Over Coffee is a narrative piece couched in the coffee-house conversation between Dave and a small-town pastor concerning a gay church member who desires to be partnered in the church. Over Coffee warmly introduces the reader to a biblical, faith-based dialogue for providing room on the pew in today’s most conservative churches for gay partnered…
“The book chronicles Cheri DiNovo’s own attempts as a minister to expand the membership of a rapidly shrinking congregation in a poor, inner city Toronto neighborhood. As a result, DiNovo discovers that, in her congregation’s decision to evangelize among the marginalized and “queer” in their neighborhood, church members are radically changed by realizing how “queer”…
Rather than embracing the conflict around gay relationships as an opportunity for the church to talk honestly about human sexuality, Christians continue to hurt one another with the same tired arguments that divide us along predictable political battle lines. If the world is to “know that we are Christians by our love,” the church needs…
“When our child told us they were attracted to the same sex, we were shocked. The usual questions flooded us: what would this mean for their life? Would they be safe? Would they ever have children? We truly had no idea what lay ahead. But here’s the realization that smacked us: we were now the…
Different groups interpret the Bible according to their core beliefs, emphasizing some ideas while allowing others to lie dormant. In this reflection on the meaning of Scripture, Peter Fitch argues that the Bible itself gives many clues as to the appropriate lens with which to read it: love. It is not meant as a rulebook,…
“Every generation has its hot-button issue,” writes David P. Gushee, “For us, it’s the LGBT issue.” In Changing Our Mind, Gushee takes the reader along his personal and theological journey as he changes his mind about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender inclusion in the Church. “For decades now, David Gushee has earned the reputation as…
As rhetoric continues to heat up on both sides of the debate over same-gender unions, clearly reasoned statements are in short supply. Watching this debate unfold, William Stacy Johnson found that he could be silent no longer. The result is this finely honed book. In A Time to Embrace Johnson presents a brilliant analysis of…
“This is a breakthrough work coming from the heart of evangelical Christianity and offered into the heart of evangelical Christianity,” writes David P. Gushee, the prolific Christian author and Director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University. In describing this book, Gushee continues: “It is unlike other books that demand revision…
This long-awaited book by one of American Christianity’s foremost ethicists proposes a framework for sexual ethics whereby justice is the criterion for all loving, including love that is related to sexual activity and relationships. It begins with historical and cross-cultural explorations, then addresses the large questions of embodiment, gender, and sexuality, and finally delineates the…
This work is aimed at those caught somewhere in the middle between those for whom only heterosexual and monogamous marriage, or “anything goes,” are paradigms of suitable behaviour and intimate relationships. Ethicist and Christian Marie Fortune explores what it means to be in an intimate relationship today, surrounded as we are by domestic violence and…