Spiritual Misfits Podcast · Meeting Ground

If the world doesn't end and we're still neighbours (Amar D. Peterman)

·59 min·3 clips

Peterman says neighbors should be enjoyed, not used as conversion targets.

1. Spiritual Misfits Podcast speaks with Amar D. Peterman about Becoming Neighbors: the Common Good Made Local and his argument for neighbor-love. 2. Amar Peterman is a PhD student at the University of Chicago, a Milwaukee resident, a former nonprofit worker, and the author of the book under discussion. 3. The episode asks what Christians are for when neighbor-love is treated as a radical practice rather than a soft moral slogan. 4. Peterman says his name, adoption from India to the United States, and his life between a Polish Catholic neighborhood and a white evangelical megachurch made him feel like a 'spiritual misfit.' 5. He describes being told to leave his 'Indian-ness' behind and to find identity in Christ inside a Bible college culture that pressed for a 'blank slate.' 6. He says questions about race, justice, and identity were met with condemnation rather than careful conversation. 7. Princeton Theological Seminary gave him a different home while keeping him a misfit among Presbyterians and mainline Protestants. 8. Peterman says he stumbled into interfaith work through a scholarship from Neighborly Faith to an Interfaith America leadership summit. 9. He recalls expecting antagonism at that summit and instead finding tables where people asked about his tradition and his view of interfaith cooperation. 10. He links that experience to community organizing in Milwaukee and Chicago, where organizers invited him to meetings and shared practical wisdom. 11. Peterman says the book's driving force is Christ's call to love neighbors, which he connects to liberation theology and a 'preferential option for the poor.' 12. He cites Luke's Samaritan parable and says Jesus asks, 'which of these became a neighbor to the one in need?' 13. He argues that 'if the world is going to end' people can justify almost anything, but the harder question is what happens 'if the world doesn't end.' 14. He says that question matters because people still have to share grocery stores, recreational softball leagues, and neighborhood parks. 15. Peterman says Augustine's distinction between things to 'use' and things to 'enjoy' should include neighbors, not just God. 16. He says Christians should not arrive at interfaith tables to 'grab the mic' or walk past the table, but to listen and participate. 17. He argues that Christian self-sufficiency has often kept churches from joining existing public work such as food pantries and neighborhood coalitions. 18. He says faith is dynamic and shaped by 'thrownness,' proximity, lament, and Hartmut Rosa's idea of resonance. 19. The conversation is reflective and interview-driven, with Will Small pressing on identity, interfaith posture, and spiritual formation. 20. People interested in interfaith cooperation, Christian ethics, and neighborhood organizing will get the most from it. 21. People wanting a quick theological slogan or a combative debate may skip it.

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