Thus, 19 articles became Changing Our Mind in October 2014. This was noticed by David Crumm, Michigan-based journalist, editor and publisher, a fellow dissident evangelical, who proposed to turn the articles into an almost-instant book when I was through. Without any foreordained plan on my part, the series began taking on the feeling of a book. I do not recommend writing a closely watched, highly controversial series of articles on a week-by-week deadline while a beloved family member is dying. After a while, the series began to feel like a tribute to her. Ironically, this seems to have made me more fearless, as this pretty-traditional Catholic mother had taken the path toward inclusion with my own sister. I also was dealing with the decline and eventually the death of my beloved mother.

I just started writing, in public, week by week, addressing the inclusion issue from the ground up, doing the best I could within deadline constraints and while teaching full time. It contributed to my sense of compulsion and responsibility. I knew that very, very few scholars or pastors who identified as evangelical had that kind of freedom. Thankfully, Mercer University and First Baptist Church Decatur came through for me as expected, and so I had the (rare) freedom to address LGBTQ inclusion without fear. “I believed finally that I had a responsibility to make use of my platform to address the effort.”įree: I was confident that my employer’s understanding of academic freedom was ironclad, and that my church would be supportive. Responsible: As a seasoned Christian ethicist who identified as evangelical, seeing the hash that evangelicals were making of LGBTQ inclusion, and knowing that I had not seriously addressed the issue, I believed finally that I had a responsibility to make use of my platform to address the effort. The simple answer is that I felt compelled, responsible and free.Ĭompelled: The “LGBTQ issue” kept coming at me, in my family, school, church, the lecture circuit and public life, and I felt summoned finally to address it in a serious way. People often ask me what led me - a straight, married, Christian - to write when I did and how I did about LGBTQ inclusion. Long-time readers of Baptist News Global will remember that this book originated as a series of posts on this site beginning in the summer of 2014. This becomes the occasion for my column this week. I learned this week that sales of my 2014 book Changing Our Mind are just about to cross 25,000, apparently very rare in the book business.

David gushee changing our mind