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Evangelicalism Was a Closed Club: I Saw It From Inside

Evangelicalism Was a Closed Club: I Saw It From Inside

Last updated on: May 6, 2026 at 9:53 pm by Roger E. Olson

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Evangelicalism Was a Closed Club: I Saw It From Inside 2026-05-06T21:53:17-05:00 Roger E. Olson

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Evangelicalism: A Closed Club?

Based on my extensive and deep involvement with the American Evangelical Movement (AEM) over fifty years, I will dare to say that it was a closed club. | Teemu008 from Palatine, Illinois, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Not Always Fair

Based on my extensive and deep involvement with the American Evangelical Movement (AEM) over fifty years, I will dare to say that it was a closed club. At least there were (and still are) people who want to make it a bounded set, as opposed to a centered set, and serve as its gatekeepers. And they were and are not always fair in carrying that out. In fact, at times, with regard to certain individuals, I know that they violated basic ethical rules. Some of them lied to keep certain individuals out of the club.

Limited Foreknowledge

One such lie perpetrated by some leaders of the AEM was calling open theism “process theology.” It was a lie because they knew better. For whatever reasons, they wanted to frighten other evangelicals by so labeling it. It worked. One leading evangelical critics of open theism said, in a book about it, that a leading open theist admitted dependence on process theology. I happened to have had the books, both of them. I knew the accused personally and knew he was not sympathetic with process theology. In his book he wrote that open theism had similarities to process theology but was not dependent on it. I sent the critic an email quoting from the page he cited, showing that the author did NOT say that open theism is dependent on process theology. The only similarity he mentioned was limited foreknowledge. The offending theologian did not respond. I received an email back from someone in his office saying “Dr. Geisler will never see your email message.”

Clearly Distanced Himself

Another leading evangelical theologian and dean of an evangelical seminary spoke against open theism in churches and other institutions. He told congregants and listeners that Greg Boyd admitted sympathy with process theology in his published doctoral dissertation. He took quotes out of context to support that. I had Greg’s published dissertation about Charles Hartshorne and Jonathan Edwards. The only agreement he pointed to was relational worldviews. He clearly distanced himself from process theology. Greg invited the theologian and seminary dean, who lived in the same city, to meet with him to discuss the matter. The theologian seminary dean refused.

New Directions in Evangelical Theology

On and on it went. The same thing happened with regard to my friend Stanley Grenz. Several leading conservative evangelical theologians and administrators spoke out against him and his theology, often distorting it, even misrepresenting it in a way that was deceitful. Stan tried to meet with them but they refused. I was on the platform of a panel discussion together with some of Stan’s harshest critics. One spoke of Stan’s and others’ bowing to “the goddess of novelty.” That was an accusation of idolatry—just because Stan and others like him among evangelical theologians were proposing some new directions in evangelical theology. They were not heretical.

I eventually had to conclude, and I stand by this conclusion, that SOME leading AEM theologians and administrators were being deceitful in order to exclude certain other leading AEM theologians from the “club.” Why? Because it helped them advance in their own leadership of the club. I saw that they could acquire “points” by “exposing” as “heresies” ideas others had not yet discovered to be heresies.

I Could Not Join

I discovered that one leading evangelical theologian, then president of the Evangelical Theological Society, agreed with me as to the nature of the Bible’s accuracy. I called our shared view “infallibility,” and he called it “inerrancy.” I said that I don’t think our shared view should be called “inerrancy” because that misleads. I asked him if I could join the ETS, knowing what he would probably say. He said, as expected, no, that I could not join without affirming the WORD “inerrancy.” That proved to me that for many, “inerrancy” is simply a shibboleth. I will tell more about that story here later.

What I am saying is that, from my own experiences living and working as an insider of the AEM I am convinced, as I want you to be, that many of its influencers have been and are still dishonest, deceitful, untrustworthy, and that some of the tactics they use to exclude people from their club are unfair and corrupt.

Note: If you choose to comment, make sure your comment is relatively brief (no more than 100 words), on topic, addressed to me, civil and respectful (not hostile or argumentative) and devoid of pictures or links.

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