What Is “Fundamentalism?” A Personal and Professional Perspective
“A problem was that these 1920s through 1950s American fundamentalists could not get together under one umbrella. And they became increasingly narrow, dogmatic, anti-intellectual, separatistic and suspicious even of each other—as to degrees of influence by liberal thought.” - Roger Olson
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Olson is a really interesting guy… serious theologian but charismatic and doesn’t even consider himself inerrantist. His POV on mid to late biblical fundamentalism can be expected to be very critical, and it is, but he gets a lot right.
Since it’s at Patheos, you might find it easier to read in Firefox’s Reader View.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
My wife and I are reading the “Spectrum of Evangelicalism” book which Bauder, Mohler, Stackhouse, and Olson contributed to. I have read it before but it’s her first time. Olson (who takes the “post-evangelical” position) is articulate but unfortunately does not build his argument from a solid biblical footing.
I haven’t been able to “classify” him, but he seems to have landed on what looks to me like the wrong side of a number of issues: charismatic gifts, open theism, arminianism, inerrancy. At the same time, he’s often contributed something important to understanding the issues better. His understanding of the teachings of Arminius himself, for example, seems to put it much closer to pre-Dort Calvinism than is generally recognized. I think he’s right, also, that fundamentalism lost its center and fragmented into something quite different from what it was when it began.
There’s something to appreciate in thoughtful work even when it’s coming from “the wrong side” of the questions. I guess the corollary is that there is harm in sloppy, lazy work even when it’s on “the right side.” How you get there matters as much as where you land on an issue.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Yes he is worth reading even where he is wrong. I did I find it strange that he is writing a book on Protestant liberalism which he believes will update Machen’s “Christianity and Liberalism.” I’m pretty sure he and Machen would have had some strong disagreements along those lines.
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