{"id":7917,"date":"2022-01-24T13:17:50","date_gmt":"2022-01-24T18:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/?p=7917"},"modified":"2022-01-24T13:17:50","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T18:17:50","slug":"on-not-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/2022\/01\/on-not-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater\/","title":{"rendered":"On Not Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

On Not Throwing the Baby out with the Bathwater<\/p>\n

\"Throwing<\/p>\n

1 Thessalonians 5:19-20<\/p>\n

A few years ago I must have said \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t throw the baby out with the bathwater\u201d once too often because when I said it the whole class burst out laughing.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s okay; one thing I know about myself is I\u2019m funniest when I\u2019m not trying to be.<\/p>\n

I confess it.\u00a0 I do like that rustic saying\u2014\u201dDon\u2019t throw the baby out with the bathwater.\u201d\u00a0 It very well describes a struggle I\u2019ve been involved in for many years.\u00a0 In some ways, it defines my personal struggle with my religious heritage.<\/p>\n

After teaching Christian theology to college and seminary students for 27 years I\u2019m confident I\u2019m not alone.\u00a0 Many students share my struggle in their own ways.\u00a0 The same is true for many of my colleagues and friends.<\/p>\n

Some succeed in not throwing the baby out with the bathwater and some don\u2019t.\u00a0 I\u2019m not here to blame anyone but to share my struggle with you and hopefully encourage you if you find yourself involved in such a struggle.<\/p>\n

That saying\u2014\u201dDon\u2019t throw the baby out with the bathwater\u201d\u2014has an interesting history.\u00a0 I have heard one explanation of its origin that seems a little far-fetched.\u00a0 Allegedly, back in the Dark Ages, peasants bathed only once weekly.\u00a0 They would fill a half barrel with soapy water and the family members would take turns bathing in it.\u00a0 Of course, the father would go first.\u00a0 Then the oldest son.\u00a0 Then the mother and children.\u00a0 The baby would be bathed last and by then the water was so filthy it was easy to lose the baby in the bathwater\u2014especially if you looked away for a minute and the baby sank down into the water.\u00a0 So, the tale goes, occasionally the baby would be thrown out with the bathwater.<\/p>\n

Personally I always found that explanation unlikely.\u00a0 The urban myth debunking web site snopes.com agrees with me.<\/p>\n

While nobody knows who first coined the saying, it seems to come from Germany and the first published appearance is in a 15th century book of German poems.\u00a0 Interestingly, Martin Luther used it in a 1526 letter.\u00a0 He wrote \u201cMan soll das Kind nicht mit dem bad ausgiessen.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s first use in English was by British essayist Thomas Carlyle in 1849.<\/p>\n

I suppose I probably first heard it from one of my grandmothers.\u00a0 They were always going around uttering quaint advice like \u201cWatch your \u2018p\u2019s\u2019 and q\u2019s'\u201d\u2014whatever that means.<\/p>\n

But this saying\u2014\u201dDon\u2019t throw the baby out with the bathwater\u201d\u2014however quaint and odd seems to paraphrase Paul\u2019s advice to the Thessalonians well.\u00a0 In 1 Thessalonians 5:19-20 he instructs them (my translation): \u201cDo not quench the Spirit or despise prophecies.\u00a0 Carefully examine all things and hold on to what is good.\u201d\u00a0 In the next verse\u201421\u2014he tells his readers to \u201creject whatever is harmful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some English translations translate the Greek word \u03b4\u03bf\u03ba\u03af\u03bc\u03ac\u03b6\u03ad\u03c4\u03ad \u201cprove\u201d thus rendering the verse in English \u201cprove all things.\u201d\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t make any sense in modern English, of course.\u00a0 In the past \u201cprove\u201d could mean \u201ctest,\u201d but today it generally means something else.\u00a0 So a good, workable translation for today is \u201ccritically examine everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thayer says \u03b4\u03bf\u03ba\u03af\u03bc\u03ac\u03b6\u03ad\u03c4\u03ad means \u201cto test, examine, prove, scrutinize (to see whether a thing be genuine or not)\u201d, as in metal testing.\u00a0 It is used often in the New Testament and in the Septuagint almost always meaning critical examination of something to prove its validity.<\/p>\n

