoke to me. Translation speaks in the neighbor’s language. Resonance listens to the tone of our neighbors and matches it. Lamentation aches for and mourns what grieves our neighbors. Accompaniment is presence, showing up for others.

He describes neighbors as building together, and in fact, this happens, whether a playground, a community garden, or even a shared enterprise. We can take great encouragement that Jesus, our prophet, priest, and king joins us in this work. Prophets cast vision and clear rubble. Priests come with the vision of the table and sketch out what that might look like in a community-a food pantry, a shared dining space, a community garden. Then kings marshal the resources to support the vision and lead out in realizing it. But we will only know what to build through faithful presence, accompaniment.

Finally, Peterman explores what it means to live as neighbors. He suggests the image of being hopeful gardeners, believing in the power of Jesus to bring his resurrection life. Peterman also likens us to kintsugi artists, taking the given fragments and mending them together. Neighbor love is not controlling but waiting and working to see how God will bring the broken fragments of a neighborhood together.

What Peterman does in this book is cast a theological vision of neighbor love. I have to admit wrestling with what that means in our relatively private suburban neighborhood. I feel we are a long way from neighborhood potlucks. But our pastor has challenged us to get to know our neighbor’s names and pray for them. On walks, I’ve met some, and had to confess my chagrin at not knowing the names of those who’d lived as neighbors for some years. I do think restoring local community is a starting point. I wish there were more of a roadmap for what this looks like in neighborhoods like mine. Perhaps faithful presence, the attentive waiting to see what God wants to build is the starting point. And Peterman’s six practices of neighbor love are a good guide.

When I was in college ministry we talked about “developing world-changers.” But in my retirement years, I have to admit to resonating more with Peterman’s message of loving my physical neighbors well. That may actually be the greater challenge. It is certainly part of the greatest commandment!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Breaking Ground

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Breaking Ground, Anne Snyder and Susannah Black. Walden, NY: Plough Publishing 2021.

Summary: A collection of essays written through four seasons beginning in the summer of 2020 on what it might take to restore common ground for the common good in a society deeply divided by the pandemic, race, economic, and political divisions.

The summer of 2020 came in the depths of the pandemic, punctuated by the police-involved death of George Floyd, painfully caught live on camera, resulting in massive demonstrations and disorder in many cities. Two magazine editors, Anne Snyder of Comment, a Canadian-based magazine, and Susannah Black, at the Bruderhof sponsored publication, Plough Quarterly came together to invite a number of Christian thinkers engaged in public square discourse to write articles that attempted to analyze what was happening in our society, draw upon the past, and think imaginatively about the future, renewal, and the role followers of Christ might play in fostering a hopeful future drawing together a fragmented body of Christ and wider society.

The collection brings together an impressive list of thinkers whose essays were written over the four seasons beginning in the summer of 2020 through the spring of 2021. Some of the better known contributors include Mark Noll, N.T. Wright, Marilynne Robinson, Michael Wear, Jeffrey Bilbro, Doug Sikkema, Amy Julia Becker, Oliver O’Donovan, Peter Wehner, and Jonathan Haidt. All told, there are nearly fifty essays in this collection.

The discussion ranges from Mark Noll’s analysis of epidemics past to essays exploring the breakdown of public trust to an interview between Cherie Harder of The Trinity Forum and Marilynne Robinson ranging from Calvin to the common good. Michael Wear, an adviser in the Obama White House surveys our political landscape and profiles Joseph Lowery, one of the last survivors of the Civil Rights movement, who walked with King under the shadow of death, and our call to walk with Jesus even as we engage all the perils of the political in this time. Oliver O’Donovan explores politics and political service.

The essays talk about the importance of place, the local, and the spiritual practices that sustain us. Amy Julia Becker talks about how congregations like hers may fight racism at the local level. Anthony M Barr contributed some of the clearest thinking on the nature of policing and police reform that could be a starting point for many local conversations. Irena Dragas Jansen offers one of the more interesting essays describing what our country looks like through the eyes of a new citizen. Katherine Boyle, an entrepreneur describes the death of Silicon Valley–the eco-disasters, the hopelessness that claims more lives than COVID, the failure of the tech world to save us, and yet the way of being it has promoted as Silicon Valley becomes everywhere.

