BONUS! Faith Uncensored with David P. Gushee

Today we're sharing the audio from our YouTube live stream with David P. Gushee. Rev. Prof. Dr. David P. Gushee is Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University, Chair of Christian Social Ethics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Senior Research Fellow, International Baptist Theological Study Centre. He is also the elected past-president of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Christian Ethics. Dr. Gushee is the author, co-author, or editor of nearly 30 books, including Kingdom Ethics, Changing Our Mind, After Evangelicalism, Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust, Introducing Christian Ethics, and The Sacredness of Human Life. He is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading Christian moral thinkers. He and his wife, Jeanie, live in Atlanta, Georgia. Learn more at https://davidpgushee.com/

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Transcript

0:00

hey, it's tanish Cheever from ancient Jesus' future faith. We are off this week for the holidays. So no new podcast episode this week. However, what we do have for you today is the audio recording of the live stream that Don did last month with David P gushy. If you don't know who that is, you really should because he's awesome. Just a little bit about him real quick. Reverend professor, Dr. David P gushy is a distinct. University professor of Christian ethics at Mercer university. He holds a bunch of other fancy titles as well. And he is the author co author or editor of nearly 30 books, including kingdom ethics, changing our mind. And after evangelicalism. And I'm also pretty sure he has another book coming out in 2023. So he's a pretty prolific writer anyway don had a fantastic conversation with gushy and we hope that you enjoy it here as well have a great week

Don: 0:57

Hey everyone. I hope you're having a good night. Good week. Welcome to Faith Uncensored. I'm Don and I just wanna welcome you, give you a couple ground rules before we get started tonight. We got a great special guest tonight. And so just so you know, we are live. And so you're welcome to ask any questions you want, just put'em in the chat. In YouTube, we just ask that you put a cue and a colon before the chat in order to make it a little bit easier for me to go through and find it amidst the conversations happening. In addition to that, we just ask that you make sure you treat everyone with kindness, compassion, and, uh, yes, just general niceness in in the conversations that happen. And beyond that, any question is welcome. Feel free to ask it and we will do our best to, uh, answer it. So let me just share a couple things real quick. Tonight's guest is David p Gushi. Uh, uh, he is the Distinguished University professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University. And, uh, he is also the chair of Christian Social Ethics at a university I cannot pronounce. And even though he has told me one other time how to pronounce it, I still don't remember how to pronounce it. In Amsterdam, senior Research Fellow, international Baptist Theological Study Center. So with that, I wanna welcome, uh, David to the show. How you

David P. Gushee: 2:19

doing tonight, David? I'm good. Uh, it's Fry Universite, practice

Don: 2:27

that I'll work on that for the next one.

David P. Gushee: 2:32

Uh, it's good. Uh, I'm good. Uh, thanks for having me on and it's good to meet your friends and whoever's listening in

Don: 2:37

this evening. Yeah. So, uh, David, I I want to kind of just, if you don't mind it, it might seem like kind of a silly question, uh, but I'm sure you get asked it constantly. Like what would you say is an ethicist other than you

David P. Gushee: 2:58

Um, an ethicist is somebody who studies morality, um, right and wrong, good and bad, virtuous and evil. Uh, the moral dimension of life. And, um, a Christian ethicist is somebody who does that from within the framework of the Christian faith. So, um, there are ethicists in various religious traditions, there are secular ethicists, there are philosophical ethicists, there's also professional ethicist like in medicine and so on law. Yeah. Um, but an ethicist thinks about moral right and wrong. And I'm a Christian ethicist, so I think about it from the perspective of the Christian faith.

Don: 3:42

So ideally, I, I imagine that you don't want to just be considered someone who sits around and thinks about these things, uh, that it goes beyond that. So what, what is the, the hope of a, of an ethicist and maybe more specifically a Christian ethicist, uh, for what their impact is or how they impact

David P. Gushee: 4:03

the world? Um, I'd rather focus on being a Christian ethicist because that's please really the core of my calling and, um, the hope is that we can help Christians follow Jesus better. Yeah, okay. Just that simple. Um, just that simple and, but you know, that's the simple answer always then leads to a more complicated answer, right? Sure. Um, but help equip churches and pastors to guide the people. Um, help bear Christian witness in public, right? Yeah. Um, maybe have an impact on laws and policies and customs and values. Um, help weigh in on complicated dilemmas and challenges that come up regularly in life and in society. Um, but in. To me, my understanding is as I'm doing what Christian leaders have done since the beginning of the faith, which is try to provide a pastoral and scholarly hand to Christians as they try to figure out what it means to follow Jesus right now.

Don: 5:26

Awesome. So recently, in recent years, you kind of burst onto the scene in which I was more aware. Uh, and that was with writing a book, changing our minds. And that book, um, was caused a huge stir with an evangelicalism and I would argue probably a big stir within your own life. Um, huge. Yeah. I would imagine. Uh, as, so. If you don't mind, if you would kind of give a, just a brief overview of ch what changing our Minds was about, uh, and, and what it was that maybe, I guess what I'm trying to think about David is, um, what was the thing, what was the nudge that tipped the scale for you? That, that, that book came out, right. Um, yeah. So yeah, if you wouldn't mind,

David P. Gushee: 6:30

um, here's the book. Um, and that's the third edition, the one that's out now. The last one, I don't think I'm gonna do another edition of that book came out in 2014. Um, it began as a series of, uh, articles that in which I was attempting to, to really do what I think a Christian ethicist does, which is help. Us follow Jesus in relation to the controversial question of how we should think about and treat LGBTQ people, what the church's posture should be, what we should be advocating in the public arena, um, and what church life should, you know, should look like in this area. It, it came out in 2014. Uh, it was before the, uh, Supreme Court gay marriage decision. Um, but already at a time when, when evangelical Christians were having brutal arguments Yeah. About inclusion and it was dev, beginning to divide schools and churches and such. And I learned really after writing the book, mainly, mainly, um, that this was a house by house, church by church school, by school battle. anywhere that LGBTQ people found themselves,

Don: 8:00

right? Yeah. It was the Baskin Robbins, right. You didn't know what flavor you were gonna get when you walked in

