Dr. David P. Gushee

Ethicist, Pastor, Author, Advocate

Dr. Gushee has been featured on or in:

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Latest Book:

Foreword by Rubén Rosario Rodríguez

As a leading Christian ethicist, Dr. David P. Gushee takes his many years of teaching and experience to offer a fresh vision of the Christian moral life for today's turbulent world. With twenty-five, easy-to-digest chapters, plus audio and video versions that readers can access from links in each chapter, Introducing Christian Ethics offers is written for seminary students, educators, pastors, small groups, and Christians everywhere,

“A comprehensive one-stop manual on what it means to live Christianly.”
Peter Enns, author of The Bible Tells Me So and co-host of "The Bible for Normal People"

Listen to a sample of the audio, watch a sample of the video, and read a sample chapter in the link below.

Read the interview about the one year anniversary of the book in Read the Spirit.

10 Reasons Why I Changed My Mind book

The Dubious Ethics of Christian Twitter

By David Gushee | March 8, 2023

Twitter is an enticement to sin. How’s that for a lead? Shall I say more? I discovered Twitter early and have maintained a steady presence there, despite various pauses, doubts and regrets. I almost abandoned the site last year when Elon Musk took over. I might do so still for various Musk-related reasons, such as …

The Dubious Ethics of Christian Twitter

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An Interview with Ukrainian Baptist Theologian Fyodor Raychynets

By David Gushee | February 10, 2023

Last week, I was in Amsterdam for the annual academic colloquium of the International Baptist Theological Study Center. Among the scholars present there was my friend Fyodor Raychynets, a distinguished Baptist pastor and theologian, and a leader of the Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary in Kyiv, which I had the privilege of visiting several years ago. I …

An Interview with Ukrainian Baptist Theologian Fyodor Raychynets

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The State Murder of Tyre Nichols

By David Gushee | February 7, 2023

Joint article by Lisa Sharon Harper and David P. Gushee. Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison. — Mark 6:27 On the day we write this post, during the week Tyre Nichols was buried after being murdered by Memphis police …

The State Murder of Tyre Nichols

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The Black Resistance Tradition and Its Fight for U.S. Democracy

By David Gushee | January 20, 2023

Black America flipped the script on a racialized democratic state to make it more perfect. It is Black people’s fight that makes the United States exceptional. —Randal Jelks (2022) Many of us are profoundly worried about the health of American democracy. If so, we need to attend deeply to the deadly contradiction between structural racism and …

The Black Resistance Tradition and Its Fight for U.S. Democracy

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Dear Dr. Gushee: Can Sexual Orientation Ever Be Considered Grounds for Divorce?

By David Gushee | January 6, 2023

I get lots of messages that follow up on my 2014 book, Changing Our Mind. That book, aiming to reach evangelical Christians, argued for an end to Christian stigma and rejection of LGBTQ people and an incorporation of same-sex relationships into the covenantal-marital standard I believe is the best expression of Christian sexual ethics. Most evangelicals, it …

Dear Dr. Gushee: Can Sexual Orientation Ever Be Considered Grounds for Divorce?

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How I Am Believing in the Christmas Story This Year

By David Gushee | December 16, 2022

Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. (Matthew 1:23) It is a commonplace observation of mainstream historical-critical New Testament scholars that the accounts of Jesus’ birth contain historically questionable and even fantastical elements. For those whose …

How I Am Believing in the Christmas Story This Year

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The Shock of Being 60 Years Old

By David Gushee | December 6, 2022

I turned 60 years old this past summer. I have not quite gotten over it yet. Sixty is just different. It definitely feels at least three years older than 59. “They” say age is just a number. So maybe this is not about what the calendar says my age is. Maybe it is about what it …

The Shock of Being 60 Years Old

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I Vote for a Bit of Normal

By David Gushee | November 28, 2022

Four recent events in my life maybe converge to a theme: After six apocalyptic years, I want some normal. First event: I am walking around Zurich, Switzerland, in September. From what I have learned about Switzerland, I am confident this is a country whose current politics are pretty normal, as politics go. They are not facing a …

I Vote for a Bit of Normal

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Trump’s Toxicity: A First Take on the Midterm Elections

By David Gushee | November 10, 2022

On the morning after, with more results still to come in, so far the most important takeaway from the midterm elections is that Donald Trump keeps hurting the Republican Party, whose soul he has eaten, and this is grounds for hope. It is an unrelenting rule of American politics that the party that holds the White …

Trump’s Toxicity: A First Take on the Midterm Elections

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The Unsolvable Political Problem Facing Those Who Lead Purple Churches

