LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A new collection from RNS blogger David Gushee, along with Isaac Sharp, explores the different roles that scholars and popular figures have played in forming evangelicals’ understandings of Christian ethics. Bringing together both senior and emerging voices from across the spectrum of post-World War II American evangelical ethical thought, Evangelical Ethics: A Reader (Westminster John Knox Press) demonstrates that evangelical social ethics always involves offering significant critique, accompanied by the effort to renew, convert, or transform. It further argues that more conservative voices tend to look at a (morally declining) society as the object of transformation, whereas for more progressive voices the object of transformation efforts is often evangelical Christianity itself. Contributors include evangelical stalwarts like Carl F. H. Henry, Francis Schaeffer, and Jim Wallis, together with younger voices like Soong-Chan Rah and Jennifer McBride, and ethicists like the late Allen Verhey and Glen Stassen.
Gushee is one of the most prominent Christian ethicists today. Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics and Director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University, he is the author or editor of twenty books and hundreds of articles, including Kingdom Ethics and, most recently, Changing Our Mind. Sharp is currently a PhD candidate at Union Theological Seminary.
Evangelical Ethics has already garnered significant praise from those in the ethics field. Duke University professor Luke Bretherton writes, “For the growing body of evangelicals committed to ‘making a difference’ in the world, this text is a key resource for understanding their own intellectual inheritance,” while Boston College professor Lisa Sowle Cahill describes the book as one that “surfaces an important strand of American social ethics, familiarity with which is essential to an informed and effective Christian politics today.” Wyndy Corbin Reuschling of Ashland Theological Seminary advises that for those with preexisting negative biases toward evangelicals “the chapters in this volume will be a delightful surprise.”
Evangelical Ethics is now available. Media interested in a review copy or author interview can contact Emily Kiefer, [email protected].
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