David Gushee

David Gushee

'Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies'

'Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies' Podcast

From the Freedom Road.us 'Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies' Podcast with Lisa Sharon Harper:,

This month we are joined by one of the foremost Christian ethicists in the world, Dr. David Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University, and Chair of Christian Social Ethics at Vrije Universiteit (“Free University”) Amsterdam, and Senior Research Fellow, International Baptist Theological Study Centre and he is the author of several books, most recently, Defending Democracy from its Christian Enemies.

Dr. Gushee was invited to speak with us because, well—we need his wisdom and expertise right now. Not only is the Christian church a consistent foe of democracy in an age when democracy is at risk around the world and here at home—but also to hear his thoughts on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Portion of the transcript:

Lisa Sharon Harper: "...We need some expertise right now about this. this democracy thing and about how Christianity is actually not helping across the globe and how we can counter that [00:02:00] within the church.

Lisa Sharon Harper: "...in the interest actually of transparency, I should say, and actually brag that in my upcoming PhD program at the Free University in Amsterdam, uh, David is going to be my supervisor.

Yes. So I want to say, I’m so excited to work with you and I’m also excited for this conversation. Because, um, you know, you know, my work and I know, I know your work and, um, and I know that you really are a critical, probably one of the, one of the most critical voices for the church in this moment.

David Gushee: "Well, Glen Stassen… Glen Stassen the ethics, the main ethics professor at Southern Seminary and my mentor. After I finished or as I was finishing my MDiv, uh, it was clear I needed to do a PhD. It became really clear. I wanted it to be in ethics. He said, it’s time for you to broaden.

It’s time for you to get outside this. little subculture. He knew Union. He had friends at Union. He had done some studying at Union. I applied to five different schools. The one criteria was nothing below the Mason Dixon line and nothing related to the Baptists. But the one I ended up with was Union and I mean, I got to study with James Cone and Beverly Harrison, with Larry Rasmussen with Cornel West, I didn’t have a chance to have a class with him, but he was there at that time. And so it was a mind blowing experience. It [00:07:00] was way ahead of what I was ready to process at that time, but it left its traces, I would say.

[...]

"For University Amsterdam is really especially focused on public, uh, social, um, you know, political, but, you know, human community kind of issues, right? So that was the version of Christian ethics that I was taught by Glenn Sasson, by Larry Rasmussen, by, you know, James Cone, [00:08:00] Christian engagement for, for justice and righteousness, for mercy and love, for the reign of God in a broken world.

And so one way to think about it kind of autobiographically is that I grew up in a family where we, my dad worked for the government and we talked about policy issues like a lot. I would joke about how we’d be sitting around the table reading the Washington Post and talking about environmental policy when I was like 10, you know, because that’s what my dad did, energy and environment.