David P. Gushee: 8:05

any space. That's right. Yeah. So, uh, what I thought I was doing when I started the essays was guiding a conversation where I did not know what the outcome was gonna be. Mm-hmm. Um, I knew that I wasn't satisfied with the state of the way evangelicals were talking about this. Um, I also knew that most people who were also not satisfied with it were afraid to say much because it was too dangerous. You know, pastors and professors. Yeah. Because if you raise questions in certain spaces, you're done right? Absolutely right. But I had a, a job where I had protection and I was not gonna get fired. and I had a church that was edging its way already towards full inclusion. And so I had the freedom and gradually I felt I had the responsibility to tackle this on, like you might say, on behalf of all the LGBTQ folks who needed some help. Yeah. Needed some, needed some allyship, and on behalf of all the pastors and churches and schools and institutions that were really confused, right? So week by week, I wrote these columns once a week and they became the chapters of the book. Okay. And I lit, I literally did not know what chapter seven was gonna look like when I was working on chapter five. I was just writing what I felt God was giving me to write. I, I would say it was the most raw, open. Writing process I can remember in my career. Wow. I felt like I was being led along. Now, it had a lot to do with, I was in a period of a great deal of grief at that time. Um, I, I lost my, my teacher, Glen Stassin, in April of 2014, lost my father-in-law in March of 2014. My mother was dying all through the spring and summer of 2014. She died in August, and this book began being written in like April and went through October. Now, I had a friend who said, you really don't wanna write when you're in that level of grief. She said, it's like being drunk or can be right. I conclude now as I look back on the impact of the book and the lives that it has changed, and people telling me the lives that it has saved, that. I was just torn open for the spirit to, to speak to me and through me. Yeah. And when I, when I look at the book, like it was so much not a normal rational writing process, it was a spirit led writing process. In my opinion. Now my enemies would say what kind of spirit it was. You know, we talk about that, right? Yes. The spirit from the spirit of hell. Right. You know, we know about that spirit. Um, and some people did say that, um, I imagine they did. Yeah. But with, with love in their heart. Oh, so much love. So much love Um, but I, I tweaked it a little bit after the original edition came out. I spoke to the Reformation Project Conference in Washington and I 350 LGBTQ people mainly. And I compared historic Christian. Contempt for queer people with historic Christian contempt for Jewish people. Mm. That became chapter like 20, right. The last chapter. And, and that rounded off what I really needed to say, that this was an example of Christians reading their Bible in such a way as to train themselves into a contemptuous attitude towards a group of people who were vulnerable and different. Yeah. And, and so I moved through the process from cautious Exploration to, by the end, full-hearted advocacy and partnership. And that has never changed since, since, since that time.

Don: 12:35

But, but what has changed is your position within Evangelicalism because of that. And Yeah. Uh, that process was, uh, you know, heaped upon you. I'm, I'm certain to the, a large extent.

David P. Gushee: 12:50

It was very public. It's, it was kind of, you know, Twitter, when was Twitter born? 2009 maybe? Um, this was 2014. The capacity of people to go on social media and shred other people was not quite as well developed then as it is now. But it was on its way. Right? Yeah. And so when the book came out, it was very important for evangelical and fundamentalist big wigs to try to cr to strangle it in the cradle. Hmm. Um, so that involved a, a cancel process. Yeah. Well, you know, he never really, he never really was evangelical. He never, you know, he is not a Christian. He never, he didn't, he didn't study enough. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Nobody agrees with him. He's become a heretic. He's giving into the liberals, you know, all the things people say. And it was really an effort to harass me. Out of what I had concluded. Um, and there, there were instances during this time where people tentatively put a foot in the water towards where I ended up concluding, but they got bullied into backing off. That happened with Eugene Peterson, for example. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Um, and I think, uh, was it World Vision had something similar

Don: 14:09

happen? Yes. That was, that was very disruptive. Both of those were very disruptive for our small faith community that was inclusive. The, to watch the excitement in, in the queer folks in our community rise with seeing someone like Eugene Peterson, uh, coming out and saying that he was going to accept and include and, and then to have that flip and then, then the same thing with World Vision and then have that flip. It just, that was brutal. Um, it would've been better for them just not to have even embraced

David P. Gushee: 14:40

initially. I think what, what we all learned was. This was, this was going to take on the character of a fight to the finish. Yeah. And, um, like politics, right? We're going to leverage our power against you to see if we can intimidate you out of, out of changing your mind. Um, and at that time there were some who were intimidated out of, you know, and like with Eugene Peterson, it was direct threats. If you don't renounce this, your books will be pulled out of the Lifeway Christian stores like immediately, right? Yeah. Right. Um, I take some satisfaction in knowing that the lifeway Christian stores are no more. I do as well Whereas, um, the works of Eugene Peterson will continue to be remembered. Right? Absolutely. So, you know, that helped to propel me to a, a decisive break with evangelicalism. At first they were like, you're not okay. but then I was like, you're not okay. There's something, there's something wrong here. And so that led me first to write a little memoir called Still Christian, uh, in which I was kind of trying to make sense of my journey, you know? Um, and then, and, and that memoir was, was significant in my processing. I was kind of asking like, am I, am I what my critics say that I am, or have I acted with integrity? You know? Yeah. Um, have I been following Jesus? Basically the ethicist asked himself, have you been following Jesus? Right? Uh, yes. Physician healing himself. And then, yeah. And then, uh, a year and a half ago or so, I wrote this, um, after Evangelicalism book, which was, You know, more my theological effort to rethink what exactly was evangelicalism and why am I not in it anymore. And it's, yes. Yeah,

Don: 16:51

I, I was talking to someone recently and they were asking me why I'm, I don't consider myself evangelical. And, and to be fair, I haven't for quite some time. But, um, you know, I was like, when you have to make so many caveats, like I'm evangelical, but, and then create a bunch of caveats to clarify, um, what, who you are and what that it was just like at some point at what, at what point are the number of the caveats? Too many to say I'm still this thing.

David P. Gushee: 17:24

Yeah. Um, yeah. So I think people, a lot of people have found me. I mean, I had a 20 year career before all of this started, you know? Yeah. But a lot of people have found me in the. post evangelical space, as well as I'm still regularly communicated with by LGBTQ people and their families and friends asking for guidance or support or, or what, you know, what, what do I do now? And, you know, that's arou routine part of my work week now. Right. I never could have imagined that that would be where things went when the book came out. But it is where I have been led and I'm at peace with it. Yeah. Yeah.

Don: 18:07

So a couple people have commented and asked some questions. So, uh, joy said, excited to be here. David was part of an abortion discussion on N P R, which was the most meaningful and nuanced conversation I'd ever heard on the topic. So thank you Joy for sharing that. Uh,

David P. Gushee: 18:22

yes, thank you Joy. That was with, uh, Krista Tippet and Kris Tippet and, uh, Francis Kissling that happened in Minnesota. And it was a beautiful conversation, I thought, and many, many people have said to me over the years that that, that, that conversation really touched them. Francis Kissling, uh, uh, leading Catholic pro-choice person. And we became friends. We actually traveled to Malaysia and India together after that, I believe, um, to explore. We went to a women's health conference in Kuala Lumpur, and uh, and then we went to some programs in India that were about women's empowerment. She basically took me into her world and, and said, that's a gift. That was such a gift. Um, and I don't know, I've, I've always wanted to be that kind of human and that kind of Christian who opens doors rather than slamming them shut. But there was a lot of hospitality that she showed me. Yeah. And, um, and I learned a lot from hanging out with her and, and, and visiting. Quala Lumpur with her and also, um, deli and, and cotta. Yeah.

