By Roger Olson

When I look back over my life and career, I can confidently say there was no more important influence on my theological development than Dr. Ralph Powell who passed away at age 96 on Aug. 7 in Sioux Falls, S.D.

He was not a theological genius (in the usual sense of the term — a great innovater) or productive writer (I think he had one or two scholarly articles published). But he was one of the best teachers of balanced, sane, spiritually profound, insightful, wise evangelical theology I have ever known or heard of.

Dr. Powell taught theology at North American Baptist Seminary (the new name of the German Department of Rochester Theological Seminary where Walter Rauschenbusch taught) when it moved from New York to South Dakota. He earned his Th.D. degree from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary and taught theology at NABS from 1950 to 1981.

I was his student in several theology courses during my student years at NABS in the 1970s and fortunate enough to be in Sioux Falls when his retirement party was held in 1981. I attended it.

I visited Dr. Powell and his wife many times after that. Virtually every time I found myself in Sioux Falls I felt drawn to visit him. Stan Grenz, whose father was Dr. Powell’s pastor for some years, and I dedicated our book Who Needs Theology? to him.

I could tell many stories about Dr. Powell — as could any of his former students. He was a most dramatic lecturer with a very peculiar accent and he spit when he lectured. Here’s one memorable quote from one of his systematic theology lectures: “If it takes reading these [non-evangelical] theologians to sting you into appreciating the richness of your evangelical heritage, then, so be it! Be stung!” (Some students complained that he made us read Barth, Brunner, Tillich and other non-evangelical theologians.) When he said “Be stung!” he leaned way over the podium towards the students and saliva flew out of his mouth.

I remember that he served involuntarily as interim dean of the seminary when Gerald Borchert left NABS (a great loss to the seminary). Dr. Powell said to me: “Roger, never forget this. The road to scholarly perdition is paved with the stones of administration.” I have never forgotten and have steadfastly resisted any attempts to get me involved in administrative duties.

I remember one day during his systematic theology lecture on Luther’s idea of the “hidden God,” he went over to the windows and hid behind the curtains, occasionally peeking out at us with that unique grin of his. I was absolutely captivated by him — not because of his style but because of his wisdom and piety. I spent many hours in his office talking theology with him. I’m sure I drove him crazy with my questions, but he was always patient.

I came to NABS a confused, bewildered, deeply troubled young Bible college graduate. The Bible college I attended specialized in “Christian” anti-intellectualism. I wouldn’t even call it fundamentalist; it didn’t deserve such an august label.

Many of my professors (not all, thank God) took the approach to education expressed in the German saying “Eat up, little birdies, or die.” I was labeled a rebel just for asking questions my teachers couldn’t or didn’t want to answer. I had to educate myself by reading books and seeking out those few instructors who did deserve the posts they held for special help.

I came away from Bible college with no theology at all, just a bag of Bible verses and unquestionable (but highly dubious) dogmas. And a load of shame put on me by teachers, fellow students and administrators for daring to ask questions and challenge nonsense.

Seminary, especially Dr. Powell, rescued me from utter theological ruin which was quickly leading me to spiritual ruin. Cognitive dissonance was the general rule of my mind. I knew from my own reading that much of what I had been taught was unintelligible nonsense and I had not been taught any method of theological discernment or construction.

I really didn’t know where to turn. Dr. Powell rescued me. He became my trusted mentor and friend and a life-long example of how to develop a balanced, sane, evangelical theology and how to teach it.

If any of my students over 30 years think I did them any good at all, Dr. Powell gets much of the credit. I will miss him greatly. I feel like a milestone has been passed with Dr. Powell’s passing.

This post appeared originally in this form at Associated Baptist Press and in a longer form at Dr. Olson’s Patheos blog.

