David W. Gill (www.davidwgill.org) served alongside Sharon Gallagher for nearly twenty years (1971-90) with Radix Magazine and New College Berkeley. A graduate of UC Berkeley (BA), SF State (MA), and USC (PhD), David was a leader in the Christian World Liberation Front, Co-editor of Radix, and the long-time founding President of the International Jacques Ellul Society (www.ellul.org). He served forty years as professor of Christian ethics and business and technology ethics at New College Berkeley, North Park University, St. Mary’s College Graduate School of Business, and Gordon-Conwell Seminary. He is the author of eleven books and hundreds of articles and reviews. He retired with his wife Lucia to their old home in North Oakland, California.
In this interview, David beautifully reflects on the legacy of Sharon Gallagher and their years working side by side at Right On (the predecessor to Radix), Radix, and New College Berkeley. He shares personal glimpses of Sharon’s quiet strength and wit, her resilience in a male-dominated field, and her role as a trailblazer for women’s leadership within Christianity. Along the way, David recalls fascinating chapters of Radix history, highlighting the influence of voices such as Francis Schaeffer, Os Guinness, Jim Wallis, Ron Sider, and others—and situates Sharon’s work within the wider movement of Christian engagement with culture, social justice, and community life. In other words: history, friendship, and a window into how one woman helped shape a generation of Christian thought and practice.
Names mentioned:
Sharon Gallagher, David Gill, Os Guinness, L’Abri Fellowship, Jack Sparks, Christian World Liberation Front (CWLF), Francis Schaeffer, Malcolm X, Frantz Fanon, Martin Luther King, Black Panthers, Bobby Seale, Elaine Brown, Hal Lindsey, John Darby, Jacques Ellul, Chuck Colson, Mother Teresa, Bob Dylan, Steve Turner, Kris Kristofferson, Maria Muldaur, George McGovern, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, The Chicago Declaration, Virginia Hearn, Ron Sider, Brad Jersak, Carl Henry, Jim Wallis, The Crucible: A Forum for Radical Christian Studies, Susan Phillips, Edith Schaeffer.
Books:
The Dust of Death (Os Guinness)
The God Who Is There (Francis A. Schaeffer)
Escape From Reason (Francis A. Schaeffer)
Late Great Planet Earth (Hal Lindsey)
Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (Ron Sider)
God’s Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America (Larry Eskridge)
To Think Christianly: A History of L’Abri, Regent College, and the Christian Study Center Movement (Charles E. Cotherman)
Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism (David R. Swartz)
What Are You Doing About It? The Memoir of a Marginal Activist (David W. Gill)
Radix: David, thank you so much for taking the time. You’ve got a storied background in a variety of places. With Sharon Gallagher’s passing, I wanted to talk with you about all things Radix and Sharon. I’m glad for this chance, since you probably knew her well, especially in those early years when foundations were being laid. So, to start: when did you first meet Sharon Gallagher?
David W. Gill: I went to the University of California back in the Sixties After. I graduated in 1968, I was mostly off doing student practice teaching to get my California credential and then took a job teaching junior high school. One day though, I noticed a flyer on a pole in my Berkeley neighborhood: Os Guinness, from L’Abri Fellowship, was going to give a lecture on Christianity and culture. I thought, I can’t miss this. So in March of 1971, I went. That was the first time I heard Os. He’d just written The Dust of Death, an analysis of culture, and I was very impressed with his presentation. We met there, and we’ve been friends ever since.
But what really struck me wasn’t just Os, but the group that sponsored him: the (ever-so-modestly-named) Christian World Liberation Front. On campus during 1967-68, we’d had the “Third World Liberation Front,” a student group pressing for courses on minority and global perspectives beyond just Western and Marxist frameworks. That was terrific—I benefited from those classes. So when I saw “Christian World Liberation Front,” I thought, what’s this?