Don: 19:37

Wow. That's amazing. Uh, Amanda ask, can you give a brief background on the term

David P. Gushee: 19:45

evangelicalism? Amanda, I would love to give a beef gr uh, beef, a beef background on the term. Uh, I must be hungry at this point. No, a brief background. Um, okay. So here's what I have concluded. If you ask the average evangelical historian or theologian, um, who's still in the community, they would say, oh, everybody knows that an evangelical is, and they would do a theological definition. Somebody who believes in, well, like biblical and ancy, or that Jesus died on the cross for our sins or, um, that we're supposed to share faith with other people so that they can believe and not go to hell, right? Um, or that we're supposed to follow Jesus in every aspect of our life. Something like that. Um, historically that word in various languages has been used, uh, even since before the Reformation, but it was picked up strongly during the reformation. Evangelical kind of meant we are the good news recovery of the gospel kind of Christians. Um, normally it has been meant as a contrast term we're the Gospel Christians as opposed to others who are maybe less faithfully gospel Christians. So it's been a self-description that has functioned in some ways as a self congrat. But I think the best way to understand what that word means in the American context is it was a term that ended up being adopted by a group of fundamentalist white guys in the 1940s and early fifties to differentiate themselves from the fundamentalism out of which they came and from the liberal Protestantism that they never accepted. So it was a kind of a third way move. But they're saying we're not fundamentalists because they're too hard, bitten close-minded and stuff and mean sometimes. Um, but we're also not mainline Protestant liberals because, uh, they have compromised the scriptures. We are evangelicals, we're good news Christians. And out of that initiative, they built a subculture that increasingly was recognized as a thing by. Various internal organizations that adopted the name, like the National Association of Evangelicals or, um, you know, various evangelical fellowships and churches and parachurch organizations, but also pollsters historians and media people accepted that there was a thing called Evangelicalism. And so this helped to give it legs. And gradually since the 1940s, 80 years later, an evangelical subculture was born. It is a kind of a coalition subculture that includes different denominations like Baptists and Pentecostals and churches of Christ, maybe, and, uh, you know, evangelical Covenant Church and Vineyard and lots of others. Um, but then also a kind of a freestanding subculture. That is, you know, it's a consumer subculture. It's books, music authors, personalities. There's a lot of money in that subculture. Um, but it has had a lot of twists and turns and I would say since the late seventies, evangelicalism has especially been known for its political involvement on the right side, right wing side of American politics. So nowadays the term evangelical is morphing. Again, if you ask people in polls, a lot of people don't even associate the word with religion anymore. They associate it with, they associate it with right wing politics. Oh, evangelicals. Yeah. Those are the people who, uh, who supported Trump and wanna send all the immigrants away. Right, right. That's so interesting. That's a long way from what those guys in the forties were attempting to accomplish. Yeah. But I'm gonna have some ex some theories as to how it has morphed this direction, but, But that, that's it. So, you know, came out of conservative Protestantism, uh, was an effort to differentiate from fundamentalism and from liberalism. But my conclusion is evangelicals never really stopped thinking like fundamentalists. And what do you know about fundamentalists? They have a narrow understanding of truth and they're rigidly intolerant of people who differ. Yeah. And the strategy when somebody differs in general, is to attack them and to kick them out if they want to try to hang, hang in at all. And I would say evangelicalism really never lost that characteristic. At least when challenged like what I did. Evangelicals will will boot you out.

Don: 24:58

Yeah. Thank you. So Sarah says, it seems so many people I know are skittish about change in beliefs, but I can't imagine a relationship with God not changing over the years. How have your views changed over the years and how do you embrace change in belief in the midst of keeping the faith? I think, I think that's a, so just real quick, David, I, it's such a big question that we're, we're always discussing on this, in this con these types of conversations is how do I deconstruct or, and reconstruct without losing the very thing that's the value, right?

David P. Gushee: 25:37

Um, one thing that has helped for me is I, I, um, had some primal experiences when I was a teenager, when I, when I converted to become a Christian. That, that were good ones. And, and so there's like a baseline that I never had to deconstruct. Hmm. Um, I think we need a baseline of some type. Having everything up for negotiation is really, really hard. Yeah. Um, because it's almost like nauseatingly confusing, how do I live? What do I do? You know? So for me it was like God is love. Jesus is the ultimate expression of God's love. Um, God has chosen not to give up on this world, even though we human beings are a great disappointment much at the time. Um, uh, the cross is the place in which God's love and our wickedness and God's decision to love anyway is kind of ultimately crystallized. Um, and the resurrection, however mysterious it is, I do believe in it that says in the end, God's love triumphs. Yeah. Um, a Christian is a person who believes that story and is seeking to be a part of it by following Jesus, following his teachings and his way, and who brings good to the world. Um, love and mercy and justice and compassion. I learned eventually to call that the Kingdom of God. Um, we, that wasn't the language I was converted into, but it's the language that I discovered, you know, along the way. Yeah. I think it was the language that Jesus used. Um, and, and Christians are supposed to be special people, not by being better. but by being more, you might say, more earnestly committed to a certain vision of life of, uh, following Jesus and bringing love and goodness wherever we go. So that's what I was converted into. It was also like a discipline life, you know? Um, we were trained in, uh, learning to, to discipline those aspects of the self that are not that constructive, to try to bring out the aspects that are more constructive. Right? Um, and, and so once I was converted, I realized, wow, that's a, that's a tremendously powerful change for me. And, and, and I want, I feel called to help do that for other people. And so I felt called to be a pastor within six months of my conversion. By 17 years old, I was telling people I was gonna be a pastor, and that never stopped. Then I went to school to train, and I realized, whoa, there's so much intellectual depth here. I don't want to be done learning until I've learned as much as I can. I'm still learning. Um, but, so those are some core things, but then a lot of peripheral things did evolve over time. I mean, I now see them as peripheral, like, that you don't have to have such a rigid view of the Bible to still love the scriptures. Yeah. And that, that maybe there's more to the story of eternity than those who believe like, I do get to go to heaven. Everybody else goes to hell. Right. Um, and um, and that a lot of the issues that seemed cut and dried actually may have been taught wrongly by the church in the past. So we might need to reconsider. Um, but this journey of following Jesus has not, has not changed. So I guess one thing I would say to those who are deconstructing is see if you can identify the core beliefs. the core convictions or narratives or even one thing that you will not deconstruct. Hmm. And then a lot of other stuff can go by the wayside and it's okay. And build on that. Build on that.

Don: 30:07

Yeah. Yeah. So you, you mentioned in that, uh, that maybe some of the stuff has been taught wrong or interpreted wrong. And, and I think that's such a, an interesting place right now that I personally have been wrestling with and trying to flesh out, is that so much of what we've been taught comes from a very, uh, white, western, male dominated perspective. And so very much one. uh, in a lot of ways. And, and then heaped on top of that are all these other additional layers, such as interpreting a book written to marginalized and oppressed people. But reading it as though is for those of us in privilege mm-hmm. um, and reading a book that's an, an eastern mystic book through a western philosophy, um, and all of these elements compiled and sometimes it feels overwhelming to kind of, uh, search through that to find that needle. And so, you know, what are some of the things that you think, um, you talked about the, something that you hold onto that you're gonna take forward? Because obviously you're not just gonna throw out evangelicalism, everything that you experienced in Evangelicalism, I would imagine. And so what are the things that you're holding onto? What are the things that you are gonna continue to search and sift through these things for, um, for that proverbial need needle in the haystack

