Two new books about evangelicalism

Last updated on: August 18, 2011 at 7:32 pm by Roger E. Olson

Two new books about evangelicalism 2011-08-18T19:32:18-05:00 Roger E. Olson

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Occasionally I will review or just recommend (or not) books here. Yesterday I received a new book Baker kindly sent me. It is by two old friends–Steve Wilkens and Don Thorsen. The title is Everything You Know about Evangelicals Is Wrong (Well, Almost Everything). The sub-subtitle is An Insider’s Look at Myths and Realities.

From the table of contents: Evangelicals Are Not All Mean, Stupid, and Dogmatic. Evangelicals Are Not All Waiting for the Rapture, Evangelicals Are Not All Anti-evolutionists, Evangelicals Are Not All Inerrantists, Evangelicals Are Not All Rich Americans, Evangelicals Are Not All Calvinists, Evangelicals Are Not All Republicans, Evangelicals Are Not All Racist, Sexist, and Homophobic. I’ve only read parts of it so far, but it seems like an entertaining and enlightening read. I highly recommend it. We need more people like Wilkens and Thorsen promoting the “big tent” vision of evangelicalism in this time of conservative evangelicals talking endlessly about “evangelical boundaries” and trying to excommunicate evangelical scholars from movement.

I am reviewing a new book by British evangelical Steven Knowles entitled Beyond Evangelicalism: The Theological Methodology of Stanley J. Grenz (Ashgate). It is neither entertaining nor enlightening. It doesn’t intend to be the former and if it is meant to be the latter if falls miserably short. Knowles is one of those “evangelical boundaries” guys and he thinks my late friend Stan Grenz went outside of them. His implicit magisterium for deciding who is authentically evangelical seems to be (because he refers to them favorably so often) D. A. Carson, Millard Erickson, David Wells, Wayne Grudem, Alister McGrath and Kevin Vanhoozer.

In my opinion Knowles has Stan Grenz mostly wrong. I have the advantage of having known Stan very well; we were like brothers. We spent many hours discussing his theology and criticisms of it by fellow evangelicals. Like Carson and Erickson and other conservative evangelicals, Knowles seems to think Stan was a cultural relativist because he attempted to do evangelical theology without a foundationalist epistemology. To Knowles, apparently, a foundationalist epistemology is necessary for authentic evangelical theology.

I wonder who decided that and when? Now, if all Knowles means is that Stan broke out of the constrictions of TRADITIONAL evangelical theological methodology–fine. But he says more than that even with his title.

I know beyond doubt that Stan was not a cultural relativist and his theology was not uncritically influenced by, for example, George Lindbeck. He was trying to take the postmodern cultural landscape seriously, but he did not embrace postmodern philosophy or thought patterns uncritically and he did hold Scripture as the highest and final authority in theology.

Knowles scores Stan for wedding Word and Spirit inseparably together and making the authority behind the written Word the Holy Spirit. He fails to mention that Calvin, among others, did the same! Apparently Knowles views the Bible without the Spirit as authoritative.

There are many, many problems with Knowles’ account of Stan’s theology. He puts the worst spin possible on some of Stan’s statements, ignoring cautions Stan built into the surrounding contexts.

It is sad to me that this is the first book length treatment of Stan’s theology after his passing. It is such a bad book that I hesitate even to review it for a scholarly journal, but I feel compelled to defend Stan’s evangelical credentials and ask who gives Knowles or anybody the authority to declare who is and who isn’t evangelical? Just because someone breaks out of traditional evangelical patterns of thought doesn’t make him or her not evangelical.

I also find it interesting that ALL of the people Knowles uses as examples of traditional evangelical theology are Reformed. Stan wasn’t. In fact, I happen to know he was an Arminian even though he didn’t like labels (other than Christian, evangelical and Baptist). I have to wonder if Knowles is one of those people who thinks Reformed theology stemming from the Princeton theologians of the 19th century is normative for all evangelical thought.

I recommend that people interested in understanding Stan Grenz’s theology read Grenz himself and not a secondary source and especially not this one.

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