Christian Ethics | David P Gushee

Bearing Faithful Witness: Christian Public Theology in Crisis Times and All Other Times

Note: The talk below was presented on 8 February to Ethiopian theologians gathered under the banner of Prophetic: The Public Theology Fellowship, led by the gifted Andrew DeCort. You will see that my task in this workshop was to address the nature, purpose, and strategy of Christian public theology. I was also asked to reflect on […]

Bearing Faithful Witness: Christian Public Theology in Crisis Times and All Other Times

Forming Disciples of Jesus

Christian Ethics, Jesus / By David Gushee

Note to Readers: I preached this sermon on January 5, 2025 at Genesis Church in Royal Oak, Michigan. My assignment was to talk about how to create an ethic around the person of Jesus and how to do that in community. So even though this was Epiphany Sunday, I chose a text from the other

Forming Disciples of Jesus

My New Book: The Moral Teachings of Jesus

Christian Ethics, Jesus / By David Gushee

My newest book, The Moral Teachings of Jesus: Radical Instruction in the Will of God, will be out from Wipf and Stock Publishers (Cascade Books) on September 10. Pre-orders are now available. What I do in this book is dig into forty moral teachings of Jesus as presented in the Gospels. Each of these teachings is addressed

My New Book: The Moral Teachings of Jesus

Thinking Biblically about Government in an Election Year

Christian Ethics, Christianity and Politics, Jesus / By David Gushee

I begin by saying the obvious: We enter an election year in a time of great political and cultural division in our country. That could have been said every four years since 1968. But today we also can add that we enter an election year with very high levels of social mistrust, loss of confidence in

Thinking Biblically about Government in an Election Year

Racism’s Absurdity in Light of the Gospel

Christian Ethics, Justice, Racial Justice / By David Gushee

We’ve just celebrated Martin Luther King weekend. The great Baptist preacher, scholar and activist would have been 95 years old. We rightly honor him. The Civil Rights Movement led by King was not that long ago. We still live with the reverberations of that era. Indeed, I would suggest our own miserably divided politics still reflect

Racism’s Absurdity in Light of the Gospel

We Face a Cultural Crisis, Not Just a Political One

Christian Ethics, Christianity and Politics / By David Gushee

As Jeanie and I danced the night away in Atlanta on New Year’s Eve — yes, we actually did that, although I admit I ended up with a twisted knee, a sadly predictable outcome for a man of my rapidly advancing years — I was aware that the spirit of revelry in the room was not

We Face a Cultural Crisis, Not Just a Political One

City of the Living, City of the Dead: From Vilnius to Israel/Palestine

Christian Ethics, Holocaust, Peacemaking / By David Gushee

I spent the last weekend of October exploring the Old Town of Vilnius, Lithuania. I was in that grand 700-year-old city for speaking appearances and to visit friends. My dear wife, Jeanie, came with me. Tuesday, Oct. 31, was free, and Jeanie and I decided on different itineraries. She went exploring in Lithuania’s many historic Catholic

City of the Living, City of the Dead: From Vilnius to Israel/Palestine

My argument in Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies

Christian Ethics, Christianity and Politics, Evangelicalism / By David Gushee

This week, my new book, Defending Democracy from its Christian Enemies, officially releases. I am told that even before its release, it exceeded the publisher’s sales expectations for one full year. I am grateful for the high interest in the book. In this post, I want to review its main arguments. My thesis is that many

My argument in Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies

Erasmus Indicts Trump—and the USA

Christian Ethics, Christianity and Politics / By David Gushee

One thing that has gone tragically wrong with American politics over the past eight years is that the electorate has admitted into the highest reaches of national life a man obviously lacking in the moral temperament, training and character required of a national leader. Just barely, this man became president. Somewhat less barely, after four chaotic

Erasmus Indicts Trump—and the USA

Preserving a Sense of the Ultimate

Christian Ethics, Personal Stories, Sacredness of Life / By David Gushee

I want to make the modest proposal that there is a dimension of religion, including Christianity, that properly transcends world affairs to focus on the state of individual character and the health of the soul. I speak of the inner core of a human being, who we are in our deepest selfhood and the quiet place

Preserving a Sense of the Ultimate