The Kingdom of God as Critical Principle for Christian Social Ethics: The Church The Maston Lectures (Lecture 1) East Texas Baptist University April 13, 2016 Roger E. Olson “That action is right which fits the shape of the Kingdom to come.” John Howard Yoder Jesus said to his disciples “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” (John 6:33) Partly because of this somewhat enigmatic imperative, Christian theologians and... Read more

I know I’ve written here about hell several times. One of my most recent blog posts about hell was a review of Sharon L. Baker’s (Messiah College) book Razing Hell: Rethinking Everything You’ve Been Taught about God’s Wrath and Judgment (Westminster John Knox Press). I gave it a cautious thumbs up. If  you haven’t read it and you are interested in a biblically faithful but progressive evangelical view of hell, I highly recommend it. One of my own publishers, Zondervan,... Read more

Fixing Men (and Boys) A student recently shared with me an article that appeared in the New York Times entitled “Teaching Men to Be Emotionally Honest” (Andrew Reiner, April 4, 2016). Here are some “take ways” from the excellent article in bullet points (that I do not claim do justice to the article): Some American institutions of higher education are beginning to wake up to the study of male human beings (henceforth simply “males”) including teaching courses on “Men’s Studies”... Read more

Note: This essay was written by Zach Dawes, managing editor for EthicsDaily.com. You can follow him on Twitter @ZachDawes_Jr. Zach wrote this when he was my student several years ago. I am publishing it here now with his permission because of John Piper’s recent comment that C. S. Lewis might have been a Calvinist. (We discussed that here some months ago.) I realize not everyone is going to have sufficient interest in the subject to read the entire essay, but,... Read more

Announcements: Books, Chapters and Talks I am very pleased to announce that the Second Edition (revised and enlarged) of The Mosaic of Christian Belief: Twenty Centuries of Unity and Diversity is “in the warehouse” at InterVarsity Press and should now be available for purchase directly from IVP or from a book reseller such as Amazon (which is still saying its publication date is May 1). I went through the first edition with the proverbial “fine toothed comb” correcting errors and... Read more

Is There a “Christian Economics?” (*Note to would-be responders/commenters: If you choose to respond, please do not “nit-pick” or misrepresent or merely argue or use my blog as an opportunity to promote your own alternative viewpoint. Keep your response to no more than 250 words and make sure it represents a spirit of dialogue, not polemics.) For good reason economics is traditionally labeled “the dismal science.” Even the best economists in the world radically disagree with each other about how... Read more

Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Death of Francis Asbury By David Martinez “The love of Christ our hearts constrains, And strengthens our unwearied hands, We spend our sweat, and time, and pains, To cultivate Immanuel’s lands”[1] Yesterday (March 31) marks the 200th anniversary of the death of Francis Asbury (1745-1816), the relentless Bishop who indeed spent himself in spreading Methodism in America.  And oh how he pained!  Church historians acknowledge the impact John Wesley’s theology – “an Arminianism combined... Read more

The following essay was written for and distributed by InsideSources.com. It has been published so far by the Detroit News. Other subscribing publications may pick it up from InsideSources.   “Evangelical” Is Not a Political Identity Roger E. Olson Foy Valentine Professor of Christian Theology and Ethics George W. Truett Theological Seminary Baylor University   Time magazine declared 1976 the “Year of the Evangelical.” Before that most Americans had little idea what an “evangelical” was. However, the National Association of... Read more

Time magazine declared Stanley Hauerwas “America’s best theologian.” That was in 2001. His response to the encomium was ” ‘best’ is not a theologial category.” Hauerwas has long been a controversial theologian and ethicist–especially since his book (published Gifford Lectures) With the Grain of the Universe in which he blasted Reinhold Niebuhr as not Christian. Of course, he was referring to Niebuhr’s theology and ethics, not his personal salvation. One Hauerwas critic I read rightly (I think) said that he... Read more

A week ago I was in very good company at a university Ph.D. dissertation defense. David Cramer passed with flying colors and is now an editor at Baker Publishing Co. His dissertation was a (I would say) successful attempt to show that Christian social ethicists Rauschenbusch, Niebuhr and Yoder belong to one tradition. In other words, they had much more in common than usually thought. I look forward to the book (if not the movie!). Thanks to the university Religion... Read more