WASHINGTON — Dr. David Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer, will meet with members of the Presidential Transition Team for President-Elect Barack Obama today and Thursday to discuss issues related to ending torture, a new progressive-evangelical policy agenda and national security issues.
In addition to his professorship, Dr. Gushee serves as president of Evangelicals for Human Rights, which he helped found in 2006 to advocate against the use of torture by the United States. In September, Mercer and Evangelicals for Human Rights hosted the National Summit on Torture, which Dr. Gushee organized to gather human rights advocates from around the country to find ways to end the practice of torture by the United States. Dr. Gushee is also a leader in a new evangelical movement advocating a broader and more centrist approach to achieve social change than the one offered by the traditional methods and ideologies of the Religious Right.
Today, Dr. Gushee will meet with members of the Presidential Transition Team’s national security and religious affairs groups. The meeting is being held at the request of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. Dr. Gushee and the anti-torture coalition will speak with the incoming security officials about the group’s goal of a presidential executive order ending detainee abuse and torture.
On Thursday, Dr. Gushee will attend a press conference to roll-out a new “Come Let Us Reason Together” Governing Agenda, sponsored by a coalition of evangelical and progressive groups under the auspices of the progressive think tank Third Way. Then, he and other members of the group will meet with the Presidential Transition Team to discuss the evangelical-progressive joint governing agenda.
About Mercer University:
Founded in 1833, Mercer University is a dynamic and comprehensive center of undergraduate, graduate and professional education. The University has approximately 7,700 students; 11 schools and colleges – liberal arts, law, pharmacy, medicine, business, engineering, education, theology, music, nursing and continuing and professional studies; major campuses in Macon, Atlanta and Savannah; three regional academic centers across the state; a university press; two teaching hospitals — Memorial University Medical Center and the Medical Center of Central Georgia; educational partnerships with Warner Robins Air Logistics Center in Warner Robins and Piedmont Healthcare in Atlanta; an engineering research center in Warner Robins; a performing arts center in Macon; and a NCAA Division I athletic program. For more information, visit www.mercer.edu.
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