The context of this verse is \u201cprophecies.\u201d\u00a0 Paul instructs the Thessalonian Christians not to despise them.\u00a0 Immediately he then instructs them to critically examine them which raises a lot of questions the foremost being \u201chow?\u201d\u00a0 Paul doesn\u2019t answer here.\u00a0 And that\u2019s beside the point for my purposes.<\/p>\n

My only intention in choosing this passage as a \u201ctext that has shaped me\u201d is to support and defend something much neglected in Christian communities\u2014especially conservative ones.\u00a0 That something is critical thinking and testing of things within the church and Christian organizations.<\/p>\n

But Paul then goes on to say that after they have tested prophecies (or whatever) they are to hold firmly to what is good.\u00a0 The implication, of course, is that they were to discard what is bad.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t you wish Paul had finished his thoughts sometimes?\u00a0 I can just imagine the Thessalonian Christians listening to this letter being read to them and asking in consternation \u201cHow?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cBy what criteria are we supposed to critically examine prophecies?\u201d\u00a0 We can only wish with them that Paul had given specific instructions about that.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll never forget when this text first hit home to me.\u00a0 You know that \u201cAha!\u201d moment when experience and text come together and suddenly it means something very existentially compelling to you?\u00a0 That happened to me.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember the date, but I remember the place and the time frame.\u00a0 Then this text became a great comfort and challenge to me.<\/p>\n

I grew up in a form of Christianity most of you can\u2019t even imagine.\u00a0 Sometimes I\u2019m even embarrassed to talk about it.\u00a0 Whenever I meet someone who also grew up in it I want to grab them and sit down and talk at length.\u00a0 I want to say \u201cHey, let\u2019s form a support group!\u201d\u00a0 Often I find they went one of two directions with it\u2014either deeper in or farther away.<\/p>\n

You see, the religious form of life I was raised in was almost cultic in its extreme legalism.\u00a0 I\u2019ve come to refer to us as \u201curban Amish.\u201d\u00a0 We lived in a city, but we regarded everything and everyone around us as bound for hell unless they repented and joined our group or something very much like it.<\/p>\n

Television was held in great suspicion; it tended to come and go in our home.\u00a0 Our first television was a rented set so that I would have something to do when I was bed ridden for months with rheumatic fever when I was 10.\u00a0 A 10 year old can only read the Bible so much.\u00a0 And reading the Bible was strongly emphasized in our home and church.\u00a0 Anyone who had not read the Bible all the way though\u2014including all the \u201cbegats\u201d\u2014by the time he or she was 12 was considered destined for hell.<\/p>\n

When I got well the television stayed for a while, but then it went back to the rental store and we didn\u2019t have another one for years.<\/p>\n

Movies were absolutely Verboten<\/em>.\u00a0 \u201cWhat if Jesus came back while you were sitting in a den of Hollywood iniquity where people have sex in the back seats?\u201d\u00a0 Seriously.\u00a0 That\u2019s what we were asked by Sunday School teachers.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t darken the door of a movie theater until I was 20.<\/p>\n

I think you get the picture.\u00a0 But more pertinent to my story than all the rules and regulations that governed almost every minute aspect of life was the one great unspoken but always enforced rule and I learned the consequences of breaking it much to my detriment.<\/p>\n

That one great rule was \u201cDon\u2019t ask why.\u201d\u00a0 Of course, it was okay to ask why IF you asked in the right spirit and with the right attitude\u2014one of humble acceptance of whatever answer was offered.\u00a0 But if you asked why really challenging a rule or a belief or a custom you\u2019d better watch out.\u00a0 Your eternal soul was in jeopardy.\u00a0 I do not exaggerate.<\/p>\n

