Roger E. Olson

The subtitle says it all: The Journey From Folk Religion to Examined Faith.

This is a book for thinking or reflective Christians, that is, Christians who don't just go along with the Christian cliche's or Christian culture , which Olson says are really part of folk Christianity, but who seriously examine these sayings and the culture in light of Biblical Revelation. In his introduction, Olson examines 10 Christian cliches, for example: "It's a mystery, just accept it" or "All sins are equal."

This book contains discussion questions at the end of each chapter and, therefore, can be used in small group meetings. A great book (only 185 pages, and small, only 9"x5") to get non-reflective Christians to seriously start thinking about their faith.… (mehr)

Olson provides, again, an excellent read on the history of Christian faith and theology in relation to philosophy. Here he shows that Christians adhere to a fundamental tenets which originate from a revelatory philosophical world view inherent in the Bible. He says, "The biblical Christian vision of reality is a 'view from somewhere'... a revealed-to-faith perspective that, in the writer's perspective, cannot be proved true but nevertheless is no private worldview based solely on a subjective leap of faith. It is rooted in the narrative of the Bible..." (p.39).

It seems to me that Olson contends we do not need to go to philosophical views of being or metaphysics to understand or explain the Christian faith as, perhaps, the Church Fathers have done, because the Bible has its own metaphysical view of reality. He further argues that "throughout the centuries and yet today Christian thinkers have succumbed to the temptation to replace the thinking of the Bible with alien philosophies under the wrong assumption that the Bible is a bunch of stories which no reasonable, workable metaphysical vision (or ethic) can be drawn for later cultures and their Christians" (p.69).

Olson suggests that what we need to know of ultimate reality, the Bible provides adequate answers; that we need not look outside the Bible to philosophy, while it does have some benefits, to explain the Bible, but that the Bible "contains its own metaphysical vision of reality" (p.77).

Olson says that while Christians have varying beliefs on certain issues, nevertheless, they are united in the essential tenets that are absolutely necessary to thought identified as Christian or Biblical.

An excellent read for those interested in the relationship between philosophy and the Bible and the negative impact the former has upon the latter with correctives of ultimate reality from a Christian philosophical perspective.… (mehr)

Olson is strongest in his area of expertise, namely 20th century theology. In the area of patristics he relies on the outdated notion of an Antiochene and Alexandrian school of exegesis. Moving to the later Middle Ages he breezes through Medieval Scholasticism, only covering Aquinas. When getting to the Post-Reformation period, Olson gives an excellent overview of Arminius, but fails to give appropriate attention to the Reformed Scholastics. He relies on outdated scholarship such as the idea of predestination as the core of Reformed thinking and a definition of scholasticism as a a certain collection of theological content, rather than simply as a method of inquiry shared by varied theological groups. All in all, one would do better to use a different textbook and supplement it with Olson's full volumes on Arminian and 20th century theologies.… (mehr)