Roger E. Olson's Blog, page 192

“Fundamentalism” of the Left

I put “fundamentalism” in scare quotes to distinguish its use here from its proper, historical-theological use. It’s proper historical-theological use has to do with the movement of conservative Protestants to oppose theological liberalism in denominations and seminaries (etc.) that arose in the early 20th century and with its various manifestations past and present. In that [...]

Theological thoughts about “megachurches”

The question of megachurches arises frequently. Recently someone here reported that an influential Baptist seminary president asked whether megachurches are the new liberalism. I’m not sure what that even means. “Megachurch” is a sociological phenomenon with theological implications. “Liberalism” (in this context, anyway) is a theological phenomenon. I am not aware of any sociological phenomenon [...]

A Few Thoughts about Science and Theology

I did not get to hear Alvin Plantinga when he spoke at my university a couple weeks ago. His topic was theology and science. He has a new book about it that I plan to read (when I have a month to digest it!). Several people have asked me here about what role I think [...]

A “Favorite” Pet Peeve: “Asking Oprah (or Dear Abby)…”

In a recent column a Christian woman asked “Dear Abby” (Pauline Phillips) about God and homosexuality. Her son came out to her and she was afraid to ask her pastor about God’s attitude toward gay people because she was afraid of what he would say. So she wrote to “Abby” asking her how God views [...]

Recent responses to Against Calvinism

Here I post two e-mails that typify responses I’ve received from individuals about Against Calvinism. I’m not going to comment on them, just reproduced them here. I’ll let you, my faithful readers, decide what you think and comment on them. I’ve removed anything that would identify their authors. First: “I recently read your book, Against [...]

Part 9 of Response to The Gospel as Center: Justification

Part 9 of Response to The Gospel as Center: Chapter 9, “Justification” by Philip Graham Ryken After a brief hiatus I return to my promised series of responses to The Gospel Coalition’s book The Gospel as Center: Renewing Our Faith and Reforming Our Ministry Practices edited by D. A. Carson and Timothy Keller (Crossway, 2012). [...]

Christless Christianity in Movies?

About a year ago my friend Mike Horton published a book entitled Christless Christianity. Mike is a Calvinist and we certainly disagree about TULIP (well, at least we disagree about the U, the L and the I). But we agree that much of American Christianity, even much that claims to be “evangelical,” is slipping into [...]

Mention in New York Times (April 29)

Thanks to the faithful visitor to my blog who alerted me to the fact that I am mentioned in this Sunday’s (April 29, 2012) New York Times (Book Reviews) in an article entitled “Breaking Faith”–a review by Randall Balmer. Balmer uses me as one of five people who provide “evidence of the vitality of Christian [...]

Experimenting with formatting/fonts

Please excuse this test post. I’m trying to find the right font. The one I see when I create my post isn’t what shows up when the post appears on my blog. I’ll keep working on it.

Emerging Churches and the Jesus People Movement Compared

Emerging Churches and the Jesus People Movement Compared Earlier I blogged about similarities I see between the Young, Restless, Reformed movement and the Bill Gothard Basic Youth Conflicts Seminars movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Now I would like to discuss similarities and differences between two mostly youth-oriented Christian movements separated by about forty years—the [...]