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…
Christ is now a threat to radicalized Christians, Gushee warns in new book
Christ has become quite the nuisance to Christians bent on overthrowing U.S. democracy to establish a white-led Christian nation, Mercer University ethicist David Gushee said during a Sept. 6 webinar hosted by Baptist News Global. “Jesus is a great inconvenience…
Next up: BNG webinar with David Gushee this week
BNG readers are invited to a free webinar this Wednesday afternoon with BNG columnist David Gushee. The Mercer University ethicist will talk with BNG Executive Director Mark Wingfield about Gushee’s newest book, Defending Democracy from its Christian Enemies. The webinar…
Erasmus indicts Trump — and the USA
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…
You’re invited to four change-making conversations upcoming through BNG
Beginning this Wednesday, BNG Executive Director Mark Wingfield launches a fall series of “change-making conversation” webinars that are free to attend. Confirmed guests are Mikeal Parsons and Joao Chaves, authors of the new book Remembering Antônia Teixeira; David Gushee, BNG…
Thoughts about the art and craft of teaching
This week I begin my 31st year of full-time teaching in the field of Christian ethics. In this post I want to think aloud about the art and craft of teaching. I believe the magic in teaching — at least…
Preserving a sense of the ultimate
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…
An interview with Kelsey Morrison, evangelical academia’s latest homophobia victim
On June 2, soccer coach Kelsey Morrison was fired and immediately escorted from the campus of Geneva College, an evangelical school near Pittsburgh. Her offense was two posts on Instagram. In this exclusive interview with me for Baptist News Global,…
Lessons from Cicero on America’s 247th birthday
I am reading the Roman statesman-philosopher Cicero these days. You might ask why in the world that dusty old personage should be occupying my thoughts. The answer is that, as part of the preparation of my new book on democracy,…
‘May they all be one’
“I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.” — John 17:20-21 John 17 often is labeled as Jesus’ “high-priestly prayer.” This…
Our weekly gun massacres mark a devastating cultural failure
Our weekly gun massacres in the United States are shocking in the extreme. They set us apart from other nations in the worst possible sense. I have not yet been in or near one of these massacres. The closest I…
The Christian Right continues its futile but dangerous war of reaction
For a long time, it was clear the white Christian Right in the United States was waging a war of reaction (sometimes open, sometimes clandestine) against just about every social, cultural and legal change that has taken place in our…