Aryana Petrosky Roberts describes coming home to the political conflicts in her own family, the inability to hear one another and the breakthrough of praying together, inviting Jesus into the political mess. Stuart McAlpine takes us deeper into prayer, into the prayers of repentance and lament we desperately need to engage and are so hard for us. Michael Lamb explores the implications of Joe Biden’s call for an Augustinian Concord in his inaugural address.

The book includes interview transcripts, some of the best from interviews with Cherie Harder of The Trinity Forum, one of the organizations that joined the Breaking Ground project. One of the very best of these was with Jonathan Haidt and Peter Wehner on “Arguments of the Sake of Heaven.” They explore our contemporary epistemic crisis and polarization, recall the passion of the Inklings for truth that led to vociferous argument, and what is required to foster good arguments in our public squares. Duke Kwon and Gregory Thompson combine to contribute an essay on the call of the American church to own its own responsibility for our nation’s racial history–our love of gain and our failure to make recompense for slavery’s injuries. Charles C. Camosy explores the horror of our nursing homes which the pandemic revealed and the challenge of an ethic of life that includes dignified elder care.

Amid the serious and important conversations, Tara Isabella Burton’s “On Good Parties” comes as a ray of light. Tara loves parties and sees good ones as “a practice for living.” They teach us how to love well and see ourselves as part of a community, they celebrate events in our real lives and the appreciation of one another. She made me look forward to good parties once again.

Even with all that I’ve written here, I’ve but skimmed the surface of all the good and imaginative thinking in this collection. I’m impressed with the wide array of people from police officers to theologians who contribute to this collection. But isn’t this what is needed in our communities across the land–for a coming together of a wide array of people who care about the rents in our social fabric who talk and listen and pray and think and imagine what could be?

I would not only commend this book but at least three of the organizations mentioned here whose publications and initiatives are worth attending to and supporting as we seek to pursue Christ for the glory of God and the common good:

Comment Magazine

Plough Quarterly

The Trinity Forum

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Politics, Partisanship, and Partisanism

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Photo by Joshua Sukoff on Unsplash

It’s always been etiquette in social situations to avoid religion and politics. Fights about these two important areas of life are not a new thing. I would contend though that what has occurred in our time is a move beyond politics and beyond partisanship to partisanism. Let me explain what I mean.

Politics: I know people who say they just don’t want to talk about politics. I haven’t figured out how we live without talking about politics. “Politics” comes from the Greek polis, the word for city, and has to do at root with the affairs of the city. The city was the state in ancient Greece. Since then, we have created additional levels of politics at state and national levels. Decisions about school curriculums, trash pick up and recycling services, policing, the creation and maintenance of state parks, the right of way of roads, what taxes we pay, and the regulations that govern interstate travel all are political.

Politics exist because more of us exist than simply our own households. We all have our ideas of what makes a good place, a good society. Politics is the process of how we figure out together how human societies best flourish. Good political processes are essential to a healthy society. When these processes cease to function well in promoting the common good, social orders deteriorate. Not all at once, perhaps. Societies may live for a while on the capital of formerly constructive political processes. I think that is our current predicament.

Partisanship: If you have two human beings, you probably have disagreements. Often, a number of people will take the same side against others. In many countries there are multiple groups with particular interests. Partisanship is not necessarily a bad thing because it allows diverse interests to have a voice in political decisions all have to live with. Effective politics recognizes the situations that need to be addressed for the health of a society, allows different voices to be heard, and arrives at compromises that aren’t perfect, but work, at least imperfectly for everyone. Healthy partisanship ensures that all the citizens are considered and that political solutions are ideally common good solutions, not favoring some citizens over others. Partisans keep in mind that they represent a certain interest but also serve those with different interests. Maintaining that tension is important if you believe in the equality and value of all your citizens.

Partisanism: I looked. It is actually a word. I see partisanism as a distortion of healthy partisanship. It is where party ideals become ideology and there is a kind of absolutism about it that says we are right and they are wrong. The point is not seeking some form of common good, but simply the good of our party, our group. Wrong people don’t deserve good. Partisanism stirs up a religious fervor befitting the fact that it is an -ism. If partisanism can’t get its way it obstructs and often complains that the other side is unwilling to compromise. What is really the case is that the extreme positions sides are forced to in these situations brook no compromise–only winners and losers. Nothing is left on the table. We only allow either/or. There is no room to consider both/and.