That March ’71 meeting was the first time I encountered CWLF, which had been founded in 1969. I’m not actually sure if I met Sharon there, though I’m certain she was present. She had gotten to know Os the summer before at L’Abri in 1970, then moved to Berkeley in the fall to work with CWLF. Her original plan, after graduating in sociology from Westmont, was to do a PhD at USC—ironically, the same university where I later did mine. But she put those plans on hold, came to Berkeley, and threw herself into CWLF. I think Francis Schaeffer encouraged her in that direction—maybe Os too. She had already visited CWLF during her senior year at Westmont, so she knew what she was stepping into.
At that meeting I met Jack Sparks, who was the founder and leader of CWLF. I had seen their tabloid called Right Ona few times—it had been around about two years at that point. It was very small, maybe four to eight tabloid pages, but creative. It used a lot of hip countercultural graphics and language. A poster announcing “Wanted: Jesus Christ for Insurrection,” or words to that effect, would be typical. All fun and attention-getting, but clearly in need of more serious writers if they wanted to really engage people at Berkeley, both intellectually and socially-politically.
Radix: Makes sense. So how did you get more deeply involved in CWLF and Right On?
DG: I had been writing for another small publication since 1967—pieces on Malcolm X, Frantz Fanon, violence, peacemaking, justice, and other contemporary topics for a ministry I had started at the Alameda County Juvenile Hall. So I offered to give some of my articles to Jack. He said, “Yeah, give me whatever you’ve got.” Right On immediately published a couple and asked for more. That’s how I began to meet the people of Right On. There were some great artists and writers, but the one who immediately stood out to me was Sharon. She was writing with profound insights about the women’s movement, about Christianity, and about film and culture. I admired her work.
Radix: So you became a writer for Right On. How did the editor call come about?
DG: By the summer of 1971, after I’d been writing for three or four issues, Jack gathered those of us doing the writing and artwork. At that meeting, it was clear: we all agreed Right On needed to come out more regularly and it had to be bigger and stronger—better organized, more content. After we’d talked about that, Jack turned to me. I had just finished my MA at SF State with a thesis on “God’s role in human history,” so I had some credibility, and he’d seen my writing. Jack said, “We need an editor to manage this. David, would you be willing to captain the staff and be editor?” I said yes, but only on condition that Sharon Gallagher be appointed co-editor with me. I didn’t want to be the editor alone. She’d been there a few months longer than I had, her writing was excellent, and there was no reason she shouldn’t do it. We’d be stronger as equal co-editors.
I wasn’t trying to be some pathbreaking feminist; I just saw someone who had the skill and deserved the position. At that time, all of CWLF’s leaders were men. They were wonderful people, but very male-oriented in their leadership outlook. It was just obvious to me, Sharon accepted, and the meeting unanimously endorsed our becoming equal partners as Co-Editors. So Sharon and I began meeting and asking: how do we make this stronger? How do we muscle up the content? We divided up our tasks—I would do more book reviews, she would do film reviews, and we would conduct interviews together. For example, Bobby Seale, a Black Panther founder and leader, had decided to run for Oakland Mayor in 1972. So Bobby Seale and Elaine Brown, both Panther leaders, agreed to an interview. We asked questions like: what are you trying to accomplish? What really represents true justice? How do we move past racism and discrimination in our history? And we tried to frame questions with some biblical and theological insight as well. On the other end of the spectrum, we interviewed Hal Lindsey, since his Late Great Planet Earth was a huge bestseller at the time. We interviewed Chuck Colson after he got out of prison. We interviewed others too—musicians, public figures—and I loved the work we were doing.
When I left Berkeley in 1973 to work on my PhD at USC in Los Angeles, Sharon became the sole Editor. There might have been a couple voices suggesting I be replaced by a male co-editor but I insisted, with strong support, that Sharon was more than capable of leading it on her own. From then in 1973 until just a few years ago, what Sharon accomplished was phenomenal. The essays, the film reviews, the interviews. Interviewing Bob Dylan—how do you even get to Bob Dylan? Or Mother Teresa—how do you get to Mother Teresa? Sharon did it. We were both networking maniacs, but she was extraordinary.