This post originally appeared on Roger Olson’s Blog at Patheos

I know. I’m almost committing blasphemy by questioning Jonathan Edwards’ greatness. I wouldn’t be doing it except there seems to be a kind of cult of Edwards’ veneration–especially among American evangelicals. It’s not limited to American evangelicals, of course. Lutheran theologian Robert Jenson called Edwards “America’s Theologian.” New books are published every year about Edwards. The current (or now immediately previous) issue of Christian Century contains a review of a newly published b00k extolling Edwards’ virtues as a great Christian and great thinker. Most famously, perhaps, evangelical historian Mark Noll has often held up Edwards as THE paradigm of a great Christian intellectual whose example we should all follow.

Far be it from me to impugn Edwards’ deserved reputation as a great Christian preacher and intellectual. I just think it’s overblown. It tends to lead Christians who read these books (about Edwards) to overlook his flaws.

First, though, let me step back from criticism of Edwards (and those who extol him too much or too loudly) and criticize what our American public school system curriculum has done to him. I’ve taught college/university/seminary students for thirty years now and there’s one thing they (who attended public schools) agree on: they were misled about Edwards. The only thing most of them learned about Edwards in school was that he preached “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” They were led to picture him as a fire-breathing hell-fire preacher who denied the Lord’s Supper to parishioners he considered less than fully converted (viz., he was intolerant).

The facts are different, of course. His delivery of sermons, including that one, was not loud or coercive. Reports indicate that he read it or delivered it from memory in a calm voice (at least compared with the stereotypes of hell-fire and brimstone fundamentalist preachers). Also, Edwards was an intellectual who stood head and shoulders above most of his peers. He was well read in Enlightenment philosophy and science and ahead of his peers in understanding human psychology and nature.

What I like to tell students about Edwards is that he was harshly critical of New Englanders who stole land from the Native Americans. He told them to pay the Indians for the land they took from them and to treat them humanely. When his congregation expelled him from his pulpit (partly, at least, for that), he went off to the frontier and lived among the Indians. For his time, Edwards was progressive in some areas of social thinking. On the other hand, he owned a slave, so he wasn’t consistent.

Toward the end of his relatively brief life, Edwards became president of what is now Princeton University (the College of New Jersey). He died of a smallpox vaccination gone wrong. We have no idea what he would have gone on to do in terms of intellectual contributions to American philosophy, science and theology had he lived longer.

Without doubt, Edwards was a great man and deserves more and better respect than he gets in American public education.

Having said all that, I still do not understand why so many of his fans overlook or excuse Edwards’ very significant errors. I can identify with Charles Finney who said of Edwards “The man I adore; his errors I deplore.” It seems to me that many of Edwards’ fans (especially among American evangelicals) are too quick to pass over the obvious logical flaws in his theology.

For example (and here you will have to trust me or look at my chapter on Edwards in The Story of Christian Theology and my many allusions to him and his theology in Against Calvinism): Edwards argued that God’s sovereignty requires that he create the entire universe and everything in it ex nihilo at every moment. That goes far beyond garden variety creation ex nihilo or continuous creation. It is speculative and dangerous. He also asserted that God is space itself. And he came very close to denying that God’s creation of the world was free in any libertarian sense as if God could have done otherwise. (He said that God always does what is most wise, something with which few Christians would argue, but somehow one must admit the possibility that God might not have created at all. Otherwise the world becomes necessary even for God which undermines grace.)

All of those ideas can perhaps be dismissed as the speculations of a mind obsessed with God’s greatness, glory and sovereignty. But things get much, much worse when Edwards deals with free will. Free will, according to him, only means doing what you want to do–following the strongest inclination provided to the will by the affections. It does not mean being able to do otherwise. In fact, Edwards seemed to deny the whole idea of “otherwise”–even in God. He did not merely argue that libertarian free will as ability to do otherwise was lost in the fall; he argued that the very idea is incoherent. If that’s true, then we cannot attribute it to God, either. And the fall becomes not only inevitable but necessary.

