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| From Foundation To Renovation
What happens when the beliefs that once held everything together can no longer carry the weight of real life?
In this foundational conversation, Jeff Click sits down with Christian ethicist David P. Gushee, whose early work helped shape modern evangelical ethics before a career-defining pivot reframed both his scholarship and his calling. Best known today for Changing Our Mind, Gushee reflects on how a series of transformative encounters with LGBTQ people he loved and served compelled him to rethink long-held interpretations of Scripture without abandoning his faith.
Drawing on Gushee’s theological journey and Jeff’s lived experience as the parent of an LGBTQ+ child, this episode reframes deconstruction not as demolition, but as careful, faithful reconstruction. Together, they explore the idea of “load-bearing beliefs,” why so many parents and pastors feel frozen rather than resistant, and how love often demands a rebuild of what once felt foundational.
This is a conversation about loyalty, empathy, silence, and the courage to change our mind when love leads the rebuild.
For parents, pastors, and anyone navigating the tension between deeply held beliefs and lived reality, this episode offers clarity, language, and permission to move forward without tearing everything down.
In this foundational conversation, Jeff Click sits down with Christian ethicist David P. Gushee, whose early work helped shape modern evangelical ethics before a career-defining pivot reframed both his scholarship and his calling. Best known today for Changing Our Mind, Gushee reflects on how a series of transformative encounters with LGBTQ people he loved and served compelled him to rethink long-held interpretations of Scripture without abandoning his faith.
Drawing on Gushee’s theological journey and Jeff’s lived experience as the parent of an LGBTQ+ child, this episode reframes deconstruction not as demolition, but as careful, faithful reconstruction. Together, they explore the idea of “load-bearing beliefs,” why so many parents and pastors feel frozen rather than resistant, and how love often demands a rebuild of what once felt foundational.
This is a conversation about loyalty, empathy, silence, and the courage to change our mind when love leads the rebuild.
For parents, pastors, and anyone navigating the tension between deeply held beliefs and lived reality, this episode offers clarity, language, and permission to move forward without tearing everything down.
David P. Gushee is one of the most respected Christian moral thinkers of his generation, known for combining rigorous scholarship with deep pastoral concern for human dignity and flourishing. Now in his fourth decade of teaching, he has served as Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University since 2007 and holds additional leadership roles at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and the International Baptist Theological Study Centre. Throughout his career, he has taught, mentored, and supervised students across the globe while helping shape the modern conversation around Christian ethics, public life, and moral responsibility.
Dr. Gushee is the author, co-author, or editor of more than 30 books, including the influential Changing Our Mind, which marked a defining pivot in his public work. Long recognized for foundational contributions such as Kingdom Ethics, Gushee’s scholarship evolved through a series of transformative encounters with LGBTQ people whose lives and faith challenged inherited interpretations of Scripture. Rather than abandoning Christianity, Gushee undertook the work of reconstruction, helping countless parents, pastors, and faith leaders rethink long-held beliefs while remaining deeply rooted in Jesus, Scripture, and moral courage.
Within the LOVE* framework, Dr. Gushee represents what faithful renovation looks like over time: a willingness to redistribute theological weight when love, justice, and lived reality demand more. His work consistently centers empathy as a moral necessity, loyalty to people over institutions, and the conviction that any faith causing sustained harm must be reexamined. A globally sought-after speaker, writer, and public voice, Gushee continues to challenge the church to address human suffering honestly, believing that reconstruction, not rejection, is often the most faithful response. He and his wife, Jeanie, divide their time between Atlanta, Georgia and Chipping Campden, England, and are parents of three adult children and grandparents of three.
This episode is a slow, thoughtful walk through what happens when faith formed in one season of life encounters realities it was never designed to hold. Jeff Click and David P. Gushee explore the tension between honoring a foundation that once provided meaning and clarity, and recognizing when love and lived experience require something more.
Rather than framing change as abandonment or rebellion, the conversation centers on renovation and reconstruction; what it looks like to redistribute weight, reinterpret authority, and remain faithful without pretending nothing has shifted. Drawing from Gushee’s own career-defining pivot and Jeff’s experience as the parent of an LGBTQ+ child, this episode models how change often unfolds: slowly, relationally, and at real personal cost.
Rather than framing change as abandonment or rebellion, the conversation centers on renovation and reconstruction; what it looks like to redistribute weight, reinterpret authority, and remain faithful without pretending nothing has shifted. Drawing from Gushee’s own career-defining pivot and Jeff’s experience as the parent of an LGBTQ+ child, this episode models how change often unfolds: slowly, relationally, and at real personal cost.
Key Themes & Ideas Discussed
- Foundation vs. Renovation | Jeff introduces construction language to distinguish between tearing something down and carefully rebuilding what still matters when circumstances change.
- Load-Bearing Beliefs | Certain beliefs are treated as structurally essential, carrying emotional and spiritual weight far beyond their actual scope, which is why questioning them can feel threatening to the entire faith system.
- Frozen vs. Stubborn | Gushee differentiates between people who actively resist change and those who are immobilized because they cannot yet see a faithful next step forward.
- Transformative Encounter | Real change most often occurs not through abstract argument, but through embodied relationships with real people—especially people we love.