Radix: How would you describe Sharon in those days? What was she like?
DG: Sharon was soft-spoken but strong. Persuasive, congenial, the kind of person people felt comfortable opening up to. One connection would lead to another. Early on, she met Steve Turner, the influential rock journalist. Steve—he knows everybody and has their contact info! Steve as well as Dan Ouellette from the New York Times certainly helped Sharon connect with other big-name musicians. But it wasn’t just Steve and Dan—she knew how to network her way around. She was a genius at that. Her personality was persistent, but brilliant. T Bone Burnett even became a Contributing Editor.
So anyway, that was the beginning. For two years we really beefed things up. When we first got there Right On magazine was it, almost the only thing of its kind. A couple of other “Jesus freak” tabloids started appearing, down in Hollywood and elsewhere. But almost all of those were about pop evangelism with hip language: “be cool, groove with Jesus,” that kind of thing. Of course, we wanted to share the gospel and invite people to meet Jesus Christ. But we also wanted to ask what are the biblical insights about the city, about politics, about culture? Sharon and I both felt exactly the same about that. Some of it probably came out of our shared Plymouth Brethren background. We both grew up with the idea that Jesus Christ is Lord of everything. The Bible is the Word of God for all of life.
Christians have to ask: what does it mean to be a Christian and study history, or art, or science? What does faith mean for that? What is the biblical insight? As Paul wrote, “In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” It’s not just “believe the gospel, share it, and save souls for heaven.” It’s a whole perspective on life—being salt and light in the world, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. We were on a mission at Right On to explore that and share it.
Radix: How did that conviction play into what you made of Right On?
We were both inspired by Francis Schaeffer and his Reformed perspective—but also by the radical free church tradition: the Anabaptists, Mennonites, Quakers, Brethren, the more radical back-to-the-New-Testament kind of thing. “Don’t just accommodate to culture”—be “in the world but not of it.” What’s the new thing, the third way, that we can share?
So that was how we got started and worked together for two years. One other bold initiative we shared was covering the national political conventions in summer 1972. CWLF leader Jack Sparks agreed that we should go down to Miami Beach and have a Christian presence. We all tended to think wherever there was a crowd, we should be there as Christ’s representatives and ambassadors. If there’s a peace march, let’s go be there carrying a big sign about Jesus as the Prince of Peace. A big concert in Golden Gate Park? Let’s be there.
I wrote to the Democratic National Committee and applied for official press credentials—and, to our surprise, I actually got them. At the Democratic Convention in Miami Beach, where George McGovern was nominated, I attended the proceedings every day and distributed a daily press release alongside those from Reuters, the New York Times, Associated Press, and everyone else. I was going around interviewing politicians and delegates, as well as anti-war demonstrators outside the convention center. Out of that I wrote a big article in Right On called “The Messiahs of Miami Beach.” I quoted Jacques Ellul on his views of the “political illusion” and “presence of the kingdom.”
Then Sharon went to Miami Beach the next month, when the Republicans nominated Richard Nixon—just before the Watergate scandal became public.. I don’t know where Sharon stayed that week, but when I went down with three other CWLF guys, with no money we slept in the nearby Flamingo Park. It was the craziest week you can imagine. With my press credential, I could go in and out. But we kept thinking, how can we (the other three CWLF guys) get into the convention center? And we did. The three other guys waited outside, and when people left early they asked, “Can we have your convention pass?” They each got one, walked back inside with credentials, and got up in the balcony. And we held up this giant sign as George McGovern was making his acceptance speech: Serve the Lord, Serve the People.
Radix: What an incredible two years you had as co-editors. But then you left!