The question that naturally arises is: from where did the first evil inclination come? Edwards claims a creature formed it; it arose from a creature’s (Lucifer’s and later Adam’s) own nature. God simply “left ‘em to themselves” so that sin and evil followed inevitably or necessarily. That is to say that God withdrew or withheld the grace creatures needed not to sin. God rendered the fall and all its horrible consequences inevitable or even necessary. And yet, creatures are to blame for sinning even thought they could not do otherwise.

Edwards wanted to get God off the hook for being the author of sin and evil, but ultimately he couldn’t. And he didn’t draw back from admitting that IN SOME SENSE God is the author of sin and evil. But he insisted that God is not guilty of sin or evil because…God’s motive in rendering them certain was good.

Now, let’s stop and examine this line of reasoning a bit. First, the very idea of libertarian free will is incoherent so even God cannot have it. God, too, is controlled by his strongest inclination/motive. Where do God’s inclinations come from? If one says “from his nature,” then, with the denial of libertarian free will, God becomes a machine. Everything God does is necessary–including rendering sin and evil certain. And why does God render sin and evil necessary? For his glory. (See Edwards’ Treatise Concerning the End for Which God Created the World.) So, sin and evil are necessary and serve God’s glory.

And yet, Edwards insisted that God abhors sin and evil. Why? If they are determined by his wisdom and necessary for his glory, why would he abhore them? Edwards tried to resolve this by appealing to God’s larger and narrower views. In the grand scope of things, seen from the widest perspective possible, sin and evil are part of the grand scheme of God to glorify himself. On the other hand, in the narrower perspective, God abhors them and commands creatures not to do them. And punishes them with eternal suffering for doing what serves his glory and is necessary.

Need I go on making my case that Edwards’ theology contains massive flaws? The single greatest flaw is the character of God. This inevitably makes God the author of sin and evil (something Edwards reluctantly admitted) and makes sin and evil not really awful at all but necessary for the greater good. It’s not just that God brings good out of them. For Edwards they are necessary for God’s full glorification.

Now don’t anyone say “Only in this creation; not overall or in general.” That won’t work. This creation is necessary if God does not have libertarian free will which he cannot have if the concept itself is logically impossible (incoherent).

In attempting to pay God too many and too large metaphysical compliments, Edwards ends up chasing his tail and contradicting himself. Is that the mark of a great mind? Well, I’m not saying he didn’t have a great mind. I’m only saying that he either didn’t seem to notice his own contradictions or he chose to overlook them while vehemently pointing out and condemning contradictions he thought he saw in Arminianism.

About the author:
Dr. Roger Olson has been a member of the Truett Seminary faculty since 1999 as Professor of Christian Theology. You can keep up with Dr. Olson on his blog at Patheos.

Several years ago I had one of those airplane conversations preachers are always telling about. I hate to admit it, but I usually try to avoid those conversations. Maybe I shouldn’t. But the truth is that when I’m flying, I have a difficult time with conversations. I don’t hear all that well with background noises, like jet engines. And I am a bit introverted. Still, one of those conversations found me.

I was returning from Minneapolis on a Continental flight. I found my seat that Wednesday afternoon next to a “technomaniac.” He was a forty-something business type, cradling his cell phone between his shoulder and his jaw while he was unzipping his laptop case and setting up shop. He was sounding pretty important: “Yeah, I’ll be there in about two hours. The fax machine is on. Just send me the contract. I’ll evaluate it and send it back to you.” I was just watching it all.

I opened my briefcase and took out materials to work on the weekend sermon. He glanced over at what I was reading and said, “Looks like pretty interesting stuff you’re reading there.” We got to talking about religion and freedom and things like that. He asked me what I did, and I admitted that I was the pastor of a Baptist church. He said, “Our daughter went to a Vacation Bible School last week in Denton at a Baptist church. A lady across the street named Kathy goes to that church and invited our little girl to go.”

I asked, “Do you go to church anywhere?”

“No, I quit going to church a long time ago. My wife is a Buddhist. She’s from Japan.”

