David P. Gushee

"The style is accessible, not academic as with many of his other works. It reads more like a journal than a scholarly tome, so you won't be wondering what in the heck he's talking about ... Gushee is a sage among straight, conservative Christians, so he can't be easily dismissed ... The whole book just feels balanced ... Gushee is humble. He repents, and when he does, you sense his grief." (Matt Rogers, mattrogers.us.) From http: //bit.ly/2qYS3R6

"This is how our minds can be changed--'transformative encounters with real human beings.' Such encounters, Gushee argues, are an experience of God's Spirit at work. And if that is what is going on--if God's Spirit is at work and on the move--then the tribal gatekeepers frightened by this book have very good cause to be frightened indeed." (Fred Clark, Slacktivist Blog.) From http: //bit.ly/2r337K6

"While I disagree with Gushee's conclusion, I actually agree with his pastoral heart and I resonate very much with his loving posture toward LGBT people. More than that, I too want to join the crusade in ending hateful, judgmental, dehumanizing and damning rhetoric that's been lobbed like grenades across the island, blowing up the 'others.' I concur with David when he says: 'I will henceforth oppose any form of discrimination against you. I will seek to stand in solidarity with you who have suffered the lash of countless Christian rejections. His words are scandalously close to Jesus's posture with the woman caught in adultery, who by law should have been stoned. Jesus, quite literally, stood in solidarity with the woman, fresh off her adulterous affair. Jesus didn't affirm her sin, but He affirmed her humanity. And that's where many on the evangelical right need to grow. We need to be more like Jesus. We need to repent from our unchristian rhetoric, our tone, our posture. We need to recognize that unloving speech spackled over with a thin veneer of truth is a religious charade." (Preston Sprinkle, Theology in the Raw.) From http: //bit.ly/2r2UDD7

"David Gushee is arguably the preeminent Evangelical ethicist of our time. Until this book, that is, which is more than a book. It is an event and it is one that will propel Gushee outside the camp of approved Evangelical scholars. But this is where Jesus did his best work. It is the place where the gospel first happened for all people. Gushee's book will draw many Evangelicals to find Jesus outside the camp with his vulnerable gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender followers, those who have suffered in exile for a very long time. The thing you will notice in Changing Our Mind, beyond the faithful scholarship, is Gushee's voice. Words do matter and the thoughts they convey. But the good shepherd is known primarily by his voice. Gushee's voice is by turns warm, pastoral, prophetic, irenic, careful, authoritative, humble, sorrowful, repentant and even occasionally funny. Gushee's new book is a great read. But his mission is deadly serious. Gushee is out to save the lives of people living with the stigma of sexual minority status. And he is out to save the soul of the Evangelical church, so that it can be good news for all people again." (Ken Wilson, author of A Letter to my Congregation.) From http: //bit.ly/2r3bXrF

Changing Our Mind has helped thousands of families and congregations carefully and compassionately rethink traditional religious teachings about full LGBTQ inclusion.

Christian denominations and churches everywhere struggle with the issue of LGBTQ inclusion. With growing scientific evidence, our wider society has taken big steps, but too many religious families and communities have not kept up. As much as ever, many people still experience deep condemnation by evangelical and other churches, getting kicked out or altogether leaving. Dr. David Gushee offers a powerful, inspiring message of hope and healing by helping Christians to return to Bible study, prayer, and reflection in a way that creates a vision for a more inclusive church.

Arguably America's leading Christian ethicist, Gushee has written many helpful books for churches, discussion groups, and individuals. He is the author of the "Evangelical Declaration Against Torture" and drafted the "Evangelical Climate Initiative." His Kingdom Ethics is on pastors' bookshelves nationwide. Now, in what he describes as the most important book of his career as a Christian teacher, Gushee gives us this encouraging discussion on how he changed his mind.

From his own careful Bible study, research, and prayer, Gushee takes us along an conversational theological journey. In one book, he concisely marks out every single component of historic Christian sexual morality. He covers all of the relevant biblical passages and all the theological positions, including the key argument of creation. With a careful study of context and biblical language, he walks us through a principled discussion that is respectful of traditionalists while calling for inclusion and the end of contempt. This definitive third edition also includes Gushee's response to critics and a study guide for small group discussion.

Author Brian McLaren calls Changing Our Mind "deep, thoughtful and brilliant . . . [and] refreshingly clear and understandable." It is an eminently useful handbook for any individual or organization that wants to better contextualize traditional church teachings, which have been and must continue to change.… (más)

The wonderful thing about Still Christian is how the story is told about the shift within the Southern Baptist church from moderate to evangelical and the far right.

Most of the book is about Gushee himself and his life as a Baptist professor and leader. I was not familiar with who Gushee was, but looked him up after reading the book which gave a bit more insight. As a professor, he faced a wide variety of situations and felt safe being part of the Baptist community.

The shift happens as the church moves to a right wing, conservative, and evangelical church attacking environmentalism, the LGBTQ community, and a wide variety of topics. Gushee tells the story of how that happens gradually, yet quite intentionally. This was a planned movement that was strategically done to put the right people into leadership positions while pushing out the more moderate leaders until the church and all the colleges were taken over.

The amazing thing about the book is even though he is telling the story of his church, he is also essentially talking about the shift within the US, especially within the GOP.

I am not sure I would recommend the book to a larger group, but I found his sections on why global warming was threatening to the evangelical community was fascinating. It opened a whole new insight into an argument I do not understand how one could argue with it.

I gave this one 3.5 stars.… (más)

Liberal (Maybe Even Post-Christian?) Baptist Faith And Message. The Southern Baptist Convention's Baptist Faith and Message is the doctrinal screed for the group, listing various points of beliefs with proof-texted "reference verses" claiming to provide "evidence" that this belief is grounded in their view of the Bible. As someone who was a Southern Baptist for the first couple decades of my life, it is a document I'm pretty familiar with. Here, Gushee effectively recreates it for the more anti-white-male crowd, arguing (correctly) against prosperity theology while openly embracing humanist and liberation theology. Ultimately, he makes enough solid points to be worthy of discussion, but due to the constant proof-texting (a flaw in many similar works, and one that in my own personal war against is an automatic one star deduction in my reviews) and near-constant near straw man level attacks against more conservative theologies is to be read with a healthy amount of skepticism. That noted, as I generally try to do with such texts, I'm trying to be a bit balanced here. A much more conservative reader will probably find much more to attack in this text, and a much more liberal reader will probably find much more to love. Overall a solid work of its type, and recommended for any interested in such discussions.… (más)

A close examination of the ideas behind a new reformation movement, which seeks a path to a post-evangelical faith that would re-examine a broad range of theological and moral issues where evangelical Christian churches have lost their way: biblical interpretation, sexual and identity issues, politics, race relations, science, etc. I think this is a valuable and thoughtful work, quite compelling (even though it occasionally gets bogged down in esoteric academic details). I wish I had more hope in this vision being fulfilled.… (más)