Welcome to This Common Life!

Reader, I am so glad you’ve come across this newsletter and growing community.

Over the past several years, I have become increasingly interested in questions around faith formation, neighbor love, and the common good.

What has emerged from these questions is this project: “This Common Life.” TCL is a multifaceted project that seeks to explore these concepts and how they relate to our shared life in a society marked by our differences. This newsletter is one piece of the puzzle.

Subscribers can expect to find a newsletter in their inbox most Tuesday mornings. These newsletters include original short essays, interviews with leading voices in the church, academy, and society today, and more, and monthly podcast episodes.

This fall paid subscribers will have first access to book launch conversations and a reading group hosted here on Substack. You will also receive exclusive essays and reflections around disability, Asian America, Christian theology, interfaith dialogue, activism and empathy, and, of course, this common life we share.

Who am I?

I am an Indian American author and public theologian working at the intersection of faith and public life. I am a former columnist for Sojourners and currently serve as a Senior Contributor at the Fetzer Institute. I received an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary, where I studied American religious history and public theology. I am also an incoming PhD Student at the University of Chicago Divnity School.

In 2022, I founded Scholarship for Religion and Society LLC, a research and consulting firm working with some of the leading philanthropic and civic institutions, religious organizations, and faith leaders in America today.

My first book, Becoming Neighbors: The Common Good Made Local (Eerdmans) is available next Spring.

You can learn more about me over on my website and find me on the socials। —

What is SFRS?

Scholarship for Religion and Society (SFRS) is an innovative research and consulting firm working at the intersection of faith and public life. SFRS equips leaders and organizations to engage complex and nuanced issues of religious and social life today through beautiful and compelling theology that emphasizes the nuanced lived reality of Christians and is modeled after the concrete person of Jesus Christ. This Common Life is one way we do this work.

You can learn more about SFRS here.

Subscribe to This Common Life

Exploring questions of faith formation, neighbor love, and the pursuit of a common good.

People

Amar D. Peterman

@amardpeterman

🇮🇳 Public scholar and theologian | 📖 Author of "Becoming Neighbors: The Common Good Made Local" (Eerdmans, Spring 2026) | 🎓 PhD Student at the University of Chicago | 🏘️ Love thy neighbor, saints.