Partisanism at its worst becomes political extremism in which pretenses of principle are jettisoned for the ruthless exercise of power. It might be a form of fascism on the right or a form of statism on the left. In history, this always ends badly in the loss of human rights, and often, a succession of violence.

As a follower of Christ, I believe both that politics reflects an aspect of the “culture mandate” given Adam and Eve and that in a world of finite and fallen human beings the best that can ever be obtained are proximate goods. Any move toward the absolutism of partisanism and political extremism ignores these realities and substitutes an earthly kingdom for a heavenly one. Hence, I believe at best politicians work for proximate solutions that listen to and serve all those represented by them. I believe it is essential that our parties strive toward this kind of political work and that as a citizenry, we support that work and stop vilifying political compromise and negotiation. Might we release a kind of creativity when we free politicians from the tyranny of “either/or” politics to explore what “both/and” might look like?

I hope those of you reading don’t try to argue with me about what “they” did, whoever “they” are. I’m not interested in those arguments because I’m not interested in that kind of partisanism. I don’t mind a politics where we have different ideas of the common good as long as the common good of all our citizens is our aim. Any other politics is unworthy of us because implicitly we are saying that there are some Americans we don’t need, some Americans who don’t count, some who don’t have the same value as human beings. I’ve watched us espouse the idea of all being created equal on July 4 and ignore it the rest of the year for too long. We won’t get it perfect but a politics that relentless pursued the common good, and vigorously resisted partisanism, could get it better. No matter your party, that’s a politics worth talking about.

Review: Public Intellectuals and the Common Good

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Public Intellectuals and the Common, Edited by Todd C. Ream, Jerry Pattengale, and Christopher J. Devers. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021.

Summary: A collection of presentations defining, articulating the need for and practice of Christian public intellectual work that pursues the wider good.

Public intellectuals? We don’t have any of them around here. That seems the verdict of many who struggle to name a good example of a Christian public intellectual since the time of Reinhold Niebuhr or Martin Luther King, Jr. George M. Marsden discusses this sense in the foreword to this volume and contends that the size of the audience isn’t the only criterion for a being a public intellectual. What is critical for Christians is that they do this, reflecting not only excellence of thought but also the sacrificial work of Christ in love for those who may differ for this.

In their introduction the editors identify the challenges for evangelicals in considering public intellectual work. Do we see ourselves as our brothers’ keepers? We are both politically divided and as an evangelical movement, fragmented and amorphous. We’ve been distracted from the hard work of excellent scholarship and so our engagement is often mediocre, with some exceptions. We’ve not created the mechanisms of rigorous critique to develop better ideas common in the public environment. And they introduce us to a Catholic scholar of the last century who exemplified loving excellence for the common good, Jacques Maritain.

The contributors of this volume (originally conference presentations) lay the groundwork for a vision of public intellectual work for the common good. The first two essays are theological reflections. Miroslav Volf articulates the need for and character of the public intellectual, pointing us back to Sarah and Abraham through whom “all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Of any essayist he articulates most clearly the challenge of public intellectual work in the time of disorienting change:

“To negotiate all these changes, we need at least three things: (1) to understand the seemingly chaotic world around us; (2) to discern, articulate, and commend visions of the good, flourishing life in diverse and largely pluralistic settings, and (3) to find navigable paths to reach together the goals aligned with those visions.

Amo Yong turns us to the apostles and emphasizes both the discursive and performative acts of their ministry and the essential element of the work of the Spirit. He contends that theologians as public intellectuals should not jettison their theological insights but be resolutely theological in their speech and activities, even as they recognize their pluralistic setting.

The second part includes messages from those in the marketplace. Linda A. Livingstone, president of Baylor University, insists on the importance of presidents of Christian institutions leading in public intellectual work within their institutions as well as facilitating that work among faculty. Heather Templeton Dill, president of the John Templeton Foundation, considers three of their Templeton Prize winners as exemplars of public intellectuals working for the common good, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, and Professor Alvin Plantinga. All three are unapologetic adherents of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity respectively. Yet all three are characterized by humility that builds bridges to other faith leaders and scholars who differ with them, exemplifying what John Inazu calls “confident pluralism.” Katelyn Beaty, a former editor at Christianity Today, closes out this section describing the role of journalists in a post-truth era, offering her own example in covering the fall of Bill Hybels, and how Willow Creek addressed allegations against him.