David P. Gushee: 31:50

type thinking? Well, let me, let me start with where you started there about social location. Yeah. Um, I think because fundamentalists and evangelicals were freaked out by the developments in the modern intellectual world that cast out on the certainty of, um, biblical revelation or, uh, historic Christian doctrine. Well, you know, historical critical study of the Bible obviously rattled a lot of cage. um, the understand the idea that our doctrinal affirmations actually developed over time and sometimes in highly political circumstances, right? Um, so Christianity is a historical faith, a textual faith, but a texts that are written that were written by humans in specific contexts and fundamentalists and evangelicals never wanted to say that because they wanted believers to be completely confident in what the preachers were saying. God said it. I believe it. That settles it. The preacher says it. I believe it. That settles it. I can breathe easy. I don't have to deal with uncertainty. Yeah. And evangelicals, I've tried to say part of what I do in After Evangelicalism is to show the social location of the people who founded Modern American Evangelicalism. They were conservative, straight white fundamentalists of a certain era. They were Carl Henry and Billy Graham, and people in their circle. They were socially located, right, but they never acknowledged that everything, therefore was affected by their social location. They were the ones who just read the Bible on its face and knew the truth. Well, that's clear. It's clear if Billy Graham reads the Bible verse in a certain way, God gave him that interpretation and that's it. Um, what has been abundantly clear in mainstream theology and biblical work since at least the 1950s, is that nobody gets to do that. that we are socially located. We read and believe and, and, and discern from a, from a place. And for historically for white male, professor, pastor types is from a place of power and privilege, right? And so that's us. And so what happens if the texts are read by camps in, um, El Salvador, right? Or queer people in San Francisco, or women everywhere. Yep. Right? Or slaves in South Carolina, enslaved people in South Carolina, or, um, you know, whatever, right? So, and what, what you discover is, um, where you start and where you stand when you take on a text or think about theology is deeply important. But meanwhile, the texts themselves are also human products, whatever we may say about the divine breadth on the texts. They're also human products. And it's been pretty clear since, you know, the scholarship of the sixties and seventies that most of them were produced by marginalized people for marginalized people. Right? I mean, there are exceptions. I think that like the, the Book of Proverbs has a little bit of a different social location, right? That's fair. Um, uh, so you have to take it book by book. Um, but, but Jesus certainly comes from that, from that marginal, marginalized position. So it's much less easy when you might say, here I am a socially located person in space and time reading texts that were also located in space and time 3000 years ago, written by people very different from me. I may not have the absolute read on it. I may need to read alongside other people who, who can see things that I can't see. Right. And, but you know, in evangelical theological environments, we were never taught to read those voices. Absolutely. All you

Don: 36:44

needed was, I would say you were discouraged. It was to

David P. Gushee: 36:47

the experts. Yeah. I mean, you don't, I mean, and even at the relatively moderate Southern Baptist Seminary in the mid eighties where I went, we never read James Comb. Unbelievable. We didn't read, we didn't read Gustavo Gutierrez or Rosemary Ruther or Beverly Harrison. We read various versions of white guy theology mainly. Yeah. Yeah. So one thing I've been counseling post evangelicals is it's time to get over the limits that were placed on what we read in school. and start reading more widely because there's a lot of riches out there, both historical and contemporary writings and, but you know, it helps to have some guides in that. So part of what I do in after Evangelicalism is say, here's some of the sources that have been most helpful for me at this point. You know, other people with maybe pick some other ones, but man, the whole tradition is open before us. We don't have to be in our narrow little cul-de-sac that we were told that that's where we were

Don: 37:48

supposed to be. Yeah, I, I think the thing that impacted me the most as I started to read outside of that very narrow fence was under realizing that the things that were strictly spiritual in my setting were almost strictly physical in other people's settings. So whether it be salvation, Whether it be, uh, judgment and mercy that those had a physicality to it, that I only thought of it. Well, literally, just only thought of it, right? And so, um, I often argue that, you know, we become more about thoughts and prayers than hands and feet because of that, especially within White Western, uh, evangelicalism. Because, you know, this idea of salvation, we don't, when we read the Book of Exodus as particularly as white, uh, western affluent Christians, we don't think about, uh, this escape from oppression. This, uh, fleeing of slavery, this, uh, wandering and being again, alone and scared in the middle of the desert, uh, fearful of, of what's gonna happen next and not able to trust what's gonna happen. And, and we read it and we just spiritualize it. And to me, the moment I started reading and thinking about like salvation as creating safety, cultivating safety for people, uh, that I'm working out my salvation, I'm working out the salvation, creating salvation space for others. Um, it was transformative. And to me, that's, that's I if I was trying to put my finger on the pulse of a lot of people that are becoming disenfranchised with evangelicalism, I would say a lot of it is we saw all of the, the physicality of the Black Lives Matter marches. We saw all the physicality of the protest. We saw like some of the things that were just, let's pray about that in the church before came to the church's doorstep and wasn't able to just be prayed about anymore. And, and that has quickened the, the fleeing. uh, from thoughts and prayers. Right. And, and to me, that's just been, so, I, I'm curious how you feel or what you think as, especially as an ethicist, because it's gotta be in some way really sad sometimes when you as an ethicist, help people think through things and it's like, well, now I think better.

David P. Gushee: 40:34

Thank you. Right. Um, my dissertation was on Christians who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. Um, there were, uh, it was a tiny minority of Christians who did that. The Nazis were combing Europe for Jews so that they could kill them everywhere they went with a few exceptions, was predominantly Christian areas. And so when the Jews, if they were able to, to look for help, if they had time, if they knew they needed to flee, generally, if they couldn't get across a border where they had to go, was to knock on the door of a Christian neighbor. will you take my child in? Will you take us in? Will you hide us here for a week till we can make other arrangements? Yeah. Or for longer? Um, and thoughts and prayers, availed, nothing. No. Um, I really feel sorry for you. I'll pray. I'll pray for you about that as you shut the door. Um, yeah. Right As you shut the door, the only thing that mattered was action. Yeah. And from the perspective of Jewish people who survived the war, um, they would say, this family, they saved us. This was salvation. Yep. The deliverance from murder. Absolutely. They saved us. Right. Exodus was, you know, like, Literal deliverance from genocide, enslavement, and then from dying at the hands of the Egyptian army out there by the red Sea. Right. Um, and from dying in the wilderness. It was deliverance. When Jesus raised the son of the widow of name, that was salvation. Came to the house that day. Yes. That boy's life was saved. Now Jesus was, Jesus would also talk at the level of a, of a spiritual transformation. Mm-hmm. of a moral transformation, salvation came to the house of Zaks. How did that happen? Because he repented. Yep. And he made reparations. Yes. Actual monetary reparations. Yes.

Don: 43:13

I won't preach well in most, uh, evangelical churches on a Sunday morning.

David P. Gushee: 43:17

No. So, so, and you know, in, in, uh, liberation theology in Latin America, Gustavo Gutierrez, 1971, he said, clearly further oppressed salvation has to include or be centered even on physical deliverance from impoverishment and military dictatorship and people coming and taking your, your family away at night and they disappear, right? Yep. Salvation in terms of what God wants to have happen in the world is the end of those kinds of conditions. Um, whatever else we might say spiritually, this, we must say first, but I think the reason that white evangelicalism never could get there was because, there was a kind of a docetic, all was about spirit. Nothing was about body, but also a social location where we didn't, a lot of us comfortable, people didn't need to be saved from anything. Yeah.