You see, our form of Christianity was not garden variety fundamentalism.\u00a0 It made fundamentalists look like liberals.\u00a0 We considered fundamentalist Baptists liberals because they didn\u2019t believe in the supernatural gifts of the Spirit such as speaking in tongues<\/a> and healing.<\/p>\n

My stepmother was the epitome of our spiritual way of life.<\/p>\n

When we went on family vacation we had to find a church as close to ours in beliefs and practices as possible and attend it in Sunday morning\u2014Sunday school and all.<\/p>\n

I got punished for putting my school books on top of a Bible at home.<\/p>\n

My brother and I weren\u2019t allowed to wear cut off jeans, to say nothing of shorts, or to swim with girls\u2014which meant no swimming in any public pool.\u00a0 Occasionally our church would rent a YMCA swimming pool for an afternoon or evening.\u00a0 But the boys sat out while the girls swam and vice versa.<\/p>\n

My problem was that I pretty much kept all the rules and, in spite of them, had a marvelous, life-transforming experience of Jesus Christ in that context, but as I matured I couldn\u2019t stop asking \u201cWhy?\u201d\u00a0 Why this rule and that belief?\u00a0 And when the answers weren\u2019t satisfying I kept asking.<\/p>\n

When I was in sixth grade I must have asked too many questions in Sunday School because one Sunday the teacher stood up, threw down his Sunday School quarterly and said \u201cRoger, you teach the class\u201d and stomped out.\u00a0 I did teach the class.\u00a0 Needless to say, I got a spanking that afternoon.<\/p>\n

If you grew up in our church there was really only one option for college\u2014our denomination\u2019s Bible college.\u00a0 Everyone went there.\u00a0 To not go there was to put a big question mark over your spirituality.\u00a0 It was a deal breaker\u2014not to go there was to be shunned by family and friends.\u00a0 So I went there.\u00a0 And I suffered four years of hell.<\/p>\n

We were not allowed to ask questions in class unless they were simply for clarification of a point.\u00a0 The whole curriculum and pedagogy was about indoctrination.\u00a0 And there was a deep strain of anti-intellectualism in the school.<\/p>\n

I simply couldn\u2019t stop myself from asking the \u201cWhy?\u201d question.\u00a0 \u201cWhy do we believe that?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWhere does that tradition come from?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWhy do we do that?\u201d\u00a0 Most often the answers were less than satisfactory and I was labeled a trouble maker for persisting in my questioning.<\/p>\n

At a particularly low point in my college career I came across this verse\u2014\u201dExamine all things\u201d\u2014and felt released from guilt and condemnation.\u00a0 I came to realize that I was being spiritually abused.\u00a0 That my elders had created idols out of highly questionable beliefs and practices and were using shame to manipulate and control students\u2014especially those few of us who dared to question the idols.<\/p>\n

One day the president of the college called me into his office and told me not to come back to school the next day unless I got my hair cut.\u00a0 My hair then came down a bit over my collar and about half way over my ears.\u00a0 Men were not allowed to have \u201clong hair\u201d or facial hair including side burns.\u00a0 (Not that I could ever grow side burns anyway!)\u00a0 I got my hair cut, but that was a turning point for me.\u00a0 I knew I was being singled out for special abuse because of my constant subjecting of things to critical examination.<\/p>\n

During the second semester of my senior year the college\u2019s board of regents discussed not allowing me to graduate in spite of my grade point average which was 3.5.\u00a0 They finally decided they probably couldn\u2019t legally prevent me from graduating, but agreed among themselves to blackball me from finding a position in the denomination.<\/p>\n

I was tempted to run as far as I possibly could from that form of Christianity.\u00a0 We called ourselves \u201cconservative evangelicals.\u201d\u00a0 Did I even want to be an evangelical Christian anymore?\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t at all sure.<\/p>\n

But I kept coming back to a few really amazing experiences of the reality of Jesus Christ in my life.\u00a0 They kept me anchored in my evangelical faith even as I slowly but surely shook off the extreme fundamentalism and legalism and anti-intellectualism of my home, church and denomination.<\/p>\n