DG: Yes it was very painful to leave, even though I knew Right On would be in good hands with Sharon. Though it had only been two years with CWLF, I felt strongly that we needed a graduate school of theological studies in Berkeley. But to work on a graduate school I needed to earn a PhD. I came back to Berkeley after four years at USC and, with help from Sharon and others, I started New College Berkeley in 1977. So from ’73 to ’77 while Sharon was Right On editor in Berkeley, I was her Southern California representative, promoting the paper on campuses and bookstores. I was still writing a lot for Right On, including my regular column “The Radical Christian.” We also communicated a lot by phone. I think I was able to support her when she ran into opposition or challenge. Around 1976, we changed the name from the hipster cliché Right On—to Radix, emphasizing our commitment to probe the roots of both our faith and our culture.
Radix: Very, very interesting. When I’ve heard or read comments about Sharon from you or Susan Phillips, what really struck me about Sharon’s temperament and personality was that she was sharp, witty—but always carried this gentleness with her. She wasn’t pushy, not brash, not overly aggressive. And yet, being a woman in that position back then, you’d think she would’ve needed a lot of grit to stand her ground. That balance really fascinates me, especially considering the time.
DG: There’s no doubt about that. Remember, this was the era when the Evangelical Women’s Caucus was being formed by Virginia Hearn (who also worked as a copyeditor for Right On) and others across the country. It was the early stirrings of evangelical feminism—when people began realizing that the Bible doesn’t actually teach that all women must be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. Sharon not only wrote but taught short courses and gave talks on a biblical view of women, usually by simply opening the text and creating space for discussion and contemporary application. And she did it in a way that was never judgmental. For sure she encouraged women in their various vocations and callings beyond the church and home. But she wasn’t the kind of person to put down motherhood, children, or traditional families. She was genuine. People found her strong but non-threatening and approachable. She helped me and many others learn to be kind and strong at the same time.
Radix: Interesting. Do you know much about the Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern in 1973? Wasn’t Sharon part of that? I think there were only two (or was it six) women signatories?
DG: Yes, that was an important event in the life of what we call the Evangelical movement. By 1976 Jimmy Carter was elected president and I think Time Magazine declared a “Year of the Evangelical.” But Evangelicals needed waking up to the responsibilities of faithful discipleship in the face of poverty, racism, discrimination, and our deteriorating environment. Ron Sider, the author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, along with Carl Henry, founding editor of Christianity Today, and Jim Wallis from the Post-American, soon to be renamed as Sojourners, were all part of the organizing committee, and Sharon was invited to bring her voice to this historic gathering and the statement they produced. This, of course, made her profile even more impactful across the country.
Radix: It’s one thing to “talk the talk,” but living it is a different story. From what I have heard about Sharon, she didn’t just talk the talk, she walked it. Do you have any particular memories of that?
DG: Well, first of all, she lived simply and pretty much hand-to-mouth. She didn’t get a salary for the longest time. We were like missionaries, appealing to friends and family to make donations to CWLF or later to Radix, just to cover our living expenses. And this wasn’t like the more popular causes where you can say “we’re saving babies’ lives” and people will write a big check. Supporting a radical publication about art, culture, and film doesn’t have the same life-or-death urgency. Even compared to traditional missionary evangelism, this wasn’t an easy sell. So raising money was tough. Sharon could have escaped at any point—gone back to grad school, taken an editing job elsewhere, I’m sure. But she didn’t. She lived simply. She ate simply, dressed simply and economically. Her life was marked by generosity and by welcoming all people—from Black Panthers to Mother Teresa to Chuck Colson to whoever. She lived among the people. She was a great example. If she traveled, it was because someone else paid her way to a speaking gig. I admire her tremendously for that—for her humility, her selflessness. She was terrific.
And then there was her laugh. Some people don’t know how to laugh—but Sharon laughed easily with a great sense of humor. She had this infectious giggle, never shrill, but full of joy. She saw the absurdities of the left, the right, the fundamentalists, the radicals, ourselves as much as others. She could laugh at it all, and it made being around her an absolute delight.
