By David Gushee Follow David: @dpgushee In a spring in my life filled with illness, dying and death, here are a few hard lessons I have learned. To borrow from novelist Ernest Gaines, let’s call them “lessons before dying.” Perhaps…
Memorial Day, Turner Field style: Some ambivalent Christian reflections
So here is an itemized list of everything the Atlanta Braves and Turner Field did to mark Memorial Day on Monday. I was there: • Troops from a wounded warrior recovery center unfurled a huge flag, almost as large as…
Immigration reform: Now is the time
By David Gushee Follow David: @dpgushee Close observers of our U.S. federal government agree that due to the very strange rhythms of national politics, comprehensive immigration reform — defined as a bill that includes some path to legal status for undocumented…
The death penalty system is broken
By David Gushee Follow David: @dpgushee Oftentimes Christians deal with contemporary moral issues in the abstract. They are “against abortion” or “for peace” or “against divorce” in the abstract. They attempt to reason directly from what they understand to be…
A Tribute to Glen Stassen
By David Gushee Follow David: @dpgushee My friend Glen Stassen died today (Saturday, April 26) in Pasadena. He was 78. But because he was born on Leap Day—February 29, 1936—Glen liked to joke that he was only 19. Until an…
That pesky word ‘Evangelical’
By David Gushee Follow David: @dpgushee Each week someone in the news uses the words “evangelical” or “evangelicalism” as a description, epithet or lament. Often the most visible uses of the term occur when someone who is “in” wants out,…
Holy Week reflection: Toward a humble, repentant church
By David Gushee Follow David: @dpgushee Holy Week converges for me with the conclusion of a semester in which I have been teaching seminar courses about the Holocaust and about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This week the brilliant Bonhoeffer scholar Jennifer McBride…
Do for-profit corporations have religious liberties?
By David Gushee Follow David on twitter: @dpgushee The now-famous Hobby Lobby (HL) case finally has been argued before the Supreme Court, with a decision expected in June. I believe their claim should be denied. Here is my analysis. It…
Stripped of power: Saying goodbye to Christian America, part III
David Gushee Follow David on twitter: @dpgushee Last week I explored the potential downside of the demise of Christian influence in America. I suggested that U.S. culture continues to live on borrowed ethical capital from the Christian theological tradition, but…