The last section consists of two reflections. One, by Emmanual Katangole, describes his personal transformation when he worked with Chris Rice at the Center for Reconciliation, moving from theoretical work to public engagement around racial reconciliation. Then the concluding presentation is an interview with John Perkins and the centrality of his relationship with Christ to all his reconciliation and community development work.

I traced several themes running through these essays. One is that public intellectual work by Christians must always be grounded in Christian piety and conviction that refuses to mute this in public engagement. Second is the vital character of moral and intellectual excellence rooted in Christian humility. Third is that public intellectuals offer and embody sense and clarity in our divided and fragmented world rather than perpetuating the confusion. Finally, their work is moved neither by animus nor fear but by love that seeks the flourishing of all human beings, and not just the ones in agreement with you.

I appreciated the mix of presenters from academia and the public realm–emphasizing the work of philanthropy, journalism, and community development in particular. This is not a “how to” book but in it we encounter both theory and exemplars. Perhaps the most helpful word is from George Marsden at the beginning: this is not work for a select few, but one for all Christians who recognize the vital role of the life of the mind to bring greater clarity to our disorienting times, to the end of the good of our neighbors–all of them. In this collection, the editors combine vision, urgency, and hope for this noble and much needed work.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Uncommon Ground

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uncommon ground

Uncommon Ground: Living Faithfully in a World of Difference, edited Timothy Keller & John Inazu. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2020.

Summary: Twelve individuals from different walks of life discuss what Christian faithfulness and the pursuit of the common good looks like in a deeply divided culture.

How are Christians to live in this time where we seem deeply divided about everything from wearing masks to the status of an embryo in the womb to the seriousness of the changes we are witnessing in the world’s climate? Not only are divisions around these and a host of issues deep, but engagement between those who differ seems nearly impossible. So what is a Christian to do? Many have decided that the only options are to “go to ground” and talk about vacations and share cute cat memes. Others have concluded that you must side up on one side of the divide and “unfriend” all those one disagrees with. How is a Christian to live if one cares about the common good and about faithfulness to a kingdom-of-God-shaped life that anticipates the peaceable kingdom and beloved community of the world to come.

These are the questions addressed by the twelve people who contributed to this book edited by Tim Keller, whose Redeemer Church has had a redemptive influence in New York City, and John Inazu, a law professor from St. Louis engaged in a program called the Carver Project whose stated mission is framed in these terms:

We empower Christian faculty and students to serve and connect university, church, and society. We work toward uncommon community, focused engagement, and creative dialogue.

Joining them are theologian Kristen Deede Johnson, InterVarsity/USA president Tom Lin, social entrepreneur Rudy Carrasco, writer and Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren, songwriter Sara Groves, rap artist Lecrae, Christian college network leader Shirley V. Hoogstra, psychiatrist Warren Kinghorn, African American community engagement leader in the Southern Baptist Convention Trillia Newbell, and Pastor Claude Richard Alexander, Jr. a peacemaker in Charlotte, North Carolina, leading a multi-site, socially engaged church, The Park Church.

Some essays are more inward looking as is Tish Harrison Warren’s describing her discovery of a calling as a writer, that of naming reality through words. Tim Keller traces his calling from a rural pastorate to New York City and his sense that the gospel critiqued both rural conservatism and urban secular culture, and the sense that in planting a church, Redeemer was called to be salt and light in the city, citizens both of an earthly and heavenly city with the latter taking priority.

Others think more about the terms of engagement of Christians with a divided and pluralistic society. John Inazu advances the virtues of humility, tolerance, and patience as he seeks to translate between the church and the university. Warren Kinghorn talks about walking with the psychologically wounded. Both Trillia Newbell and Claude Richard Alexander, Jr. explore what it means to be reconcilers, peacemakers in a racist society.

Keller and Inazu tie up the strands of the different essays by calling attention to one of the most significant works on Christian engagement written in the last thirty years, James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World. They single out Hunter’s idea of faithful presence and articulate four themes from the essay of what it takes to find “uncommon ground” in our culture while living faithfully to Christ:

  1. Christians should not overidentify with any particular political party or platform.
  2. Christians should approach the community around them through a posture of love and service.
  3. Christians should recognize that the gospel subverts rival stories and accounts of reality.
  4. Christians should reach out to others with humility, patience, and tolerance.

