This Common Life

TCL is a collection of projects and networks that collectively seek to equip the Christian church to engage faithfully, critically, and consistently in the complex issues of our religious and social life today through beautiful and compelling theology that address issues of the “common” and the “good.”  

The consistent public output for the TCL project is a weekly newsletter and regular podcasts that offer thoughts on Christian and Public Life. Join a growing community of emerging leaders, pastors, educators, theologians, creatives, and others by subscribing today.

This Common Life: Seeking the Common Good Through Love of Neighbor is forthcoming with Eerdmans Publishing Company.

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This Common Life: Seeking the Common Good Through Love of Neighbor

This Common Life brings together the Christian practice of neighbor love and a theologically rich  imagination of the common good to cast a constructive vision of life together that cuts across  divisions. This text is not a diagnosis of toxic polarization, violence, oppression, and  marginalization (many have already done this important work), but a prescription—a proposal for  how we might move forward in redemptive, Christ-like love by focusing on our common life.  Aimed at pastors, lay leaders, community organizers, and churchgoers, this book looks to  Scripture and the teachings of the church to make a compelling case for a distinct and  constructive understanding of both the “common” and the “good” that can generate communities  marked by love, belonging, justice, and mutual flourishing.

Select Projects

Writing:

“A Study in Belonging: Particularity as a Gift in Acts 17,” in Awake, Emerging and Connected: Theologies of Justice from the Missing Generation (London: SCM Press, 2024).

"Bringing Religion to the Office" chapter contribution forthcoming in Theology, Religion, and The Office: Beauty in Ordinary Things (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2024)

“We Gather at the Table,” co-authored with Nicholas Tangen in Hungry for Hope: Letters to the Church from Young Adults (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2025).

Speaking:

“Living Neighborly in a Chaotic World,” a paper presentation at the Koinonia Forum, Princeton Theological Seminary, March 2023.

Research:

"The AAPI Community & America’s Religious Diversity Interfaith America," a research project funded by The Asian American Foundation, Public Religion and Research Institute, and Interfaith America

"Spiritual Motherhood in the Sacred Sector" in partnership with The Fetzer Institute  

"The Evangelicals and Interfaith Project" hosted by Interfaith America                                                                                              
The Good Road Network (GRN) connects and convenes a national network of Christians who are pursuing a common good in their community. The GRN seeks to offer a space for Christians to gather, find community, and thrive together.

This learning laboratory is comprised of leaders across a range of sectors including healthcare, law, theology, public policy, ethics, pastoral ministry, and community organizing.

The GRN is led by a collection of Common Life Fellows who organize various cohorts throughout the year.

Want to join the GRN? Use the contact form to get started! 

"God’s action in and towards the world will always call us beyond ourselves."

Amar D. Peterman