Don: 44:22

Yeah. I mean, I feel like that's Constantine's big contribution. Right. You know, he, he didn't need to be saved fr physically. Um, and so he almost, he, I would argue Constantine almost needed Christianity to take a right hand turn into being spiritual is he doesn't wanna be preaching to the, the nations, the people that he's conquering This is a faith of overcoming the oppressor.

David P. Gushee: 44:46

That's right. And by the way, the same thing can clearly be said about slave holding Christianity in America. Absolutely. Um, you need, if you're a, a white slaveholder, you need the enslaved people to redefine their own salvation as spiritual. And you certainly need to define your salvation as spiritual. Um, and what God is about is saving souls. The convenient byproduct of that is the social order that you have constructed based on the brutalized bodies and spirits of enslaved people. You can continue that without any impact from the faith. Yeah. And there's

Don: 45:27

a certain level of wickedness to that that I just,

David P. Gushee: 45:31

yeah, but you know what? White people were not able to make these discoveries on their own. This is now clear in part because of, well, 50 years of liberation theology, 400 years of, of, uh, African American resistance theology. Yeah. You know, and then the traditions, the, the, the traditions of the non-majority, or you might say the non-powerful Christians all over the world. Yeah. And of course you only know about that if you're listening and reading and visiting and attending. Right? Yeah.

Don: 46:08

So, so in your most recent ethics book, you're, you talked about it, um, I forget the liberation, uh, theologian or thinker that, uh, was also pacifist. Um,

David P. Gushee: 46:22

and are you talking about Howard Thurman?

Don: 46:25

Yes. Thank you. Wow. I can't believe it was Howard Thurman's name that I forgot, but yes. Mm-hmm. And so I have a question because James Cohen in his book, uh, the Crossing the Lynching Tree seems to at least present the idea that Luther needed Malcolm X, and Malcolm X needed Luther Malcolm. You mean Martin Luther King? Yes. Yeah, I'm sorry. Uh, and so, uh, and in that, um, I, I just, I'm curious because I often hear. Progressive Christians, which by the way, I do not like that term, but we're still figuring out what the next term is, I think. Um, but the more progressive you are in your Christian ideas, I often hear pacifism, but I've also heard from some of my friends who are people of color who are in fear of their life in certain circumstances that they're like, well, I'm glad pacifism works for you. Um, that's not where I'm at. And I'm just curious as a, as an ethicist, um, what, what your, what are your thoughts about that?

David P. Gushee: 47:37

Um, it is definitely true that in the liberation theology that I have read, there is a lot of questioning of pacifism. Yeah. Um, and I think of it in the work of Miguel de Lato. I think of it in the work of, uh, James Cone. Um, And I remember I remember I was in James Cones theology class, my first class at Union Seminary in New York. That's a good

Don: 48:10

flex, man. That's a, that's a nice flex.

David P. Gushee: 48:12

I like that. There you go. And I was an oblivious white Southern Baptist kid of the age of 25 and he was presenting his intro stuff. This was a class on third world liberation theology. And he said, and I asked him after his lecture, I asked him, sounds like you're advocating violence. And he, he said, that question looks a whole lot different when you're on the receiving end of systemic violence every day of your life. Wow. He also said, um, I exhort our white class members. To work on listening more and talking less in this class, that was the very first day of class. It was my very first day of seminary at the doctorate level. That's the story. That's that I'll never Amazing. I, I,

Don: 49:13

yes. That is so, that's so good.

David P. Gushee: 49:16

Um, and you know, of course I was deeply offended. Oh, what have I done? How could I, you know, I mean Right. I felt, but there's some things you only learn by listening w without it. So, um, and white guys often need to learn how to listen. Um, so except your rebuke So we will now sit in silence for the rest of our show. Um, I, I do not identify as a pacifist. Yeah. I hope to be a peacemaker. Yes. Um, I know Jesus taught that. I do know that Jesus's path was a path in which he renounced the weapons of violence. Mm-hmm. Um, I am not sure that that means that love and justice always require us to do the same. Right. Um, so, and there's a, there's a difference between, uh, imperial violence, uh, the violence from the power structure, uh, violence from the people with the badges and the authority and the defensive violence of people trying to protect their families. Yeah. And I think as we witness what Russia has been doing to Ukraine for the last nine months, we, if we can't make a moral distinction between what the Russians are doing and what the Ukrainians are doing, then we're not really thinking very clearly. Right. Yeah. Um, So, so there's, there is a, a rich and complicated tradition of the Christian thinking about violence and about war and peace in particular. I taught a whole class on that in the spring, you know, you know, a couple thousand pages of reading, you know, uh, voices from every era of the church. There's plenty to think about there. Uh, it's not a simple thing. No.

Don: 51:17

Yeah. I think for me, I've kind of landed when I talk about this to people is, is that I, I try to encourage people that in any situation, whether that's just the fullness of your life or just in individual circumstances, that the, the amount of, uh, pacifism versus, uh, aggressiveness, however, violence that I would have would be based on the spectrum of my power and privilege in that given moment. Hmm. And so the, the less power and privilege I have in that moment, the more that the possibilities are there for me to respond in a, in a non pacifistic way. And the more power and privilege, the more I should be absolutely leaning towards a more civil way, um, more

David P. Gushee: 52:05

path. Yeah. That's a, that's a really good way to think about it. Um, I mean, you think about, for example, the power of parents over children. Yes, absolutely. And the historic blessing of corporal punishment. Yeah. Um, which it didn't take me all that long as a parent to, to feel that now I can't do this. Right. Yeah. I, I cannot hit my child.

Don: 52:35

All right. Let me turn to a couple questions because I've been ignoring them because I've been greedy and asking all mine. Uh, so. Asked, what have been the lessons you learned from colleagues and influences who have been exposed or, okay, so I'm guessing this is people who have made mistakes or come, you know, fallen from grace. How important is it to you to reevaluate all their influence on you?

David P. Gushee: 52:59

Um, there's degrees on this one. Yeah. You know, every, all, all I'll, I'll talk about it from the pastor and scholar perspective. Um, all of us who either become pastors or become scholars, or both are shaped by the people who were most influential on our journey. And I have written appreciatively of my key mentors and fortunately all of them were people of integrity who have not had some kind of major scandal that ruined their reputation. Yeah. Um, so. as for like thinkers who were kind of in the orbit. A good example was John Howard Yoder, the Mennonite. Yes. Uh, who was the most influential Mennonite thinker of the 20th century, probably. Yep. Then it turned out he was, he was perpetrating sexual abuse on mm-hmm. uh, female colleagues in ministry and academia. His reputation has been ruined. We're having active conversations as to whether his, his work should even be read.

