Quotes from David P. Gushee

It would have been so nice if evangelicals could have known of the Jewish traditions of dialogue, debate, argument, questioning. Instead we got inerrancy. Inerrancy made it wrong to question the literal face-value reading of any biblical text—ranging from the Sodom and Gomorrah story to Joshua's holy war texts.

The Bible cannot be the primary source of knowledge and criterion of truth in all areas of importance.

O Lord our God, what sins I have this day committed in word, deed, or thought, forgive me, for You are gracious and You love all people. Grant me peaceful and undisturbed sleep, send me Your guardian angel to protect and guard me from every evil, for You are the guardian of our souls and bodies and to You I ascribe glory, to the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, now and for ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen. —RUSSIAN ORTHODOX PRAYER

Keep me, O Lord, while I tarry on this earth, in a serious seeking after Thee, and in an affectionate walking with Thee, every day of my life;

Reinterpreting sacred texts in the name of fidelity to God and kindness to neighbor is precisely what the Talmud does, and many Jewish scholars do, to this day.

most evangelicals have remained stuck there.

other ways of knowing—indeed, other ways of hearing God address us. These include tradition, science, reason, experience, intuition, community, and relationships. The power of a narrow evangelical biblicism must be broken, but you can't replace something with nothing.

The church is the community of people who stand in covenant relationship with God through Jesus Christ and seek to fulfill his kingdom mission.

The Bible was treated as trustworthy in a way that other human products were not, because it was not viewed as a human product.

My God, I pray that I may so know You and love you, that I may rejoice in You. And if I may not do so fully in this life, let me go steadily on to the day when I come to that in fullness.

News stories are very brief summaries of someone else's summary.