My one hesitance with the language of faithful presence is that it needs more definition to avoid being reduced to a life of service, integrity and niceness. Particularly considering the issues of justice roiling our culture with women, people of color, immigrants and more, is there something more to be said about Christians stance with those on the margins? Perhaps that is implicit in the idea of a subversive gospel. Several do touch on this. Lecrae talks about the narratives that color our perceptions around race and the necessity of telling different stories. Claude Richard Alexander, Jr. gets closest to “edgy” in stating that “[m]aking peace and striving for justice are intimately intertwined.”

I’ve always wanted to be in the place of reconciling differences, of finding the common ground, even if it is a third way shaped by the gospel. What I wrestle with is knowing when it is not possible to find common or uncommon ground. Are there things with which we cannot reconcile–for example white supremacy? Are there “brightline offenses” that must be called out and resisted without equivocation? What does it mean to love across these kinds of differences? How does one do this without becoming a partisan?

At the same time, the writers cast a vision for being very different Christians from what the world expects, and what is often portrayed in the media. The use of personal narratives helps us identify different examples of what it looks like. Yet this is not engagement “lite.” Most of the writers couple theological frameworks with personal stories, offering us rich fare for thought and community and life. Keller and Inazu not only contribute substantive essays but set up the collection and tie it together well. Even more, they created a conversation among the contributors, who often play off each other, giving the work a coherence not often found in a collection of essays. This was an “uncommon” conversation on “uncommon ground.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Running For Our Lives

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Running for our Lives, Robb Ryerse (Foreword by Brian D. McLaren). Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020.

Summary: A northwest Arkansas pastor decides to run in a primary against one of the most powerful Republican representatives in a grassroots campaign to restore a say in government to ordinary citizens.

Robb Ryerse was a political junkie. He was also a pastor whose developing ministry led him to political views at variance with many of his fundamentalist counterparts. It led him eventually to launch a counter-cultural and inclusive church in northwest Arkansas. It led to weeping when the nominee of his party was elected president in 2016 and joining others who were concerned about the way our political process was going.

All this led to Ryerse being recruited by Brand New Congress to run a grassroots campaign oriented around the common good of the everyday American. He went to a “Congress Camp” with a number of candidates from both parties including Antonia Ocasio-Cortez. What is striking is that Ryerse went as a Republican running against a Republican incumbent. He finds himself at variance with his party, not with the philosophy of governance, but rather with positions on healthcare, climate change, and immigration that have become immigration. He discovered that for all their disagreements, he could find common ground by focusing on the common good with those at Congress Camp who did not share his party affiliation–something they all wanted to take to Washington.

One of the key issues he explores is the issue of campaign finance. He argues that you will only have a Congress responsive to everyday citizens when they, and not big donors fund the campaigns, something Antonia Ocasio-Cortes was able to do. The challenge: this will probably take a constitutional amendment unless Americans refuse to support candidates funded by big money interests.

He traces the high and low points, the latter including a party dinner in a remote part of the district where his name was mispronounced and no one would talk to him. On the other hand were voters dissatisfied with the direction of the party who listened. A documentary crew follows his run from when he pays the $15,000 entry fee set by the party, his early high hopes and his increasing realization that he just didn’t have the votes. He ended winning 15 percent of the vote.

He ended the race a changed person. He reached a position on gun control that focused not only on the right to bear arms, but the “well-regulated” character of a citizenry who did so as a basis for gun legislation that did not take weapons away, but did govern how they could be obtained as part of a package of common sense gun legislation. Most of all, he became even more convinced of the need for a movement that focused on the electing of everyday people by everyday people committed to the common good. So when the invitation to become executive director of Brand New Congress to continue this movement, he said yes.

I suspect a number of people who read this review would not agree with all of Ryerse positions. I don’t. But what strikes me is that Ryerse argues for the kind of politician that I think we need to change the character of our legislative branch — people committed to seeking the common good of our citizens. What Ryerse does not answer is what it takes for such candidates to unseat a heavily funded incumbent on a shoe string. His support from everyday people, which he prided himself on, only amounted to $30,000, a paltry amount compared to his opponent. He can pride himself that he ran a principled race all he wants, but the truth is, he didn’t even come close to being elected. Nor did he generate enough of a movement of “everyday people” to even make the race competitive. Does that say something?

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.