Don: 54:13

Yeah. I, I, someone I discipled was a huge fan of his writing and obviously denounced the behavior, and, and he was like, would you, do you wanna read any of this? I said, I've read stuff and, but I, you know, came to understand some of this about him, and I just, I'm not in. and you know, for him he wasn't certain how, what, like why would you, doesn't change the good things he wrote. And, and my response in that moment was just, there's so much stuff out there, I'm never gonna read everything that's available to me. So I might as well start with some stuff I don't have some already bad Yeah. Baggage with, um, yeah.

David P. Gushee: 54:48

Um, yeah. This is a live issue right now. As students write dissertations, do they feature Yoder at all? Um, uh, books, book chapters. So, but anyway, the bigger question. Yeah. I mean, I look at some of the things that I was taught in some of the churches in my early stage and it's like, ah, that's pretty, pretty backwards. Right? But, but I can still appreciate what was good in the people who were nurturing me along. Right. And jettison what, what wasn't so good. Yeah. But fortunately I have not had to deal with that brutal disillusionment. which may be behind the question of that key pastor who turned out to be abusing children or that key scholar who turned out to be a predator. Yeah. It is not easy to recover from that. It it, it is, it is traumatic and some people end up out of the church because of that one key person

Don: 55:48

without a doubt. And, and sometimes even just the way the church then still continues to embrace that person afterwards and

David P. Gushee: 55:56

yeah, there's a lot of power. What happens is when people get credibly accused of misconduct, they usually don't just repent, they rally every scrap of power that they have. Yes. To survive.

Don: 56:12

I think that's why I found the one video really powerful of a pastor who admitted to having a sexual relationship with a woman in the church who at the time was like 16. and he's like, I made a mistake. And the church stands up and gives him a standing ovation and says that's what we're, you know, way to repent and all this stuff. And the woman who's now in her thirties and her husband walk up on stage and she's like, I'm that woman. And I was 16. And now I don't think everyone has that in them to be able to do that. But that was you, you could see in the response of the congregation a shift as soon as the, the physicality of the abused was standing there. Um, when it was just an idea of someone confessing a sin, uh, they were able to separate it. But then when her and her husband came up, it was just, it was powerful. And I don't think many people. Have that, that type of strength. I, I don't know where you get, that's superhuman strength to be able to walk up and do that. Um, um,

David P. Gushee: 57:18

maybe the strength of moral indignation. No, this is not Okay. Yeah. By the way, this issue of how do we deal with misconduct can miss certain kinds of misconduct be forgiven? Right. Who would do their forgiving? What, what are the steps of reconciliation, repentance, repair, forgiveness. I'm actually I read a, um, massive dissertation. Part of what I do at the University of Amsterdam is I supervise dissertations. So I read a massive dissertation, hundreds of pages on the dynamics of post-conflict reconciliation, like in international, like in civil war environments. Wow. It's very complicated. But what I think happens in a lot of these church settings is classic cheap grace. Oh yeah. It's like the pastor realizes, well, if I can't bluff my way through this or bully my way through this, I just need to do a quick repentance. Maybe if you can get a tear to come outta your eye, that's that helps too. Yep. And, and then the people say, oh, what a good man. And, and, and then everything's okay.

Don: 58:28

Right. And rarely the victim is a part of that process at all. Right? That's

David P. Gushee: 58:32

right. They've usually been driven out. Yeah.

Don: 58:35

Uh, Ray, just make, has a comment, wish the church at large took a posture of unity on primary issues and grace on secondary issues. Ray, I do too. I was a part of a denomination that they declared that to be their reality until a secondary issue was too much of a hot topic button. Um, and that was G B T inclusion. Um, but the church was very much in that, in that mind frame, uh, un until that, and I think that's the complicated part, right David? Is that. um, some things that are secondary. One week, if they become a political hot potato the next week, they're no longer secondary. I mean, we see them with abortion also,

David P. Gushee: 59:15

right? Yeah. It's just a matter of who is able to decide what is primary and what is secondary. Right. Um, and, and sometimes powerful people, even from outside the system can come in like a church or denomination can come in and say, no, no, no, no. You cannot declare this a secondary issue. Right. This is a primary issue, and if you don't agree with us that it's a primary issue, now we're gonna come after you. Yeah. Um, it ought to be possible to say not like, you know, this is primary, uh, the nature of Jesus and love of God and love of neighbor. I mean, there are various, you know, that's part of what creeds are about, right? Yeah. In confessional statements and faith statements, it's an effort to define the core and the things that are not in the core. that are not in the creed or the confession or the faith statement, almost by definition are peripheral or at least secondary. Yep. But that doesn't mean they stay there because they're, the community may change its mind, or powerful people in the community may decide that that needs to change. With Southern Baptists, I, I, in a Southern Baptist was the denomination that I joined and by now have left in my humble opinion, they've been adding to their list of central issues like every year for like, for like 30 years. You know, nothing is peripheral. No. There's always a new statement to sign and there's always a new set of things that are non-negotiable. Yeah.

Don: 1:00:45

All right. I saw a quote recently in another book from a Boulder pulpit. Not sure what that is. God doesn't want you to be happy. God wants you to be holy. Do you still hold to this and can you speak on it?

David P. Gushee: 1:00:58

Hmm. Uh, nobody in the world. Has ever read that book of Boulder pulpit? That was like my, my third book. So, oh, that was your book. I didn't even know what it was. Yeah. If you've actually discovered that book of Boulder pulpit, um, then you need to, you need to find more things to do with your time. That's probably, that's why what I would say, uh, no. That was

Don: 1:01:19

one of the, Sarah's, one of the co-hosts on our podcast and she's just brilliant. And so it does not surprise me that she dug deep man. She dug deep

David P. Gushee: 1:01:30

Oh, hi Sarah. Um, that was, uh, much younger. Me probably, I don't even remember the date on that. It might have been about 1998 maybe. Um, I think God wants us to be happy and holy, but holy does not always mean what we were taught that it meant. Mm-hmm. um, right With God, um, living. The way of Jesus as he defined holiness. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. Um, I think Jesus was undercutting a lot of what was understood to be holiness in his time. Um, I, I, I would hold to the idea that sometimes what we think sometimes the quest for happiness as the ultimate good in life is deceptive. Cause I think in some ways happiness is an elusive goal. Like you think you've reached it and you haven't, uh, you discover a new arena where you're not quite satisfied. Um, so I don't, let's say I half renounce young David gut on, on happy and holy, something like that. You accept the rebuke I accept the rebuke. Yeah. So, yeah, it was a good way, it was a good way to, I mean, back in the day, I mean, it'd be a pretty good way to say, no, no, you, you're not happy with this, but. but too bad. I want you to be holy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so

Don: 1:03:03

she says, I find happiness to bring me extremely close to God and result in all kinds of holy behaviors, love, laughter, and care. That is true. And, and she said, uh, she said that, uh, she was, she was doing it because she was prepping for the podcast because we're recording a podcast on emotions. And so she probably did come across your if she was,

David P. Gushee: 1:03:26

um, well, uh, that's, that's, that's great. Um, you know, when you, when you've been writing, uh, my first book came out in 1994, so I'm coming up on the 30 year anniversary. Yeah. There's very little, uh, that I would just like utterly renounce, you know, uh, in that long legacy. But, but that's a, that's a good pickup right there. Yeah. And I'm glad it's worth reflecting on. It is. That's, that's a

