Episode 436: Amar Peterman
In this conversation, Amar Peterman and I get into the slow, local, unglamorous work of becoming neighbors across real difference. We talk about the table as the place where the common good gets built, and why so many of us are far more comfortable playing host than being hosted - flinging our doors open without ever considering who actually walks through them. We get into hospitality as displacement, an accompaniment that refuses to leave, Thomas learning you can't reason your way to resurrection, and an imagination that can see life where everything around us insists there's only division. Here's the challenge: we have to learn to receive before we can ever give, to love people beyond their labels, and to start right where we are, with the one neighbor in front of us.
Amar D. Peterman is a constructive theologian working at the intersection of faith and public life. He is the founder of Scholarship for Religion and Society LLC and the former assistant director of civic networks at Interfaith America. Peterman holds an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary and is currently a PhD student at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His writing and research have been featured in Sojourners, Christianity Today, The Christian Century,The Fetzer Institute, The Berkley Forum, and more. He also publishes regularly on his Substack, This Common Life.
Amar's Book:
Amar's Recommendations:
