David P. Gushee

David P. Gushee is an ethicist, pastor, author, and advocate. He is a distinguished University professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University, chair of Christian social ethics at Vrije Universiteit ("Free University") Amsterdam, and senior research fellow at the International Baptist Theological Study Centre. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of more than 27 books and over 175 academic works, including book chapters, journal articles, and reviews. He is also an activist who has led efforts on climate, torture, and LGBTQ inclusion.

David P. Gushee grew up in Vienna, Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C. where his father worked for the Congressional Research Service and performed policy analysis. David P. Gushee has said his mother mainly raised him and his siblings and strove to ensure they attended St. Mark's Catholic Church as often as possible. By fifteen, David has said he began a spiritual search, which brought him to the Southern Baptists Church in 1978. He said within four days of the experience, he was a born-again convert, and two weeks after, he was baptized.

He has said his new belief did not solve the problems that placed him on his spiritual search but clarified his identity. From there, he attended college at William and Mary, where he clashed with the religious department. He then went to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, went on youth ministry before peacemaking work, and decided to keep studying. He moved to Manhattan to get his Ph.D. in Christian ethics and at the Union Theological Seminary, from which he would graduate in 1993 in New York City.

Since graduation, Rev. Dr. David P. Gushee has served as the distinguished professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University, the chair of Christian social ethics at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, and a senior research fellow at the International Baptist Theological Study Centre. He was elected as the president of both the American Academy of Religion and Society of Christian Ethics. This has been considered as a signal of his role as a leading Christian ethicist. Based on his 1994 book—his first book, based on his Ph.D. thesis—Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust, Gushee has been recognized internationally as a Holocaust scholar and ethicist. In 2008, based in part on this work, he was appointed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to serve as a member of the Church Relations and the Holocaust Committee.

During his career, he has authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited at least 25 books and approximately 175 book chapters, journal articles, and reviews. His recognized works include Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust, Kingdom Ethics, The Sacredness of Human Life, and Changing Our Mind. His book, After Evangelism, charts a theological and ethical course for post-evangelical Christians, which he more personally relates in his memoir Still Christian.

In addition to his published books and the books he has edited, David P. Gushee has been a contributor to other books. These include:

• Toward an Evangelical Public Policy: Political Strategies for the Health of the Nation, edited by Ronald J. Sider and Diane Knippers, 2005
• Doing Right and Doing Good: Classical and Contemporary Readings in Christian Ethics, edited by David Ahearn and Peter Gathje, 2005

David P. Gushee has been on the editorial board of periodicals, including Prism and Faithworks; while he has also extensively contributed to various periodicals:

• Christianity Today
• Christian Century
• Perspectives in Religious Culture
• Books and Culture
• Sojourners
• Journal of Church and State
• Catholic Digest
• Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science
• Journal of Family Ministry
• Holocaus and Genocide Studies
• Theology Today
• Annals of the Society of Christian Ethics
• Jackson Sun
• Beliefnet
• Religion News Service

In his book Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context, Gushee and collaborator Glen H. Stassen state the intent of the book was to reclaim Jesus Christ for Christian ethics and the moral life of the church. The book approaches Christian ethics in relation to the Sermon on the Mount, which Gushee believes is studied less than it should be. From a study of that passage, they apply principles found there to issues such as abortion, cloning, stem cell research, genetic engineering, homosexuality, politics, the environment, and capital punishment. They find in the sermon, concrete directions for many situations, as well as general principles underlying them; however, they consider few of these principles to be absolute as the book attempts to appeal to a larger audience, rather than a narrow ecumenical or evangelical audience.

In his book Getting Marriage Right, another of his popular titles, Gushee looks at the state of contemporary marriage from a Christian perspective. In so doing, he asserts the bond of marriage should not be easily broken and offers a scriptural approach that suggests marriage should be based on four principle concepts: the creation purposes of marriage, the covenant structure of marriage, the kingdom of possibilities of marriage, and the community context of marriage. At the same time, he acknowledges that marriages in which there is violence, desertion, and infidelity may have divorce justified, according to the Bible. He also considers how stronger marriage and divorce laws could prevent broken homes and the negative impact of broken homes on children. The book also includes advice for churches on how they could prevent divorce and, in turn, strengthen marriages.

David P. Gushee has worked with and led significant advocacy and activist efforts on climate, torture, and LGBTQ inclusion in the church. Gushee has served as president of Evangelicals for Human Rights, an organization advocating for an end to torture, which has since become the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good. Gushee also served on The Constitution Project's Detainee Treatment Task Force since December 2010. He helped draft the Evangelical Climate Initiative's Call to Action intended to bring awareness and change for climate change.

In his book Changing Our Mind, published in October 2014, Gushee makes a biblical case for rethinking the LGBTQ issue, insofar as it is an issue with the Catholic faith, and for opening Christian hearts to accept the marginalized and mistreated gay Christians in the church. Since his publication of the book, Gushee has worked to serve the well-being of the LGBTQ community with what he has called an attempt to embody a repentant commitment. This has included joining the work of the Family Acceptance Project as a faith consultant, being a member of the advisory board of the Atlanta chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and lecturing on LGBTQ and Christianity issues since 2015.