The last straw for my family and church and denomination was when I enrolled in seminary.\u00a0 I was the first person raised in that denomination ever to go to seminary.\u00a0 My people always called it \u201ccemetery.\u201d\u00a0 Enrolling in a Baptist seminary assured that I would never again be welcome among my own people.<\/p>\n

At that seminary I found a very different flavor of evangelical Christianity\u2014a warm-hearted but at the same time tough minded evangelicalism that was not at all threatened by my questions.\u00a0 And I drank deeply at the wells of open, progressive evangelical theology and it tasted so good.<\/p>\n

As I progressed on into my doctoral studies I met many young men and women who had grown up in religious environments like my own and I noticed a pattern.\u00a0 It seemed they either were incapable of thinking for themselves or they rejected evangelical Christianity entirely.\u00a0 I determined to do what I didn\u2019t see very many of those friends doing\u2014keep the baby while throwing out the bathwater.<\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t always been easy.\u00a0 Where\u2019s the line between legalism and righteousness?\u00a0 Between traditionalism and tradition?\u00a0 Between fanaticism and passion?\u00a0 Between authoritarianism and authority?\u00a0 Between gullibility and openness to the miraculous?<\/p>\n

Over the years I\u2019ve witnessed so many young Christians in university and seminary struggling out of abusive fundamentalism with its near idolatry of human ideas and traditions and its abuse of inquiring minds.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve been dismayed by how often they do throw the baby of evangelical faith out with the bathwater of fundamentalism.\u00a0 But I can\u2019t blame them because I came very close to doing it myself.<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019ve become a little more comfortable in my own skin and knowing the difference between the baby and the bathwater comes easier for me.\u00a0 I need to be patient with those who are still finding their way in that.\u00a0 I want to give them guidance if I can.<\/p>\n

So let me tell you some of the things I think we should keep as we discard their counterfeits.<\/p>\n

We should not throw the baby of tradition out with the bathwater of traditionalism.\u00a0 Historical theologian Jaroslav Pelikan of Yale said that \u201cTraditionalism is the dead faith of the living while tradition is the living faith of the dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

We should not throw the baby of certitude out with the bathwater of certainty.\u00a0 Kierkegaard coined the term \u201ccertitude\u201d as the replacement for Enlightenment certainty which is a myth.\u00a0 We finite and fallen human beings can\u2019t have certainty\u2014especially about answers to life\u2019s ultimate questions.\u00a0 But we can have certitude which means, in Lesslie Newbigin\u2019s words, \u201cproper confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

We should not throw the baby of confession out with the bathwater of creedalism.\u00a0 I no longer will sign someone else\u2019s creed or confessional statement, but if asked I will gladly tell my confession of faith in classical Christian doctrine.<\/p>\n

We should not throw the baby of faith out with the bathwater of anti-intellectualism or the baby of reason out with the bathwater of rationalism.<\/p>\n

We should not throw the baby of truth out with the bathwater of totalizing absolutism.<\/p>\n

We should not throw the baby of feeling out with the bathwater of emotionalism.<\/p>\n

We should not throw the baby of patriotism out with the bathwater of nationalism.<\/p>\n

We should not throw the baby of the God\u2019s supernatural activity out with the bathwater of gullibility about miracles.<\/p>\n

We should not throw the baby of biblical authority out with the bathwater of wooden literalism and strict inerrancy.<\/p>\n

We should not throw the baby of accountability out with the bathwater of hierarchy.<\/p>\n

And so I could go on.\u00a0 There are so many examples of ways in which disillusioned Christians throw the good out with the bad.<\/p>\n

So how can we know which is the baby and which is the bathwater?\u00a0 Perhaps there\u2019s no litmus test.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t found one.\u00a0 It would be too simple just to say \u201cJesus.\u201d\u00a0 But a Christ-centered consciousness is part of it.<\/p>\n