“Are you a Buddhist?”

“Well, sort of.”

“You quit going to church?”

“Yeah. I grew up in a Methodist church but when I got old enough, I quit going.”

“Tell me about that. Why did you quit? What sent you away?

“To tell you the truth, the thing that bothered me most about it was that I knew everybody in this little town I grew up in. I’d see them in church on Sunday, and I knew what they did the rest of the week. Quite honestly, there was just no consistency between what they were doing on Sunday and how they lived the rest of the week. I decided I didn’t need that.”

So it had been more than twenty years since he had been in church. We talked a bit further, and he said, “But you know, this woman Kathy, across the street – she really lives it. She lives what she says. In fact, we had a party in our neighborhood for her. I got to give a little speech. She had been helping everybody in the neighborhood, and we had a surprise party for her. We invited her over to our house and gave her a present. She was completely flabbergasted. She really lives what she says.”

We talked a little further, and I said, “I’m the pastor of a church, and one of the things I’m interested in is finding people like you and helping them come to know God through Jesus Christ. How can I do that better?”

“Well, if you could get more people like Kathy…”

Storms are opportunities. The world around us will have a chance to see what we are made of, how our testimony matches our lives.

About the author:
Dr. Robert Creech has been a member of the Truett Seminary faculty since 2009 and serves as Professor of Christian Ministires and Director of Pastoral Ministries. You can keep up with Dr. Creech on his blog: The Journey Continues

This post was originally a guest post at Roger Olson’s blog.

#Neo-Calvinism Preaching

My Conversion…to Calvinism

I was converted to Calvinism because of the preaching of John Piper. I was in high school and somebody gave me a book he had written. I read it, understood some of it, and then began listening to his sermons and through the process of listening to sermon after sermon, eventually discovered I was a Calvinist.

My story isn’t unique. Indeed, I think most people’s conversion to Calvinism goes something along the lines of, “Well I started listening to Piper/Chandler/Driscoll/Chan’s preaching and woke up one day a Calvinist.” There’s no mystery here: it’s a rare occurrence when one consistently sits under someone’s preaching and doesn’t pick up on his/her theological presuppositions. The mystery is why so many people are currently listening to Neo-Calvinist preaching. And by this I mean, what are the causes for the proliferation of prominent Calvinist preachers with so much influence and appeal, especially among younger generations?

Better Preaching Material?

C. Michael Patton recently examined this issue on his blog and his hypothesis is that in the current cultural climate, Calvinism just preaches better (than its alternatives, Arminianism in particular). By this he means that in a world of ambiguity, skepticism, and uncertainty, Calvinism’s emphasis on the absolute sovereignty of God is better preaching material than any sort of free will theism. As Patton says, “Evangelicals love to hear about the sovereignty of God, the glory of God in suffering, the security of God’s grace, the providence of God over missions, and yes, even the utter depravity of man. This stuff preaches. This stuff sells tickets.”[1]

In the opening chapter of Against Calvinism, Roger Olson makes a similar connection by suggesting that Calvinism’s emphasis on certainty and sovereignty has been an anchor for those seeking refuge from the difficulties of finding faith in a postmodern context.[2]

I think Patton and Olson are clearly on to something. Although I’m no specialist on the matter, it’s always seemed to me that Calvinism is far more at home in modernity than postmodernity. Calvinism, once accepted, provides an inner logic with virtually no loose ends that offers its adherents a strong sense of certainty. Calvinists believe God is in absolute control, that no event happens unless God ordains it, and so in any and all circumstances they can be absolutely certain that God’s exact plan is unfolding. So for those going through certainty withdrawals, Calvinistic preaching can be a welcome remedy, especially when it is articulated with the passion of people like Piper and Driscoll. In other words, they are preaching that we can have certainty and they are preaching it with certainty. And this stuff does indeed sell!

