The Sacredness of Human Life: Why an Ancient Biblical Vision Is Key to the World’s Future

by David P. Gushee

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2013

Overview

In The Sacredness of Human Life, David Gushee traces the concept of the sanctity of human life from Scripture through church history to the present day, arguing that viewing human life as sacred is one of the most precious legacies of biblical faith. Besides providing a masterful historical survey, Gushee’s discussion covers the many current ethical challenges and perspectives that impact the flourishing of human life, including biotechnology, the death penalty, abortion, human rights, nuclear weapons, just war theory, women’s rights, and creation care.

Key Features

• Discusses the concept of the sanctity of human life
• Argues that viewing human life as sacred is one of the most precious legacies of biblical faith
• Explores current ethical challenges and perspectives that impact the flourishing of human life

Contents

• What It Means to Say That Human Life Is Sacred
• The Old Testament and the Sacredness of Human Life
• Jesus Christ, the New Testament, and the Sacredness of Human Life
• The Sacredness of Life in Early Christianity
• The Fateful Transition to Christendom
• Christendom Divided against Itself: Three Case Studies
• Enlightenment Transitions: Natural Rights, Rule of Law, and Human Dignity
• Nietzsche Rejects the Christian God and Christian Morality
• Desecrations: Twentieth-Century Nazi Assaults on Human Life
• Honoring Human Life: Twenty-first-Century Challenges
• The Sacredness of God’s Creation
• Final Words: For the Church and Its Neighbors

Praise for the Print Edition

David Gushee is one of the preeminent Christian ethicists in the country, and his work is important for both those in the academic world and all of us trying to live out obedient and biblical lives. In The Sacredness of Human Life he rescues this most spiritual of concepts from the narrow realm of political rhetoric, which it has come to inhabit in recent years. This book should be read by anyone who desires to reclaim a broader definition of how ‘the sacredness of life’ should truly be understood.

—Jim Wallis, editor-in-chief, Sojourners

No one, to my knowledge, has come up with a deeper or more sustained account of what it means to say that human life is sacred than David Gushee in this magisterial work.

—Jeremy Waldron, professor of law, New York University School of Law

This is the most significant book I have ever seen about what it really means to say that human life is sacred. It combines conservative loyalty to preserving the sacredness of human life with liberal loyalty to caring for the basic needs of life. . . . Gushee’s work can bring the healing we need in our time of dangerous polarization.

—Glen Stassen, Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics and the Executive Director of the Just Peacemaking Initiative, Fuller Theological Seminary

In the face of today’s heated debates over ethical issues, Gushee does a fine job of laying out so-called progressive, conservative, and other Christian perspectives. This book is a valuable resource for all those who want to understand and thoughtfully engage perspectives other than their own.

—John F. Kilner, Franklin Forman Chair of Ethics, Trinity International University

Product Details

• Title: The Sacredness of Human Life: Why an Ancient Biblical Vision Is Key to the World’s Future
• Author: David P. Gushee
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Publication Date: 2013
• Pages: 477
• Christian Group: Evangelicals
• Resource Type: Topical
• Topic: Life Issues

About David P. Gushee

David P. Gushee (PhD, Union Theological Seminary) is Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics and director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University in Atlanta, Georgia. Widely regarded as one of the leading moral voices in American Christianity, he is the author or editor of twenty books and hundreds of articles in his field, including Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust, Kingdom Ethics, The Sacredness of Human Life and Changing Our Mind. Gushee is a scholar, activist and churchman. His research interests focus on the ethical teachings of Jesus Christ and the Christian theological-ethical tradition, together with its contemporary implications for Christian discipleship and public witness. He currently serves as senior columnist for Baptist News Global and as a member on the Death Penalty Committee Detainee Treatment Taskforce of the Constitution Project. He serves on the board of directors of Sojourners and as vice-chair of the board of the Public Religion Research Institute. He has most recently become a faith consultant for the Family Acceptance Project. As an activist, Gushee was the principal drafter of both the Evangelical Climate Initiative (2006) and the Evangelical Declaration against Torture (2007). He is regularly quoted in major national media of all types, including NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal as an authority on the role of religion in American public life and as a voice for civility and dialogue across our cultural divides. An ordained Baptist minister, Gushee and his wife, Jeanie, attend First Baptist Church in Decatur, where he teaches a weekly Sunday school class, as well as Holy Cross Catholic Church. They reside in Atlanta.