Where Goodness Still Grows: Reclaiming Virtue in An Age of Hypocrisy

Publisher Description

:Where Goodness Still Grows challenges evangelical culture and rediscovers a faith deeply rooted in a return to Jesus Christ's life and ministry.

The evangelical church in America has reached a cultural crossroads. Each week stories run in the popular media about the flight of millennials and minorities from the church. In this book Amy Peterson, the daughter of a prominent evangelical leader, is deeply concerned with both the corruption and blind spots of the evangelical church and the departure of so many from faith. She worries that the places millennials are currently going for spiritual connection (Soul Cycle and Crossfit, Harry Potter and Oprah) ultimately won't be enough, won't satisfy our deepest desires, and won't give us enough guidance as we try to make meaning out of an increasingly complex world.

Where Goodness Still Grows dissects the moral code of American evangelicalism and puts it back together in a new way. Amy writes as someone intimately familiar and both deeply fond and deeply critical of the world of conservative evangelicalism. She writes as a woman and a mother, as someone deeply invested in the future of humanity, and as someone who just needs to know how to teach her kids what it means to be good. She reimagines virtue as a tool, not a weapon; as wild, not tame; as embodied, not written. She examines specific virtues, such as kindness, purity, modesty, hospitality, and faithfulness, in each of these ways, and her analysis is always lit by a lantern of hope.