As such, I think the current appeal of Calvinist preaching has less to do with passion and more to do with certainty. Thus, I would contend that it is not so much that Calvinism preaches better as it is that certainty preaches better. It always has and always will, but it is especially appealing in a postmodern context (or post-postmodern, or whatever we are in now), which seems inundated with ambiguity. I might go even further and argue that at the heart of most passionate movements, you will find a message of certainty preached with certainty.

Of course the larger issue is whether or not certainty, while obviously desirable, is responsible. This is a nuanced and contentious issue, but one I think needs some serious attention. I have argued elsewhere that certainty in our beliefs about God is not merely bad manners but bad theology.[3] In other words, of course preaching certainty with certainty is going to sell and create a movement. But does it create good disciples?

Preaching with Authority?

This leads us to the issue of authority in preaching. When I ask people (and my college students in particular) why they like listening to Piper, Driscoll, or Chandler, their answer is usually something along the lines of, “They preach with such authority.” What exactly does this mean? What is the “authority” people are perceiving? While I’m sure it is a confluence of things, I think the primary cause of the perceived authority among prominent Neo-Calvinist preachers is the certainty with which they articulate their theology (which is itself a theology of certainty in the sense I have outlined above). Because many of them hold their beliefs with such certainty, they have a gravitas that makes them compelling and tends to draw you in.[4] To put it another way, their gravitas leaves the average listener little room for disagreement.

This raises some very interesting issues regarding the responsibilities preachers have to their congregations. To elaborate a bit, should preachers simply advocate their own position/interpretation as persuasively and “authoritatively” as possible? Or do they have a responsibility to check their gravitas so their listeners have space to disagree with them? As Olson once suggested, perhaps preachers have a responsibility to leave people enough space to use their critical faculties when listening.

I understand that checking your susceptibility to gravitas is so counterintuitive that the mere suggestion can feel absurd. And I understand that it certainly won’t be conducive to creating a passionate movement or a massive church or a powerful personal following. But it might just be very conducive to creating disciples. These are issues that need far more consideration.

Preaching from a Platform

Returning to the issue of authority in Neo-Calvinist preaching and preachers, I think platforms also have a great deal to do with their perceived authority. And generally speaking, Neo-Calvinist preachers have benefitted far more than others from platforms.

I was recently in a bookstore and stumbled across For the Fame of God’s Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper. The first page of the book is a pencil sketch of Piper preaching. I thought you had to be dead at least a hundred years to be pencil-sketched on to the first page of a compilation of essays in your honor. This is a testament to the stunning veneration many Neo-Calvinist preachers receive. And this veneration would seem tied back to the aforementioned ethos of certainty that pervades Neo-Calvinism. People seem to innately desire the experience of looking up at someone preaching to them from the lofty perch of certainty.

As such, the platform is being built up from multiple sides. Neo-Calvinist preachers explicitly and implicitly platform themselves because of their (over?)confidence in their message. Their listeners platform them because they (the preachers) scratch the certainty itch that the “postmodern” situation has triggered. And their vast association of networks platform them by pumping out an endless supply of books and conferences. The Passion Conferences are a particularly effective form of platforming because they provide people like Piper face time with thousands of college students in a vibrant, worshipful setting that is especially conducive to the creation of a strong following. Then there’s the veritable farm system of Neo-Calvinism in which up and coming preachers are tagged and then hyped and then endorsed by a big name or asked to speak at a big conference, and you have the makings of the next “big thing” (see Matt Chandler, Jared Wilson, etc.).

And of course it’s no big secret that moderates are terrible at platforming. Moderates cringe at the idea of a single preacher having a massive cult following and cry wolf at the slightest glimpse of authoritarianism. While they might really like the preaching of Will Willimon or Rob Bell or Donald Miller, they would never wear it on their sleeve and would be quick to let you know what they don’t like about their preaching as well. It’s just the moderate way, the moderate ethos.

