Changing Our Mind: Definitive 3rd Edition of the Landmark Call for Inclusion of LGBTQ Christians with Response to Critics

by David P. Gushee

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781942011842
Publisher:	Front Edge Publishing, LLC
Publication date:	05/19/2017
Edition description:	Definitive 3rd Edition of the Landmark Call for Inclusion of LGBTQ Christians with Response to Criti
Pages:	248
Sales rank:	120,775
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Dr. David P. Gushee is Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University and Chair of Christian Social Ethics Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam/IBTS. One of the world's leading Christian ethicists, he is the author or editor of more than 25 books, including Changing Our Mind, After Evangelicalism, Kingdom Ethics, Still Christian, Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust, and The Sacredness of Human Life. Gushee is a frequent speaker, "Kingdom Ethics" podcaster, and activist. He and his wife, Jeanie, live in Atlanta, Georgia. Visit davidpgushee.com or @dpgushee on social media.

Table of Contents

Also David P. Gushee viii

Author Introduction to Third Edition (June 2017) xi

Author Introduction to Second Edition (February 2015) xvii

Foreword Brian D. McLaren xviii

Preface Phyllis Tickle xxi

Introduction Matthew Vines xxiv

Chapter 1 Live From New York 1

Chapter 2 Our Moment: A Church With a Problem 8

Chapter 3 Starting a Conversation 20

Chapter 4 What Exactly Is the Issue? 25

Chapter 5 Change We Can All Support 29

Chapter 6 Gay Christians Exist 34

Chapter 7 Six Options for the Churches 38

Chapter 8 If This Is Where You Get Off the Bus 44

Chapter 9 Biblical Inspiration, Human Interpretation 49

Chapter 10 How Traditionalists Connect the Biblical Dots 55

Chapter 11 The Sins of Sodom (and Gibeah) 59

Chapter 12 Leviticus, Abomination and Jesus 65

Chapter 13 Two Odd Little Words 74

Chapter 14 God Made Them Male and Female 80

Chapter 15 Creation, Sexual Orientation and God's Will 90

Chapter 16 Toward Covenant 98

Chapter 17 Transformative Encounters and Paradigm Leaps 105

Chapter 18 A Dual-Narrative Tour 111

Chapter 19 Howl Got Here 116

Chapter 20 Ending the Teaching of Contempt 125

References 146

Response to Critics (for Third Edition) 151

Major Reviews of Changing Our Mind 178

Study Guide by Rev. Robert Cornwall 181

Advance Praise For Changing Our Mind 210

From Reviews of Changing Our Mind 216

Editorial Reviews

“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

From the Publisher