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Now Available for Preorder: A Compassionate Guide to the Book of Job for Today’s Spiritual Exiles.
The book of Job is one of the most unsettling texts in the Bible. In Job in Exile: A Guide for Spiritual Refugees, David P. Gushee offers a new interpretation that brings clarity and relevance to this ancient book. Gushee argues that Job’s story is not only about suffering, but also about spiritual exile.
Gushee shows how the drama of Job exposes the ethical stakes of religious life. When Job’s friends insist that suffering must be punishment for sin, they defend their theology instead of standing with their wounded friend. When Job curses the day of his birth and demands an answer from God, Gushee sees a model of moral courage―the refusal to silence real experience for the sake of certainty, safety, or inclusion. Even when God finally speaks from the whirlwind, the story raises profound questions about divine power, human integrity, and what faithfulness looks like in a suffering world.
Written especially for post-evangelical pastors, churches, artists, and other spiritual seekers and refugees, Job in Exile invites readers to engage scripture with unflinching honesty and courage.
"Widely read and profoundly thoughtful, David Gushee guides the reader through the book of Job, passage by passage, in a compelling, complex, and highly provocative manner."
–Edward L. Greenstein, author of Job: A New Translation
Other Recent Books by David Gushee
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The Book of Job as Breakthrough Text for Post-Evangelicals and Other Spiritual Refugees
On September 2, my next book comes out, with Orbis press. Job in Exile: A Guide for Spiritual Refugees (Orbis Books) is a treatment of the majestic, complicated, wonderful Book of Job. I have been fascinated with Job since my high school days. It struck me then as wildly, dangerously out of step with the rest of […]
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Toward a New Religious Humanism
Note: On Friday, May 22, I enjoyed the distinct honor of being awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity at Franklin College in Indiana. I also gave this baccalaureate address. It foreshadows themes that will appear in my future book with Bloomsbury on Christian humanism. I. GREETINGS President Prather, distinguished faculty, proud families and friends, and […]
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After Primary Day, Where Are We?
I want to offer a few propositions for where our country is politically after this week’s round of primary voting, mainly in the South. President Donald Trump continues to destroy the careers of those Republican politicians who demonstrate independent judgment. The latest victims are Rep. Thomas Massie (Kentucky) and Sen Bill Cassidy (Louisiana). These exercises of […]
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The Guardrails Preserving Our Democracy
I want to consider some cautiously good news today. The good news is that certain cultural, political, international, and legal guardrails are holding against Donald Trump and his government right now. Democratic resilience is appearing from three directions at once: institutional resistance, civic mobilization, and international democratic solidarity. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new […]
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“I Was Simply Trying to Be a Good Christian”
André Trocmé, Le Chambon, and the refusal to surrender moral judgment There are basically three kinds of people who know what happened in the small French village of Le Chambon during World War II. The first group is Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, and their descendants, who remember with gratitude and awe the fact that […]
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A Report from the Post-Evangelical Collective National Meeting in Boston
Boston marked my 4th national Post-Evangelical Collective (PEC) conference. In order, they have been Denver (2023), Raleigh (2024), Nashville (2025), and now Boston (2026). The Dallas 2027 meeting has already been announced. Here are some things that I noticed about this exciting, joyful conference. SPONSORS LIST GROWING The list of sponsors is growing, and it […]
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Post-Evangelical Churches Are Succeeding
There is much handwringing about the “state of the church” these days. I want to suggest that handwringing is a bit exaggerated. I know the statistics. There are certainly many US churches that are struggling and some that are closing. But I can tell you something from personal experience on many a Sunday of guest […]
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Pope Leo, Donald Trump, and Moral Plumblines
The recent, entirely predictable, online attack by Donald Trump on Pope Leo XIV has made an argument over values into a personal dispute. But the issue between the two men is not a personal dispute. It is instead a powerful illustration of the value of a moral tradition when brought to bear on transgressions against […]
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An American Ponders the Meaning of “A Whole Civilization Will Die Tonight.”