By David Gushee | October 11, 2022

The United States is bitterly divided along what we now call red/blue, conservative/liberal, Republican/Democrat lines. Of course, not everyone fits into those boxes, but enough do for the statement to be accurate. The mutual suspicion and social separation between the two camps is intensifying. As we prepare for the midterm elections and we see so many …

The Unsolvable Political Problem Facing Those Who Lead Purple Churches

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The Post-evangelical Phenomenon Is in Europe Too

By David Gushee | September 26, 2022

Just after Labor Day, I flew to Zurich to begin 10 days of meetings, podcasts and speeches in Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands. The event introduced me to the growing post-evangelical scene in Europe, as well as the situation facing LGBTQ Christians. I was struck by several profound similarities to our situation here in the United …

The Post-evangelical Phenomenon Is in Europe Too

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‘Radical New Arrangements’: On Conservative Christian Radicalization in the U.S.

By David Gushee | September 7, 2022

After a year of researching the matter rather deeply — including listening to conservative scholars, activists and politicians — it has become completely clear to me that a significant chunk of conservative Christians in the United States has moved from political disenchantment to a full-on radicalization that threatens our democracy. I am not just talking about …

‘Radical New Arrangements’: On Conservative Christian Radicalization in the U.S.

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What Happened to American Conservatism? Engaging Matthew Continetti’s The Right

By David Gushee | August 15, 2022

It is always valuable to engage the other side. Especially when one finds the other side utterly bewildering. The other side I am trying to engage is American political conservatism. My guide today is Matthew Continetti, a brilliant conservative policy wonk with all the “right” credentials — a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, columnist for Commentary magazine, …

What Happened to American Conservatism? Engaging Matthew Continetti’s The Right

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When Christianity Becomes Toxic ‘Christianism’

By David Gushee | July 29, 2022

Many people appear baffled about the hard-right turn in U.S. conservative religion. It’s not just a turn to politics, or to hard-right politics, that is problematic. It is the apparent amorality, the cruelty, bigotry and snarling spirit that is so impossible to reconcile with the Spirit of Christ. It’s the nasty cast of characters who are …

When Christianity Becomes Toxic ‘Christianism’

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Moving from Trauma to Action

By David Gushee | July 11, 2022

I was talking with someone very close to me recently who said something important I want to share: Our country has so many things going wrong, so many things really to feel ashamed about in a way, that it seems like on an average day I have two choices: either think about those things and then …

Moving from Trauma to Action

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David Gushee Speaking

An Ethicist Tackles the Issues

Dr. Gushee speaks to a wide range of audiences and organizations, including churches, universities, special forums, podcasts and the media. He often speaks on evangelicalism, LGBTQ+ inclusion, politics, and other issues of the day by offering a principled and everyday level perspective that informs and inspires.

After Evangelicalism Group Study Guide

Millions are getting lost in the evangelical maze: inerrancy, indifference to the environment, deterministic Calvinism, purity culture, racism, LGBTQ discrimination, male dominance, and Christian nationalism. As one of America’s leading academics speaking to the issues of religion today, David Gushee’s After Evangelicalism offers a clear assessment and a new way forward for disillusioned post-evangelicals.

David Gushee’s work in [Changing Our Mind] stands to be of pivotal importance in reframing the LGBTQ dialogue in the church, and in reclaiming the church’s moral authority for a new generation. 

—Matthew Vines, author of God and the Gay Christian

Kingdom Ethics is arguably the most significant and comprehensive Christian ethics textbook of our time.”
— Michelle A. Clifton-Soderstrom, North Park Theological Seminary

“Anyone who wants to know what a Christian ethicist is and does can begin [with Still Christian], with the compelling account of how one man makes life-bending decisions about things that matter, without ever losing faith in the tender Jesus who has hold of his soul.”

Barbara Brown Taylor, author of Leaving Church and Learning to Walk in the Dark

"David Gushee is one of the best Christian ethicists alive today. "

Shane Claiborne, speaker, activist, and author of Executing Grace

"Thinking about Christianity after evangelicalism is neither trendy, alarmist, nor faithless, but rather it carves out a needed path forward for those millions of exvangelicals who have found the movement that birthed them to be irrelevant, traumatic, and even abhorrent and are seeking a place to land. Few have earned the right to speak to this topic with such prophetic clarity and practical insight, not to mention approachable writing style, as David Gushee."

Peter Enns, author of How the Bible Actually Works

About David Gushee

Dr. David P. Gushee is Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics and Director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University, and Chair of Christian Social Ethics Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam/IBTS.

Widely regarded as one of the world's leading Christian ethicists, he is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of more than 27 books and approximately 175 book chapters, journal articles, and reviews. 

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