Conclusion: Try Less, Try More

I’d like to end with proposals for both Neo-Calvinism and moderate free will theism. To many on the outside and some on the inside, the current explosion of Neo-Calvinist preaching doesn’t look so much like a movement of the Holy Spirit as a calculated and systematic power grab, the broken record of human interactions. It gives people what they want (certainty), the way they want it (with certainty), and suggests that veneration and unqualified loyalty is a most appropriate response. But do you want people believing that every word out of your mouth is the word of God or do you want people sifting through your words because you know they’re not? Perhaps Neo-Calvinism should pump the brakes on the platforming. Preachers could stop acting like they speak the words of God, listeners could stop inserting the sermons of Dr. Piper between Acts and Romans in their Bibles, and the Neo-Calvinist PR machine could quit trying so hard.

And perhaps moderate free will theism needs to try a little harder, or at least stop trying to sabotage itself. If Neo-Calvinist preaching needs to leave people more room to discern and question, moderate free will theism needs to encourage people to submit and accept good answers. Moderate preachers would do well to remember that moderate need not mean spineless and endlessly qualified. And if a given preacher clearly has a gift, then affirm it and point others to it instead of crying wolf at every rustling in the bushes.

This post originally appeared on Dr. Roger Olson’s Blog at Patheos

Some of my theological friends criticize me for holding on to my “Baptist” identity in the current theological and political context (especially the U.S.A.) where these labels have largely come to mean mean-spirited, narrow-minded, legalistic, even hypocritical religiosity and where they are virtually equated with the Religious Right, of which I am not a part.

Many Baptist churches have dropped the word “Baptist” from their names because it has been so tarnished by television evangelists, right-wing religious politicians and the so-called “Baptist wars” of the last twenty-five to thirty-five years.

Besides, they say, Baptists have very little in common beyond getting people wet. Many (perhaps most) no longer believe in separation of church and state. In fact, Baptists have become known for opposing it. Many no longer believe in or practice congregational autonomy. All the traditional hallmarks of Baptist faith and practice have been sacrificed on various altars political, theological and practical.

Who have been in the forefront of the church growth movement, the Religious Right, neo-fundamentalism, rationalistic theology and apologetics, so-called “complementarianism,” etc., etc.? Baptists.
My friends challenge me to realize it’s too late to rescue the label; the barbarians have invaded and taken over and there’s no point in trying to rescue what is now a hopelessly sullied label and identity.
Besides, as I said (and they keep reminding me) there is very little that has ever or now holds “Baptists” together as an identifiable tradition. So, they tell me, stop reifying or hypostasizing “Baptist” as if it were a real phenomenon. Stop essentializing it, they say.

Also, my northern friends tell me “Baptist” has become a primarily southern phenomenon.

A few years ago my late friend Stan Grenz, who proudly called himself both Baptist and evangelical, told me an interesting little story of an incident at his (then) institution of higher education. A well-known Anglican theologian, a colleague, had traveled to the American South (from Canada) to give some lectures at a Baptist university and seminary. When he returned, at a gathering of professors, this Anglican theologian said (commenting on his trip to the South) “Baptists are uncouth.” Of course, Stan spoke up to him and said “Am I included?” The Anglican theologian said “Present company excepted.”

Well, I’m just stubborn enough not to give “Baptist” over to the barbarians or give in to non-Baptists who vilify it; I will defend the label and tradition, as it really was and should be, until I die. Every label has its problems. I prefer to do the hard work of rescuing “Baptist” from all the distortions that surround it in popular culture and even among those who proudly proclaim it.

What I find ironic is that some of my friends who, though moderate, proudly identify as Baptist tell me I should give up calling myself “evangelical” or identifying myself with that movement–for the same reason others tell me to give up calling myself “Baptist” or identifying with that tradition.

About the author:
Dr. Roger Olson has been a member of the Truett Seminary faculty since 1999 as Professor of Christian Theology. You can keep up with Dr. Olson on his blog at Patheos.