a new introduction
this common life in 2023 and beyond + a special offer
Around this time last year, I was hustling on all the big social media platforms. I created spreadsheets of scheduled tweets, pre-recorded Instagram reels and TikTok videos, and essays queued up on Facebook. I watched as friends and colleagues blew up on these apps over the previous two years. If they could go from 500 to 50,000 followers, why couldn’t I?
However, in a brief conversation with my friend John (who happens to be a media marketing expert), he asked why I wanted to gain such a large following on these apps. Why did I want to build my digital platform on these “rented-out” plots of digital real estate?
I hadn’t given it much thought before. I assumed that this was the only viable path to doing the work I actually wanted to do. I thought if I played the algorithm game and found a way to go viral a handful of times, then I could have a large enough following to make a difference.
In return, John explained that if I wanted to build a meaningful platform for public scholarship, I’d have to take a risk and build a community that exists no matter the tumultuous state of Twitter, Facebook, and other apps that are notoriously unstable and unconducive for meaningful, nuanced conversation. His solution: a newsletter.
I knew this would be even more difficult than all the work I had put into social media. One catchy tweet can garner hundreds of “follows,” but it takes an outstanding essay for just a handful of folks to hit “subscribe.” Indeed, people protect their inboxes far more than their Twitter feeds.
I was skeptical … but willing to try.
After taking two months to research and think about what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it, and why I wanted to say it in the first place, I launched This Common Life in March of 2021 with a brief quote from Oliver O’Donovan:
[T]reated as of great moral significance is a relation in which a common interest generates in those who share it a further reflective interest in one another. We have an abstract noun reserved for this special form of common relation: community…In speaking of a community…we imply, not only a relation common to the participants, but a relation among them.
Almost a year and 50+ posts later, there is incredible momentum rolling into 2023. Because hundreds of you have hit “subscribe,” this newsletter has evolved into an entire project that includes a paid subscription, podcast, growing community of exceptional emerging Christian leaders, and interviews with experts at the intersection of faith and public life.
Even still, the mission has remained the same: This Common Life aims to question and discern the existence of a “common good” in our life together through the examination of our interconnectedness, commonality, and community. Like Donovan, this newsletter aims to examine not only relations common to our communities but the relationships formed among communities.
Lord willing, This Common Life will continue to grow in 2023 as we bring in monthly contributors to the podcast, host more interviews, review new books, and converse through Substack threads, and bring more people into this digital community.
I am thankful to each and every one of you for making space in your inbox for this newsletter.
In return, to kick off this new year, I’m offering a yearly subscription for only $3/month. The offer is valid through the end of the month. Follow the link below to subscribe. If you’d like to know more about what is offered in a paid subscription (and why I have one in the first place), you can read more about it here.
Reading:
Shreya Ramachandran, “For a Christian Who Grew up Hindu, Life is an Interfaith Journey” (Interfaith America Magazine)
Jonathan Tran, “The Materiality of Culture” in a Syndicate Forum on Norman Wirzba’s excellent book, This Sacred Life.
Watching:
You - Season 2 [Rewatch] (Netflix)
Wednesday (Netflix)
Trevor Noah — I Wish You Would (Netflix)