Roger E. Olson's Blog, page 168

Modernity and Christianity: Like Oil and Water? Part 3 (and Final)

Modernity and Christianity: Like Oil and Water? Part 3 (and Final) In the previous two posts I’ve raised the question whether modernity, as a “blik” (a worldview perspective, lens through which reality is seen and interpreted), and Christianity are at all compatible. Can they be integrated? Can authentic Christianity be contextualized with modernity without terminal [Read More...]

Modernity and Christianity: Like Oil and Water? Part 2

Modernity and Christianity: Like Oil and Water? Part 2 In my immediately preceding post, part 1 of this series, I mentioned that I view modernity as a “blik”—a fundamental perspective, a way of seeing the world “as,” a world view. Of course, it is also a cultural “Zeitgeist,” a “spirit of the age,” a collection [Read More...]

Modernity and Christianity: Like Oil and Water? Part 1

Modernity and Christianity: Like Oil and Water? Part 1 My immediately preceding post announced my forthcoming book about modern (and postmodern) theologies: The Journey of Modern Theology: From Reconstruction to Deconstruction (InterVarsity Press, 2013). A major thesis of the book is that virtually every Western (and some non-Western) theology since the early nineteenth century is [Read More...]

Shameless Promotion of My Forthcoming Book about Modern Theology

What’s a blog for if one cannot use it to promote his books? The new InterVarsity Press catalog (“New Title Announcement/Winter 2014″) has just been published. It includes (on page 28) my forthcoming magnum opus The Journey of Modern Theology: From Reconstruction to Deconstruction which will actually be about 710 pages in length (scheduled for [Read More...]

An Arminian Ordo Salutis (Order of Salvation)

An Arminian Ordo Salutis (Order of Salvation) I was recently asked here to provide an Arminian order of salvation (ordo salutis). First, what is an order of salvation? In theology the technical term is “ordo salutis.” From now on, here, I’ll simply refer to it as “ordo.” An ordo is an attempt to put into [Read More...]

“Precious Moments Christianity”

“Precious Moments Christianity” Some years ago evangelical author and speaker Charles Colson decried what he called “Precious Moments Christianity.” If memory serves me correctly that was in his book The Body. He may have also talked about it in other writings. After writing my blog post about “T.A.C.O.s” (Totalistic, Aberrational, Christian Organizations) I thought about [Read More...]

A Dip into the Depths of the Doctrine of God: Discussion of the Non-Competitive View of Divine and Human Agencies

A Dip into the Depths of the Doctrine of God: Discussion of the Non-Competitive View of Divine and Human Agencies Recently I posted here an imaginary conversation between a Calvinist and an Arminian—about God’s sovereignty. At one point I inserted a common comment made by especially intellectually minded Calvinists about the non-competitive nature of divine [Read More...]

A Brief Summer Hiatus

Please be patient while my blog takes a brief vacation. May I suggest looking back at some past posts? Eventually I will get around to reading comments and responding as possible. Thank you.

T.A.C.O.s Anyone?

For 17 years I taught a course on America’s Cults and New Religions on the college level (and occasionally on the seminary level, too). I promoted the elective course to the student population as “Unsafe Sects.” For years I’ve thought about writing a book with that title. Have you ever wondered why you just don’t [Read More...]

A Conversation between a Calvinist and an Arminian about God’s Sovereignty

A Conversation between a Calvinist and an Arminian about God’s Sovereignty: Calvinist to Arminian: “You Arminians don’t really believe in God’s sovereignty.” Arminian: “You Calvinists don’t really believe in God’s love.” Calvinist: “Oh, but we do. You’re so wrong! The Bible is clear about God being love.” Arminian: “But you don’t believe God loves all [Read More...]