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.

Subscribe
Learn More:

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,” chapter contribution forthcoming in Awake, Emerging and Connected: Theologies of Justice from the Missing Generation (SCM Press, 2024).

"Bringing Religion to the Office" chapter contribution forthcoming in Theology and The Office (Fortress Press, 2024)

“Community,” a chapter contribution forthcoming with Augsburg University Riverside Innovation Hub’s Young Authors Program, co-authored with Nicholas Tangen.

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 Community of Emerging Christian Leaders (CECL) Network is a peer-to-peer Christian network that seeks to offer a space for exceptional young Christians across America to gather, find community, and thrive together. This network aims to remind young Christian leaders that they are not alone in the difficult and society-shaping work God has called them to.

This learning laboratory is comprised of leaders who are budding experts in diverse fields including healthcare, law, theology, public policy, ethics, pastoral ministry, and social activism with ambitions of bridge building, peacemaking, justice seeking, and church educating. Participants range from advanced undergraduate students to post-doctoral fellows. All members have a demonstrated record of rich theological engagement, faithful and practical engagement, and innovative and compelling visions for Christian and public life. 

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

Amar D. Peterman