Michael J. Gehring

Visiting Professor of History of Christianity

Expertise

  • Practical Theology
  • Evangelism
  • C.S. Lewis Studies
  • Wesley and United Methodist Studies

Education

  • Ph.D., University of Manchester (UK), 2014.
  • D.Min., Southern Methodist University, 2002.
  • Th.M., Duke University, 1992.
  • M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1988.
  • B.A., Evangel University, 1983.


Michael Gehring is an Elder in the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church and was a Fellow and then Senior Fellow of the Polycarp Community of the Center for Evangelism and Missional Church Studies at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University from 2001–2021.He is also an Associate Fellow of the Manchester Wesley Research Centre (Manchester, UK).

Professor Gehring is currently editing, with Andy Kinsey, William J. Abraham: A Theological Profile, which will be published by Baylor University Press in 2025. He coedited, along with Andy Kinsey and Vaughn Baker, The Logic of Evangelism Revisited (Pickwick Publications, Wipf & Stock, 2019), which examined William J. Abraham’s seminal contribution to the field of evangelization studies evaluating its continued relevance. In 2017, Cascade Press (Wipf & Stock) published The Oxbridge Evangelist: Motivations, Practices, and Legacy of C.S. Lewis. It was also published by Lutterworth Press in Cambridge, England.

Dr. Gehring is also the author of two memoirs. As the Broken White Lines Become One, a spiritual autobiography, was published by Resource Publications (Wipf & Stock, 2018). Losing Church: The Decline, the Pandemic, and Social and Political Storms is a pastoral memoir reflecting on the challenges of leading a church in the current age (Resource, 2022).

Denomination

United Methodist

Contact

mgehring@hoodseminary.edu