C-N’s Ashe-Henderson Lectures to Feature Dr. David Gushee

Carson-Newman College’s Ashe-Henderson Lectures, scheduled for January 31- February 2, will be led by Mercer University’s Dr. David P. Gushee and noted musician Noel Tredinnick. Held in the sanctuary of Jefferson City’s First Baptist Church, services are scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday and Thursday and at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Mercer University’s Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics, Gushee also directs the university’s Center for Theology and Public Life. Prior to joining Mercer, he served on Union University’s faculty for many years and is a noted columnist and social critic.

Gushee will open the series, titled “The Difference Christ Makes,” by examining how the church fulfills what Christ called it to be as Christendom fades. Other sermons will consider the difference Christ makes in daily life, including marriage, sex, money and country.

Educated at the College of William and Mary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and New York’s Union Theological Seminary, Gushee has invested himself deeply in the areas of social ethics, Christian engagement in the public square, and Christian higher education. His most recent book, Religious Faith, Torture, and Our National Soul, co-edited with his students Jill and Drew Zimmer, was released by Mercer Press in 2010. His current project explores the theological and ethical conviction that human life is sacred. The manuscript will be published by Eerdmans Press in the fall.

His 2003 Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context (IVP), with his mentor Glen Stassen of Fuller Seminary, was named Theology/Ethics book of the year by Christianity Today. It has been used as a textbook at Yale, Princeton, and Berkeley as well as numerous Baptist and evangelical institutions. A second edition is planned for release next year.

Tredinnick will make his fourteenth Carson-Newman visit to lead worship during the series. He was appointed organist and director of music at London’s All Souls Church in July 1972, having begun his musical career at Southwark Cathedral, London, as head chorister.

He studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he focused on organ and composition. A few years later, he joined the Guildhall as a faculty member teaching conducting, orchestration and keyboard skills.

Tredinnick has conducted and lectured regularly in the USA and Australia. In 1995 he was invited by The Billy Graham Organization to lead and conduct the music for Mission Ontario at the Sky Dome Stadium in Toronto. He has also worked with the BBC, which ultimately led to writing and presenting a two-part documentary on Oscar Hammerstein in keeping with his interest in musical theatre.

The series, which coincides with C-N’s Christian Emphasis Week, was established in 1982 by the late Martha Ashe, C-N’s first female trustee. She named the lectures to honor her grandfather, J.T. Henderson, C-N’s president at the turn of the 20th century. Led by her son, Ambassador Victor Ashe, her family continues to support the series.