It is both a blessing and a curse to be an American in Amsterdam tonight. On the one hand, it is a blessed escape. On the other hand, people look at you with worry and pity. On the one hand, being in a context where politics is more or less normal is comforting. On the […]
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A Word to the Georgia House of Representatives
My Devotional and Prayer in Atlanta, March 9, 2026 Today, I had the rare privilege of serving as Chaplain of the Day for the Georgia House of Representatives, an invitation initiated by Rep. Sam Park, who introduced me very kindly. It was truly an honor to serve in this role, and an eye-opening experience to […]
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A Clarion Call to US Christians
Note: This statement was released today in the US. I was one of the 300+ original signatories. Check it out at: https://acalltochristians.org/ A Call to Christians in a Crisis of Faith and Democracy. Why We Write There are moments that call for repentance and resistance, courage and conviction, faith and fortitude. This is one of […]
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Helpless Hopelessness is Disempowering: And the difference between hope and optimism
I realized after fourteen months of dumbfounded mainly-silence that I had succumbed to hopelessness about the US, the country that I love and that it was time to snap out of it. There are three problems with hopelessness. One: it closes its eyes to reasons for hope; therefore, in the name of realism it misses […]
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Christianity & Democracy 5.0
Note: I have been giving versions of my talk on democracy since 2022. Call this one version 5.0. It was presented on October 6 at the gorgeous Sacred Heart Cultural Arts Center in Augusta, Georgia. My host was the Progressive Religious Coalition of Augusta, a fine group of public-minded folks in that grand old city. The […]
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What Do We Owe to Caesar?
Note: I preached this sermon today at Towne View Baptist Church, Kennesaw, Georgia. Text (NRSVue) 15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. 16 So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with […]
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Why the ‘Believers Churches’ Have Not Been Able to Stop Our Descent into Authoritarian Reactionary Christianity
Note: A slightly longer version of this talk was presented on Friday night, 19 September, at a conference in Hamburg, Germany called the Entscheidungschristentum (“Decision Christianity”) Conference. The title in the German program was: “Believers Churches als Auslaufmodell ? – Eine amerikanische Perspektive,” which translates as “Believers Churches as an Obsolete Model? An American Perspective.” INTRODUCTION Greetings […]
An Ethicist Tackles the Issues
Dr. Gushee speaks to a wide range of audiences and organizations, including churches, universities, special forums, podcasts and the media. He often speaks on evangelicalism, LGBTQ+ inclusion, politics, and other issues of the day by offering a principled and everyday level perspective that informs and inspires.
David Gushee’s work in [Changing Our Mind] stands to be of pivotal importance in reframing the LGBTQ dialogue in the church, and in reclaiming the church’s moral authority for a new generation.
—Matthew Vines, author of God and the Gay Christian
“Kingdom Ethics is arguably the most significant and comprehensive Christian ethics textbook of our time.”
— Michelle A. Clifton-Soderstrom, North Park Theological Seminary“Anyone who wants to know what a Christian ethicist is and does can begin [with Still Christian], with the compelling account of how one man makes life-bending decisions about things that matter, without ever losing faith in the tender Jesus who has hold of his soul.”
–Barbara Brown Taylor, author of Leaving Church and Learning to Walk in the Dark
"David Gushee is one of the best Christian ethicists alive today. "
—Shane Claiborne, speaker, activist, and author of Executing Grace
"Thinking about Christianity after evangelicalism is neither trendy, alarmist, nor faithless, but rather it carves out a needed path forward for those millions of exvangelicals who have found the movement that birthed them to be irrelevant, traumatic, and even abhorrent and are seeking a place to land. Few have earned the right to speak to this topic with such prophetic clarity and practical insight, not to mention approachable writing style, as David Gushee."
–Peter Enns, author of How the Bible Actually Works