- Parents and First Contact | Parents typically encounter these questions without preparation, learning in real time, while pastors and church leaders have had years to anticipate and respond.
- Evangelical Totalism | Both reflect on a faith culture that sought to govern every aspect of life, offering clarity and purpose while also embedding assumptions that went largely unexamined.
- A Flat Bible vs. A Jesus-Centered Reading | Gushee challenges the idea that all parts of Scripture carry equal interpretive weight, emphasizing Jesus as the lens through which Christians have historically read the Bible.
- Deconstruction Reframed | Deconstruction is presented not as rejection of faith, but as the uncovering of interpretations that no longer align with love, justice, or lived reality.
- Silence as Communication | Jeff describes how institutional silence around LGBTQ topics communicates values just as clearly as explicit teaching, often with harmful consequences.
- Avoidism in Church Leadership | Gushee names the point at which avoiding the issue is no longer morally or pastorally defensible.
- Loyalty Reordered | A pivotal shift occurs when loyalty moves away from institution, reputation, or comfort and toward one’s child or loved one.
- Honor and Dishonor | Both discuss the social and relational cost of change, including loss of standing, access, and perceived credibility within faith communities.
- Empathy Under Fire | The episode confronts the growing backlash against empathy, reframing it as essential to human and Christian maturity rather than a threat to truth.
- Human Suffering, Not PR | The church’s central crisis is named not as a public relations problem, but as the real human suffering its teachings have caused.
- Mental Health Stakes | The conversation highlights research showing that family acceptance dramatically improves mental health outcomes for LGBTQ youth.
- Reconstruction as Faithfulness | Gushee reflects on how his work shifted after Changing Our Mind, becoming focused on helping others rebuild faith rather than discard it.
- Hesed (Steadfast Love) | The episode closes with the Hebrew concept of covenantal, unbreakable love as the grounding force that allows families to move forward together.
This episode does not offer quick answers or tidy conclusions. Instead, it offers language, permission, and companionship for those standing in the in-between, no longer able to stay where they were, but unwilling to burn everything down.
At its core, this conversation argues that reconstruction is not a failure of faith, but a sign of responsibility. When love leads the rebuild, what emerges is not a weaker structure, but one capable of sheltering real people in real life.
Linkable Mentions
🌐 David P. Gushee | Official website
Dr. Gushee’s primary hub featuring his full bibliography, current projects, speaking engagements, and access to his ongoing writing and public scholarship.
🎥 Dr. David Gushee — Ending the Teaching of Contempt Against the Church’s Sexual Minorities
In this pivotal lecture, David P. Gushee names and confronts the historic Christian practice of contempt toward sexual minorities, calling the church toward repentance, moral clarity, and reconstruction rooted in the teachings of Jesus.
Dr. Gushee’s primary hub featuring his full bibliography, current projects, speaking engagements, and access to his ongoing writing and public scholarship.
🎥 Dr. David Gushee — Ending the Teaching of Contempt Against the Church’s Sexual Minorities
In this pivotal lecture, David P. Gushee names and confronts the historic Christian practice of contempt toward sexual minorities, calling the church toward repentance, moral clarity, and reconstruction rooted in the teachings of Jesus.
📘 Changing Our Mind by David P. Gushee
A landmark work in which Dr. Gushee traces his own theological pivot, arguing that faithful Christianity requires reexamining long-held teachings about LGBTQ people in light of Scripture, love, and lived experience.
A landmark work in which Dr. Gushee traces his own theological pivot, arguing that faithful Christianity requires reexamining long-held teachings about LGBTQ people in light of Scripture, love, and lived experience.
📘 Kingdom Ethics by David P. Gushee & Glen Stassen
An influential ethics text that helped shape a generation of evangelical moral thinking, grounding Christian public witness in the teachings of Jesus before Gushee’s later work expanded the conversation toward reconstruction and inclusion.
✍️ David P. Gushee on Substack | Essays, commentary, and long-form writing
Dr. Gushee’s newsletter and long-form writing space, where he reflects on faith, ethics, politics, and the ongoing work of Christian moral reconstruction in real time.
An influential ethics text that helped shape a generation of evangelical moral thinking, grounding Christian public witness in the teachings of Jesus before Gushee’s later work expanded the conversation toward reconstruction and inclusion.
✍️ David P. Gushee on Substack | Essays, commentary, and long-form writing
Dr. Gushee’s newsletter and long-form writing space, where he reflects on faith, ethics, politics, and the ongoing work of Christian moral reconstruction in real time.
🌐 The Reformation Project | Faith-based LGBTQ inclusion resources
An organization equipping Christians and churches to engage Scripture, theology, and lived experience in ways that affirm LGBTQ people while remaining rooted in historic Christian faith.
An organization equipping Christians and churches to engage Scripture, theology, and lived experience in ways that affirm LGBTQ people while remaining rooted in historic Christian faith.
🌐 Family Acceptance Project | Research on family acceptance and LGBTQ youth outcomes
A leading research initiative demonstrating how family acceptance dramatically improves mental health and well-being outcomes for LGBTQ youth, often cited in conversations about faith, parenting, and care.