Radix: Sharon (and you also) did a lot of interviews. And you’d think being a good interviewer takes a certain quality—especially a real curiosity. To look at someone and think, “Wow, that’s really interesting,” and to mean it. I was doing an interview with Brad Jersak, and he mentioned a famous interviewer who told him, in his British accent, “You must find the person you’re talking to absolutely fascinating.” You already mentioned Sharon’s warmth and invitational spirit. I’m thinking she must also have been genuinely curious. People must have liked talking to her, because she asked good, thoughtful questions.
DG: Absolutely. She always did good research before her interviews—she didn’t just wing it. She’d see the film, listen to the music, read the books—whatever it took. She was prepared. And then, with her biblical worldview, she had a basis for really insightful questions. Biblical insight but without using insider religious jargon.
Radix: Tell me about Sharon’s role in New College Berkeley.
DG: In 1972-73, my second year with CWLF, I was asked to pioneer a Berkeley Christian study center, which we named The Crucible: A Forum for Radical Christian Studies. When I gathered a brainstorming group at my house, I made sure Sharon Gallagher was there. From day one, she taught classes and was part of our leadership, including the next four years when I was gone to USC. When I came back to start New College Berkeley in 1977, Sharon was again there from the start on our steering committee, planning, and shaping the vision for a graduate school, which was infinitely harder than running a small study center. She served on the Board of Trustees for several years.
Sharon went on to earn her Master of Theological Studies in 1980 from the Franciscan School of Theology, which gave her the credentials to teach as an adjunct at New College. When New College got its own building on Dwight Way, Radix moved in too—so her office was just down the hall from mine. Through the ’70s and ’80s, until I left in 1990, Sharon was an almost daily part of my life. Lunches, coffee, meetings, dropping by each other’s offices—it was constant.
Radix: So Sharon was not just your Right On/Radix colleague but your Crucible/New College colleague as well until 1990 or so?
DG: Yes, in 1990 I retired from the New College administration and faculty but Sharon continued for another three decades! Four years after I left, in 1994, New College was forced by financial realities to shift from a degree-granting graduate school to a graduate-level study center, affiliated with Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union and offering short courses and seminars. From that point until around 2019, Sharon worked as Associate Director and faculty member alongside Executive Director Susan Phillips to carry that New College vision forward. This was no small gift to the church and the world.
So in sum: from 1971 to 1990, Sharon was one of my closest working colleagues. Her roommates can tell you more about her personal life—but professionally, we were deeply connected. I loved working with her. She influenced my thinking in theology and ethics, but also on film and other areas I might not have otherwise wrestled with. I’m a prose guy, an activist, an ethicist; she brought an artistic, aesthetic sensibility that I would never have had without her. She was brilliant, insightful, and steady. I tended to be more aggressive and entrepreneurial; she didn’t always move at my pace—but that was all good. We had this dance, this interaction, that helped me immensely.
Radix: Do you have time for another question?
DG: I do. But I have one other funny story. This belongs in the “people’s section” of Radix, as it were.
Radix: Ok.
DG: Sharon was a very attractive woman. And the fact that she was very beautiful and also very intelligent—intimidated some people. A couple well-known Christian leaders actually told me—quietly—that they were really attracted to Sharon, dazzled by her, but were intimidated and afraid to pursue her because of her combination of intelligence and beauty. They thought they couldn’t measure up. When she was in high school, she was actually in a beauty contest and was named Ms. Tujunga, for her city. She was even getting some fashion modeling contracts. She told me that she soon decided she was not interested in parading herself around in front of others for money.
So, here’s a funny story. We used to get a lot of mail from Right On readers. Some of it would be fan mail for Sharon, not just for her intellectual insights, but because people found her attractive, and they would try to get some interest from her. One guy, “Jeff from Oregon,” kept writing her and calling the office to announce it was the will of God for Sharon to marry him. We didn’t have email in those days, so she wrote a note back and said, “Dear Mr. Jeff, I am not available, and I am not interested. And I would ask you, please (after two or three letters now!) please stop writing me.” And yet, the phone calls, answering machine messages, and letters continued. Finally, one day he wrote and said, “I’m coming down to your office because I know it’s God’s will. And once you meet me, everything’s going to be amazing.” Sharon wrote back and said, “Do not come to our office.”
