Rev. Dr. David P. Gushee, a Christian scholar, teacher, activist, and churchman, serves as Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics and Director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University where he also chairs the Mercer Lyceum initiative on rebuilding democracy.

Dr. Gushee seeks to participate in the advance of God’s reign through scholarship and teaching in the field of Christian ethics and through preaching and teaching in his congregation, other churches, and universities and seminaries around the world. Such global service has become an increasingly important part of his work in recent years, including teaching or consulting appearances in Australia, Croatia, England, Israel/Palestine, South Africa, Ukraine, and planned trips to Germany, Romania, and Colombia this fall.

Dr. Gushee’s academic publishing career began with his doctoral study of Christian behavior in Europe during the Holocaust, which was published in 1994 as The Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust. Also translated into German, the book has remained continuously in print and is recognized as an authoritative treatment of rescuer behavior and motivations. In recognition of his work on the Holocaust, in 2008 he was named to the Committee on Church Relations and the Holocaust of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. He taught a course for college faculty at the Museum in the summer of 2010 and continues to be involved in Holocaust education efforts through the USHMM.

His 2003 Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context (IVP), with his mentor Glen Stassen of Fuller Seminary, was named Theology/Ethics book of the year by Christianity Today. It has sold over 22,000 copies, and has been used as a textbook at such schools as Yale, Princeton, and Berkeley as well as numerous Baptist and evangelical institutions. It has been or is being translated into Japanese, Bulgarian, Spanish, Indonesian, Chinese, Korean, and Arabic.  The authors are preparing a 2nd edition for release in 2013.

Overall, Gushee has written or co-written, edited or co-edited twelve books, and has published many hundreds of scholarly and popular articles, book chapters, and reviews in most significant venues related to his field. His work has focused especially in the areas of social ethics, Christian engagement in the public square, and Christian higher education. His most recent book, Religious Faith, Torture, and Our National Soul, co-edited with his students Jill and Drew Zimmer, was released in March 2010 by Mercer Press.

This coming year will see Professor Gushee publish three books, reflecting three very different aspects of his ministry. This summer he will release an edited collection of essays with Chalice Press under the title, A New Evangelical Manifesto. In November, David and Jeanie Gushee will publish a prayer book with Thomas Nelson called Yours Is the Day, Lord, Yours Is the Night. And in January 2013 his long-awaited scholarly work on The Sacredness of Human Life will be published by Eerdmans. This book explores the theological and ethical conviction that human life is sacred. This will be a scholarly work tracing the development of this conviction through its roots in scripture, articulation in Christian tradition, and development, alteration, and tragic rejection in western moral thought and practice.

Dr. Gushee’s work as a scholar has been recognized by his peers through such measures as his service on the editorial board of the Society of Christian Ethics, his election to the board of directors of that professional group, his co-leadership of the Scriptural/Contextual Ethics Group of the American Academy of Religion, and his role as a Visiting Member of the Center for Theological Inquiry at Princeton. 

A professor deeply committed to teaching and mentoring his students, Dr. Gushee was named Faculty of the Year at Union University in May 2000, in his first year of eligibility for the award. He created and led a Christian ethics program at Union that graduated dozens of majors and minors. He continues such teaching and mentoring at McAfee School of Theology - where he now leads a Christian Social Ethics Track - and with undergraduates at Mercer University in Macon, and is committed to ongoing relationships with his graduates.

In recent years Dr. Gushee has had the opportunity to engage as an citizen-activist and public intellectual on a number of controversial issues. His widely quoted 2006 Christianity Today cover article opposing torture has led to ongoing opportunities to address issues related to U.S. foreign policy since 9/11. He founded and served as president of Evangelicals for Human Rights (EHR), which led the fight against excesses in counterterrorism policy, and later merged with two other organizations to form the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good. On the environment, Professor Gushee was the principal drafter of the 2006 Evangelical Climate Initiative and remains deeply involved in follow-on efforts to address climate change and other environmental issues. On human rights, Dr. Gushee now serves on a national taskforce on detainee treatment.

In the 2008 election year, Dr. Gushee intensified his involvement in scholarly and popular analysis of the role of religion, and especially evangelicalism, in American public life. He published The Future of Faith in American Politics (Baylor University Press), which argues that there is an “emerging evangelical center” that offers the best way forward for evangelical political engagement. This publication helped to solidify his role as a commentator on such issues for the media, a role which he anticipates continuing to play in 2012, especially through opinion pieces in USA Today and responses to media inquiries.

Dr. Gushee was educated at the College of William and Mary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he earned his Ph.D. in Christian Ethics in 1993.

He resides in Atlanta with his wife Jeanie, cat Noah, and grown children Holly, David, and Marie when they make it home. en Español