Roger E. Olson's Blog, page 191

A good book about the religious beliefs of the “founding fathers”

A person promoting revisionist history here recently declared that no honest person can deny that the U.S.’s founding fathers were Christians. I don’t know anyone who denies they (at least most of them) were formally Christians in the sense of being baptized members of nominally Christian churches. The issue is their real beliefs. Yesterday I [...]

Part 11 of Response to The Gospel as Center: Chapter 11 The Kingdom of God

Part 11 of Response to The Gospel as Center: Chapter 11 The Kingdom of God As those of you who have followed my blog for some time know, the Kingdom of God is one of my favorite themes. I am deeply concerned that most Christians seem to misunderstand the Kingdom of God. They talk about [...]

Should a Christian Work for Government?

Should a Christian Work for Government? Lately I’ve been reading a lot of Hauerwas. Earlier I read a lot of Yoder and still do pick him up occasionally. Neither one says Christians shouldn’t work for government, but things they do say about Christianity and government incline that way. Of course there are government jobs where [...]

A final word on Social Darwinism (and misunderstanding a blog!)

Recently I blogged here about Social Darwinism. My main point was that Social Darwinism is incompatible with Christianity. Somehow that launched some readers into a series of assumptions and comments based on them. They assumed that I was attacking capitalism. That’s instructive to me. Do some people interpret any criticism of Social Darwinism as criticism [...]

Guest post about Romney and the Religious Right

(The following post is by Brandon Morgan. It does not necessarily express the views held by this blogger. (Of course, I wouldn’t post it here if I didn’t think it raised some very important questions.) And it does not imply endorsement of any candidate or party.) A Republican candidate being asked to give the commencement [...]

Can a Christian be a Social Darwinist?

I don’t have a definite answer to that although I tend to think Social Darwinism is incompatible with biblical Christianity. My point here, however, is simply that many American Christians seem to be able to embrace Social Darwinism while rejecting (often vehemently) biological Darwinism. I live in a social context strongly influenced by Christian fundamentalism. [...]

A New Book on Justification and Some Questions about Calvinism and Heavenly Rewards

A New Calvinist Book on Justification Perplexes I have been asked to review Justification: A Guide for the Perplexed by Reformed theologian Alan J. Spence (T&TClark, 2012). Spence is a United Reformed Church pastor in the U.K. I was asked to review it for The Evangelical Quarterly whose editor is I. Howard Marshall. I like [...]

Brian Abasciano’s response to a review of his book on Romans 9-11

I don’t normally do this at my blog, but friend Brian Abasciano of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a leading evangelical Arminian, has written an important book on Romans 9-11 from an Arminian perspective. An early review appears to misrepresent some ideas of the book and Brian has asked me to post his response here. If you [...]

How to Believe without Being Fundamentalist

How to Believe without Being Fundamentalist Because of the prevalence of fundamentalism (and what I have here called “neo-fundamentalism”) in American religious life, many moderate Christian pastors struggle with how to preach and teach Christian truth, doctrine, without being absolutistic, narrow, presumptuous and exclusive. I receive questions like that all the time and it seems [...]

“Full Gospel?” Part 10 of Response to The Gospel as Center: Chapter 10 “The Holy Spirit”

Part 10 of Response to The Gospel as Center: Chapter 10: “The Holy Spirit” The chapter’s author is Gospel Coalition member Kevin DeYoung, a minister of the Reformed Church of America. Like many other chapters of The Gospel as Center, this one does not provide the fodder for controversy and criticism one might expect. For [...]