But one thing I\u2019m sure of.\u00a0 In our Christian communities, we should find ways to reward and not punish those courageous souls who dare to ask \u201cWhy?\u201d because they do us a great service by making us ask about the difference between babies and bathwater.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Not Throwing the Baby out with the Bathwater 1 Thessalonians 5:19-20 A few years ago I must have said \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t throw the baby out with the bathwater\u201d once too often because when I said it the whole class burst out laughing. That\u2019s okay; one thing I know about myself is I\u2019m funniest when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nOn Not Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On Not Throwing the Baby out with the Bathwater 1 Thessalonians 5:19-20 A few years ago I must have said "We shouldn't throw the baby out with the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/2022\/01\/on-not-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On Not Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On Not Throwing the Baby out with the Bathwater 1 Thessalonians 5:19-20 A few years ago I must have said "We shouldn't throw the baby out with the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/2022\/01\/on-not-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Roger E. Olson\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-01-24T18:17:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/marketingperks.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/01\/baby-bath-water1.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Roger E. Olson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Roger E. Olson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"12 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/2022\/01\/on-not-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/2022\/01\/on-not-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater\/\",\"name\":\"On Not Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-01-24T18:17:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-01-24T18:17:50+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/#\/schema\/person\/84d70594b349147e27843d59d5db8cca\"},\"description\":\"On Not Throwing the Baby out with the Bathwater 1 Thessalonians 5:19-20 A few years ago I must have said \\\"We shouldn't throw the baby out with the\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/2022\/01\/on-not-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/2022\/01\/on-not-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/2022\/01\/on-not-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"On Not Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/\",\"name\":\"Roger E. Olson\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/#\/schema\/person\/84d70594b349147e27843d59d5db8cca\",\"name\":\"Roger E. Olson\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6fe30530b483e239a4ca15ef464a5902?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6fe30530b483e239a4ca15ef464a5902?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Roger E. Olson\"},\"description\":\"Roger E. Olson is Emeritus Professor of Christian Theology at Baylor University where he held the Foy Valentine Chair in Christian Ethics and taught Christian Theology from 1999 to 2021. He is the author of over twenty book including The Story of Christian Theology and The Journey of Modern Theology (both published by InterVarsity Press).\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/author\/rogereolson\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"On Not Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater","description":"On Not Throwing the Baby out with the Bathwater 1 Thessalonians 5:19-20 A few years ago I must have said \"We shouldn't throw the baby out with the","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/2022\/01\/on-not-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"On Not Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater","og_description":"On Not Throwing the Baby out with the Bathwater 1 Thessalonians 5:19-20 A few years ago I must have said \"We shouldn't throw the baby out with the","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/2022\/01\/on-not-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater\/","og_site_name":"Roger E. Olson","article_published_time":"2022-01-24T18:17:50+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/marketingperks.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/01\/baby-bath-water1.png"}],"author":"Roger E. Olson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Roger E. Olson","Est. reading time":"12 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/2022\/01\/on-not-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/2022\/01\/on-not-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater\/","name":"On Not Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/#website"},"datePublished":"2022-01-24T18:17:50+00:00","dateModified":"2022-01-24T18:17:50+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/#\/schema\/person\/84d70594b349147e27843d59d5db8cca"},"description":"On Not Throwing the Baby out with the Bathwater 1 Thessalonians 5:19-20 A few years ago I must have said \"We shouldn't throw the baby out with the","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/2022\/01\/on-not-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/2022\/01\/on-not-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/2022\/01\/on-not-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"On Not Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/","name":"Roger E. Olson","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/#\/schema\/person\/84d70594b349147e27843d59d5db8cca","name":"Roger E. Olson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6fe30530b483e239a4ca15ef464a5902?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6fe30530b483e239a4ca15ef464a5902?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Roger E. Olson"},"description":"Roger E. Olson is Emeritus Professor of Christian Theology at Baylor University where he held the Foy Valentine Chair in Christian Ethics and taught Christian Theology from 1999 to 2021. He is the author of over twenty book including The Story of Christian Theology and The Journey of Modern Theology (both published by InterVarsity Press).","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/author\/rogereolson\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}