Don: 1:03:50

fear I have. Right. You know, um, is that once you put it out there, it's frozen. And I'm someone who. Uh, you know, I love the rabbinic saying of, if you worship the same God today as you did yesterday, you're worshiping an idol. And I, I, I buy into that. I love that. I want to keep learning, as you were saying earlier, that you're still learning, you're still growing, and there's a fear of putting something out there that's frozen. Yeah. And, uh, if you could ever gimme advice, I'd take it

David P. Gushee: 1:04:24

No, it's interesting that, that the, the book most people know me by is a book called Changing Our Mind. Right. There you go. I am Noon for a famous Change of Mind. That is true. And, um, and yeah, it's a legitimate fear. What if I get it wrong? But there are people who are paralyzed. They've got something to say, paralyzed from saying it because they're scared that Yeah. Once it's on the, on the page, you don't really own it anymore. Right. Yep. I think I was told never write anything before the age of 30 cuz you don't know enough yet. Um,

Don: 1:05:01

that sounds like a Jewish, uh, concept. You're not allowed to teach till you're 30 in, uh, ancient

David P. Gushee: 1:05:06

Judaism. And maybe that's where that came from. Um, so I, I, I did not write, I did not publish a book before the age of 30. Um, and there's always more to learn though. Well, that ship

Don: 1:05:17

sailed for me, so I'm good

David P. Gushee: 1:05:20

So go ahead and write, man. And if you have to say no, I don't think I got that quite right. Well, you know, there's, by the way, a lot of people may not know if you write a, a book in academia, there's many, many layers of peer review. Um, before it goes out in the world. You need to have a lot of people see it. Yeah. So that obvious things can be caught and you have a chance to make it as good as you can make it. And then hopefully you don't have to end up renouncing two thirds of it six months later, you know? Right.

Don: 1:05:48

Yeah. All right. Let's see. Uh, fifth Sunday. What are your thoughts on the merits and detriments of church hopping? Should a church goer search for their best fit or try to deal with the challenges in their current church?

David P. Gushee: 1:06:03

Uh, it depends on whether the challenges in the current church rise to the level of being a crisis of spirit or conscience. Oh, that's a great answer. You know, for me, um, there are certain bright red lines I could not be in a, in a church, you know, that crosses those lines. So, so if you know that, and you're in that church, I mean, I'm, I'm asked this a lot by evangelicals, like, Hey, I read your book. I'm 90% of the way with you, but I don't wanna leave all my friends behind or I don't wanna leave my church behind. Or it's where we raised our kids, or, or, you know, it's really meaningful to me. I love the music, the preacher's great, whatever it might be. Right. But, you know, every so often you get some awful thing that is said and you know, but I still don't wanna leave my church, you know? Right. So, um, I think if it's a matter of fundamental significance to spirit or conscience, you, you may well have to leave, but I don't think the goal is then to kind of visit church after church indefinitely. I think, I think we need community and we need to, we need to plug in deeply. Yeah. So go on a search for a new community rather than church hopping.

Don: 1:07:29

All right. Paul says, I'm late to the party. So sorry if you answer this, but how much of a role do you think God played in the creation, formation, editing, canonization and transmission of the Bible, if any? That's a nice, easy one At 10 10 after nine.

David P. Gushee: 1:07:43

Um, that's a great question and I deal with it in the after Evangelicalism book pretty carefully. Um, I think the first thing that must be said is that the Bible is the product of the Jewish and Christian communities full stop. It is the collected literary remains of these ancient religious communities. Um, so it's a collection of manuscripts of various dramatically divergent types. Um, I think that, well, what the church has historically affirmed is that the texts that we canonized, we canonized because of their proven ability to properly direct the formation of disciples. and, um, it was, the canonization decision was arrived at prayerfully With that end in mind. Yeah. Um, I think as a matter of fact, we all know that some texts just seem to pulse with inspiration. Yeah. And it's hard, it's hard to read them and not feel the breath of God.

Don: 1:09:15

Yeah. I mean that the pa, the passage that talks about God breathed passages, if I'm correct, can also be read. Not to say that all passages are God breathed, but the God breathed ones.

David P. Gushee: 1:09:27

Um, and I deal with that in the book, basically. Yeah. The, the, to me it's like the text, of course, that's late, that's what second Timothy, I think. But, but the texts that have been collected have been collected because we. because they collectively have edified the people and the spirit of God has been experienced through their reading. Yeah. Right. Um, but in, like I was saying, in, in, in everyday life, you know, the genealogies don't pulse with inspiration the way that the story of the Good Samaritan does. Right. Especially if you have

Don: 1:10:04

have to read it out loud at church

David P. Gushee: 1:10:07

the, the Joshua Slay. Everybody that breathes passages trouble the spirit. When you compare it with turn the other cheek and love your enemy, the contrast is almost unbearable. Yeah. Um, I think that, that in the life of the church, we've made a commit. To keep the cannon that was passed on to us and passed on one generation after the other. And to engage it and to hope, uh, humbly and expectantly for God to speak through the proclamation and reading of scripture. Yeah. Um, and the breaking of the bread, right? Yep. Um, but I don't think we need to assign kind of a mechanical inspired value to every text. Like it was kind of breathed on as a unit of all the same kind of spiritual power. Yeah. I love that. And that's, that means, that's definitely not, we were taught in Evangelicalism, but No. In fact,

Don: 1:11:23

I, you know, there's kind of a fear of like, am I gonna be struck by something

David P. Gushee: 1:11:28

But it's what we do. You know, one thing I do and after Evangelicalism is I, I talk about the lectionary. the lectionary traditions, which are actually, I think they're spreading more and more people are going with the lectionary. Yeah. You have the church, Protestant and Catholic agreeing more or less, not entirely, but largely on three cycles of texts, three years. And over the course of the three years, there's actually statistical studies of how much of the text is actually read. Right. Significant chunks of the Bible are never read in the three years of the Electionary. Yep. But large chunks of the Bible are read and also the way that the gospels get specific focus speaks to their specific and special value. Same with the Psalms always engaged every week. Yeah. Um, so I think the Bible is the church's book or collection of books, plenty for us to chew on week after week, day after day. But we don't need a mechanical theory of inspiration. Excellent. I love that.

Don: 1:12:36

That's very good. Uh, Jere just has a comment. Uh, I worry much less about landing on the wrong answer than I do about staying there.

David P. Gushee: 1:12:45

That, that, that'll preach right there. Um, you can tweet that. Not ought to be on Twitter. Um, no. Who? I mean, I wonder if any of us are gonna be on Twitter in about a month. I don't, I don't know. Um, I dunno either. I have real ambivalence about it now, but that's the ethics of Twitter, which perhaps we do another day. Um, yes. So why do people stay on the wrong answer? They stay maybe because they're afraid to admit they were wrong. Um, they stay because they're under pressure to stay. Yeah. They stay because their job depends on it. Yes, very much. They stay because they'll lose friends if they change. Um, there's a famous line by an by. Some, oh, I should know the, the person who gave this line, some witty American writer who said, it is hard, something like this. It is hard to make a man change his mind if his salary depends on not doing so. I

Don: 1:13:52

mean,

David P. Gushee: 1:13:53

yes. Right. We are all self-interested creatures. Our interests are not just monetary, but they're also our friendship networks. I can't tell you how many people have been unwilling to change their mind on LGBTQ inclusion because of what it would cost them. Yes.