Anyway, one day there was a knock at our office door, down in the catacombs of Dwight House. I answered the door, and here’s a strange guy. And I said, “Yeah, what’s your name? And how can I help you?” “Well, my name is Jeff, and I’m here to meet Sharon Gallagher, because God…” I said, “Jeff,” (and this is one of my most brilliant moments of my life, coming up). “Jeff, I’m David Gill, and I work with Sharon. And I know she has written you more than once and responded on the phone even, and told you she is not available, she is not interested, and please do not come down here. Do not contact her. And I’m telling you, it’s time for you to leave right now—and I’m not feeling very good about what I might have to do to you if you don’t leave right now and never contact her again.” And Jeff said to me, “David, I’ve been reading your columns for years, and I know you’re a pacifist. And so your threats don’t scare me at all.” And so I said to him, “Jeff, it is true that I’m a pacifist. But I need to let you know that I fall into sin sometimes.” And he left. For good.
Radix: Yeah, yeah … those personal stories are really cool. A final question I’m curious about: For thinkers, editors, writers—especially writers, people who speak to the public—it seems there are two important things that effective communicators have. One, they read broadly to understand the times and get a sense of the cultural attitudes. And two, they have an ability to communicate without the “Jesus jargon,” to write in a way that people can look at and say, Oh, that’s insightful, that’s meaningful. This is a big question, but what helps make someone like Sharon able to do that? Is it daily practices, reading broadly, having a curious and open mind? Can you speak to that?
DG: I think one key is: who are we listening to, and who are we reading? Francis Schaeffer had his own kind of terminology or jargon—he talked about “true truth” and so on—but he was really searching for a way of sharing a biblical worldview in language today’s students and scholars could understand. The same with the Christian World Liberation Front—when Jack Sparks and others were writing, they might say, “People are trying to get high. But what’s the real high? What would truly lift us up and transport us to another level of consciousness? Not drugs, but a relationship with God.”
It’s a constant search for language. You listen to the culture and ask, What’s the language people are using? And then you look your reader in the eye—are they resonating? Instead of looking over your shoulder at the scholars and asking, How can I impress my professors? Or the guardians of orthodoxy? The real question is, how can I connect? That’s what Sharon did. She did all the background work, but she also talked to people. She learned from others, but she also found her own voice. She wasn’t trying to sound like Francis or Edith Schaeffer or Os Guinness. Her voice was her own—but it was trained by listening widely, and by noticing which voices people listened to, and when people listened to her.
I think the combination of writing and speaking is also important. Teaching, speaking, and just hanging out and conversing with people add a vitality, a kind of liveliness, to our thinking. Writing, on the other hand, adds precision and depth. And I think it worked that way for Sharon. She was always a living communicator and a teacher as well as a writer and editor.
Radix: That’s a really good answer.
DG: Another important thing was that Sharon was spiritually anchored. All the time I knew her, and all of her life, she was a faithful member of a church. She could be critical of it—she could see the foibles and the craziness of some of our old Brethren churches—but also in the Jesus People movement. She was always there, part of it. She could laugh about it, but also make good suggestions. For a very long time, she was a member of First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, whose community gave her a lot of support and encouragement and where she contributed a lot as a member—she would teach, lead, and take part in various things.
That anchor and depth really mattered. She studied scripture. I don’t know what her daily habits were, but she was a woman of prayer. In any meeting I was ever in, I could always ask her, “Sharon, could you pray?” Or in the small group I was part of with her for years, when we studied scripture together, she always had insight—because she studied it, and she heard it as the word of God.
Radix: Thank you, David, very much for sharing the stories and the insights, and helping us know and appreciate your colleague and friend Sharon Gallagher.
DG: It’s my pleasure, Matthew, and God bless you and Radix Magazine.