A LIBRARIAN’S ORIENTATION
What this book explores
David Gushee addresses readers who can no longer inhabit white American evangelicalism but have not necessarily abandoned Christianity. After diagnosing evangelical identity, authority, politics, and moral formation, he proposes a post-evangelical path organized around Jesus, the kingdom of God, Christian humanism, responsible interpretation, and a different public ethic. The book therefore moves beyond departure: it is a concise constructive proposal for what Christian faith might become afterward.
EDITORIAL NOTE
Why it’s in the Library
It meets a common Inner Atlas traveler at a precise threshold: evangelical belonging has become untenable, yet Christian language and commitment have not simply disappeared. Gushee supplies a coherent destination to examine without requiring the Library—or the reader—to treat that destination as the inevitable meaning of becoming post-evangelical.
Good starting place if…
You are leaving or reassessing evangelicalism and want a readable, explicitly Christian proposal spanning Scripture, theology, ethics, politics, and community rather than only a critique of what went wrong.
Know before you begin…
This is a progressive post-evangelical reconstruction, not a neutral map of all ex-evangelical experience. Readers who need distance from Christianity, or who remain conservative on authority, sexuality, or politics, may find that Gushee's proposed home is not theirs even when his diagnosis is useful.