Don: 1:14:10

I, I know so many pastors either close to retirement or they're the sole, uh, breadwinner in their household, and there's just so much on it, on,

David P. Gushee: 1:14:20

on the line. Um, and here the radicalism of Jesus is helpful. I don't, I don't hear Jesus having a lot of patience with, with us. No go. Bur you dead. Yeah. Us holding on to things that are harmful especially. Yeah. Or that take us away from following him because we're scared of negative consequences for ourselves. Yep. Um, but man, we are, we're human. Jesus is unremittingly demanding in this, in this area. I think Sarah

Don: 1:14:55

says they stay because questioning authority is seen as equal to questioning God. And if this faith thing falls apart, what do I have?

David P. Gushee: 1:15:04

Yeah. Yeah. But who taught us that questioning authority is, is equal to questioning God. The pastor in the pulpit Who? Who? Yes. It was the authority who benefited from having an unquestioning, submissive audience. Yes. Imagine a community where, where the idea was this, we together are all involved in the process of discerning what following Jesus looks like. We all bear the responsibility and the text is open in all of our laps for the study and reflection and prayer process. If there is clergy, the role of the clergy is to guide the communal process of discernment. Yeah. The clergy is not infallible. And, and the to question the clergy is part of the process of figuring out what it means to follow Jesus. Yeah. So in, uh, a book I've written about, uh, democracy that's coming out next year, um, I argue that democratic church structures are really important for training us in the habit of actual political democracy in a, in a church democracy. We are together covenanted, to seek the will of God. corporately. Communally and equally, and nobody is in charge of that process. It's something we all do together. There are some who are delegated with certain responsibilities to help help it with it, but, but we all are responsible. So lemme give you one last

Don: 1:16:48

question. No, uh, Jordan says, to what extent does the pursuit of wisdom and virtue matter when there's a lack of serious discussion on Christian ethics? I'm assuming that means local, not, not, um, not necessarily a scholarly level of Christian discussion. Yeah.

David P. Gushee: 1:17:08

Uh, I think the pursuit of wisdom and virtue is part of Christian ethics. Um, it's, um, it's a historic part of it. Wisdom, you know, the orienting our lives in accordance with the way God designed and virtue. developing the character qualities that imitate Christ and make us good people in the world. Yeah. Um, that should be the business of all of us. And I think a good preaching program is regularly returning to themes of wisdom and virtue. There are other dimensions of ethics, like, oh, you know, hard social issues like abortion, right? Um, or what do we do at the end of life, you know, end of life decision making or, or how about handling of money or environmental ethics or violence or patriotism or nationalism, right? That's social ethics. That's a lot of what I focused on. Um, I think a lot of pastors are uncomfortable dealing with those issues because they're seen as like political and they don't know what to say or don't wanna get in trouble. But even if that is beyond the reach of some pastors or some churches shouldn't be, but even if it is, all of us should be asking what does a wise life look like and what does a good and virtuous life look like? And there's plenty of biblical resources for doing that. Yeah.

Don: 1:18:29

Well, thank you. And David, thank you for being so generous with your time. Uh, what I'd love to do is, you know, hear from you kind of what you have going on next. Like what, what's happening? What are, what are you working on? Um,

David P. Gushee: 1:18:43

yeah, yeah. Um, well, I'm excited about this Amsterdam appointment. I'm supervising PhD students from all over the world. Uh, my chair is called Christian Social Ethics, so it's more like those social, political, moral things. So by next year I'll have something like 10 PhD students from all over the world working on those issues. Wow. And these are the, like some of the leaders of the next generation. So that's really cool. Um, I'm also getting a chance to speak into, uh, churches and, uh, church bodies all over, all over the world now. That's really cool. A lot of these conversations are global. They're not just American, you know? Um, I'm returning to the classroom with seminary students this spring. I'm teaching a class called The Moral Teachings of Jesus. So I've identified 40 moral teachings of Jesus. We're gonna go over them like one at a time.

Don: 1:19:39

Oh my goodness. That sounds

David P. Gushee: 1:19:40

amazing. Yeah. And then I'm gonna write a book based on that. Oh, so good. So that's the

Don: 1:19:47

next one. So that'll be out by what? June July, the book,

David P. Gushee: 1:19:50

That'll be 2024. But the next one to come out is gonna be this book on democracy. It's called Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies. Oh man.

Don: 1:20:00

I can tell you right now a handful of people in our chat that are going to pre-order that puppy.

David P. Gushee: 1:20:06

It should be available for pre-order in January. Um, it's coming out sometime in the fall with Erdman and it's, it analyzes anti-democratic trends among Christians around the world. Yeah. And proposes why we should care about democracy. Um, so it's a rich, sweet time right now of teaching and writing and nurturing the next generation. But it's also the ongoing, like there's like a legacy at this point, you know, like from changing our mind to still Christian to after evangelism. Like there's a lot of people in this space. A lot of people. And so there's a ministry with the brokenhearted, wandering post evangelicals, and that's a lot of what I do on the average week. Yeah. So that's really meaningful. I never thought this is where my journey would go. I think. Yes, it's in my, um, high school yearbook. My goal was to be the president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Um, let's just say Don, that never did happen. That's never gonna happen. And. Um, it shows you that God has a sense of humor and can lead us to a lot of places we didn't expect,

Don: 1:21:19

without a doubt. Well, well, David, how can we care for you?

David P. Gushee: 1:21:25

Um, well pray that I'll take a little bit of break at the holidays and not work too hard. That is, um, we will do that. Yeah. And, um, I would, I would encourage people to check out my work and they, they can sign up for my, my, uh, newsletter@davidphi.com. Um, excellent. But, but I mean, I've got a grandchild. How about this? I've got a grandchild, my third one due in January. So pray that. Um, Thank you Paul. Never say never on the SBC presidency, baby. Um, pray. Pray that my, uh, that we get a happy, healthy mother and, When we have that third grandchild due in gran in January, I can't wait to hold that baby.

Don: 1:22:11

Well, congratulations on that and we definitely will keep that in our prayers and stand before the Lord went for you on that. Um, thank you David. This was just a delight. Um, you know, everyone is thanking you in the chat. Uh, fifth Sunday had a six more questions. Uh, so, uh, but thank you so much for taking your time for this. We know you're busy and I know you've been doing a lot of traveling in October and stuff, so I'm just very honored that you were here tonight. So

David P. Gushee: 1:22:41

it was a lot of fun and a lot of smart questions from a, from a great group. I'd be happy to come back, Don.

Don: 1:22:46

Well, we would love to have you. All right, friends. Well, I appreciate everyone joining us. I appreciate all the questions as always. Mondays and Thursday nights we do this live, uh, stream and we often have guests with us. Uh, and so I hope you join us again. So thank you.