This Common Life Podcast Amar D. Peterman

This month I’m joined by David Congdon to talk about his new book and its central question: ”Who is a true Christian?”
Together we cover a wide range of topics David engages with in the book ranging from how Christians have sought to define the “essence” of Christianity across place and time through what David calls “prescriptivist” and “descriptivist” accounts to why evangelicals indebted to the very liberalism that they claim to reject so fervently.
We also look at how the influence of “modernity” and “post-modernity” have shaped this project differently, including the idea that worshiping communities hang on the fragile choice to remain a Christian when alternatives abound.
Finally, we close our conversation in the same way that David closes his book, asking what it might mean to embrace polydoxy over orthodoxy as a way of thinking about Christianity that does not have a magisterial authority.
Dr. David W. Congdon is an author, speaker, and scholar working in the area of theology and culture. He is a graduate of Wheaton College and of Princeton Seminary where he received both his M.Div. and Ph.D. in theology. He is also the Senior Editor at the University Press of Kansas, where he oversees the publishing program in political science, law, US history, Native American and Indigenous studies, environmental studies, American studies, and religion.
Show Notes:
* How can Christianity span cultures, time, geography, etc., and remain the same while inevitably changing/adapting to particular places and times?
* A threefold structure: “Believing, behaving, and belonging” (or, “knowing, doing, being”).
* Modernity is a period in which that givenness of belief—that givenness of life—has been called into question. This is a period where individuals are empowered to ask questions like, “Do I really have to believe this?”
* The distinction between descriptive and prescriptive accounts goes back to linguistics and dictionaries. Do dictionaries give us a description of how language is actually used, or do they give us a prescriptive norm for how we ought to use language?
* Descriptive accounts attempt to describe what we see on the ground—accepting the claim of those who call themselves Christian and then examining what they do and say.
* Prescriptive accounts suggest that finding the essence of Christianity requires adhering to specific marks—practices, beliefs, ideas, patterns—that. make one a genuine Christian.
* “My attempt in this book is to try to form a way of thinking about Christianity that helps in some ways mediate that conversation between the descriptive side and the prescriptive side. I think both have genuinely helpful and important insights, but the terms of the conversation need to be rethought in order to allow for us to recognize the merits of both positions.”
* Descriptive historians of evangelicalism have offered really helpful, insightful, descriptive analyses of American evangelicalism. But this is, in part, why their work has become controversial for evangelicals. It is shining a light on what evangelicalism actually is in a way that clashes with evangelicals’ own self-understanding.
* “Evangelicals are really interesting…because on the one hand, they're so committed to a prescriptive identity and on the other hand, descriptively, they could not be further from that.”
* “The conservative or evangelical take on Christianity is just as liberal as the liberals they're criticizing in that they are just as deeply embedded in the modern liberal project and context as the liberal Protestants that they think they are the opposite of.”
* The concept of “worldview” has exploded within American evangelicalism
* The concept of worldview, in effect, synthesizes the doctrine-belief aspect with the culture-belonging aspect.
* Because of its culture-totalizing dimension, worldview is able to address the current needs of Christians, especially conservative evange

This month I am joined on the podcast by John Inazu, Sally D. Danforth Distinguished Professor of Law and Religion at Washington University in St. Louis. John and I discuss his latest book, Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect.
We talk about the relationship between the law and violence, the role of faith formation in how we approach disagreement, the things people say when they think “everyone listening is just like them,” and more.
Altogether, John’s new book charts a surprising path to navigating differences with empathy and respect. For those seeking a fruitful and generative path through and beyond this cultural moment of division, Learning to Disagree is a worthy read.
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Show Notes:
* Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory
* Robert M. Cover, “Violence and the Word"
Timestamps:
3:50 — Which “John Inazu” is writing this book?
7:30 — The process of writing Learning To Disagree
12:40 — The relationship between law and violence
16:00 — The role of benevolence, mercy, and grace in our legal system
18:00 — Rethinking the “problem” of faith formation
22:30 — “I am amazed at the things that people say when they think everyone listening is just like them”
From the Author: In Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect, Inazu draws from his experiences teaching law to show how it is possible to disagree about hard issues. By finding nuance in some of today’s most divisive issues and taking time to learn how the other side thinks, Inazu gives readers ideas and tools to navigate the differences and disagreements they encounter in their everyday lives without sacrificing their own convictions.
John Inazu is the Sally D. Danforth Distinguished Professor of Law and Religion at Washington University in St. Louis. He teaches criminal law, law and religion, and various First Amendment courses. He writes and speaks frequently about pluralism, assembly, free speech, religious freedom, and other issues. John has written three books and published opinion pieces in the Washington Post, Atlantic, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, USA Today, Newsweek, and CNN. He is also the founder of the Carver Project and the Legal Vocation Fellowship and is a senior fellow with Interfaith America.



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I am incredibly excited to bring back the audio format of This Common Life in 2024! To kick things off, I talked with Dr. Hanna Reichel about their latest book, After Method: Queer Grace, Conceptual Design, and the Possibility of Theology (Westminster John Knox Press, 2023).
After Method assumes the impossibility of doing theology right–and moves beyond it. Leaning on that great Lutheran refrain of “grace alone,” Hanna offers a middle way between either baptizing method as salvific or throwing it out altogether. It is an intriguing read.
Hanna and I cover many topics, including the pursuit of theological perfection and the relationship between design and use. We also talk about Christianity and goodness—what kind of claim does Christianity have on goodness? Is ‘the good’ something we should attempt to locate and allocate?
Dr. Hanna Reichel is Associate Professor of Reformed Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. Reichel’s teaching spans doctrine and political theology. Their research interests include Christology, theological anthropology, eschatology, doctrine of God, theological epistemology, political theology, queer theology, and theologies of the digital. Reichel has authored two monographs and more than two dozen peer-reviewed articles or chapters, as well as co-edited six volumes or themed journal issues. After Method is their second book.
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Purchase After Method here.
Subscribe to “This Common Life” here.
For a concise summary and review of After Method, I recommend Stephen D. Morrison’s review published on his website.




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In week two of our advent series, I reflect the complex, difficult realities that surround a season focused on hope, peace, and goodwill. In return, I argue for an enchanted faith centered around God’s uniting with us through Jesus Christ.
Through the indwelling and power of the Holy Spirit, we are united with Christ and He with us. We participate in His glory, and He enters in our suffering. This, Augustine argues, is the basis of our salvation: “that God would choose to be incomplete or lacking without His Church.” This, of course, demands the incarnation of God.
Transcript available at amardpeterman.substack.com


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This week, Sabina Pappu examines the subtle difference between Zachariah’s “can” and Mary’s “will” in the Gospel of Luke.
“I’ve been wrestling with the reality that there might be some questions that enable me to hear from God more clearly”
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