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2024-04-26T15:35:18-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

My Experiences with Liberal Churches

Last updated on: April 26, 2024 at 3:35 pm By Roger E. Olson

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My Experiences with Liberal Churches Recently I posted a blog essay here about my nostalgia for some aspects of my fundamentalist church upbringing. But what about my experiences in liberal Protestant churches? I have, in the past, been a member of two different liberal Protestant churches. They would probably not call themselves “liberal,” but I call them that with good reasons. Immediately after seminary, just out of a Pentecostal-charismatic church, where I served as assistant pastor, I was placed in... Read more

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2024-04-24T10:12:44-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Feeling Nostalgia for Fundamentalism

Last updated on: April 24, 2024 at 10:12 am By Roger E. Olson

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Feeling Nostalgia for Fundamentalism I had a memory “flashback.” I suddenly, out of nowhere, remembered and felt an experience from the somewhat distant past. I was attending the annual national convention of the American Academy of Religion—a professional society of religion scholars that drew around four to five thousand attenders. I don’t remember the city-location that year, but I remember an event very clearly. Every year the AAR put on a film event. Members and paid attenders were invited to... Read more

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2024-04-21T18:31:13-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Political Meaning of Christianity: Social Reform

Last updated on: April 21, 2024 at 6:31 pm By Roger E. Olson

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The Political Meaning of Christianity: Social Reform Here I take up two more sections of Glenn Tinder’s book The Political Meaning of Christianity: Chapter Four, Social Transformation, sections Prophetic Hope and Social Reform and Communal Liberation and the Will of God (pp. 151-165). Among other things, Tinder asserts that, in spite of “the Christian record,” “Christianity in essence is not conservative.” (153) Here again we encounter the implied difference between what I have called “empirical Christianity” (the churches and their... Read more

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2024-04-19T15:28:41-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Why Calvinism Cannot Be True and Is It Heresy?

Last updated on: April 19, 2024 at 3:28 pm By Roger E. Olson

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Why Calvinism Cannot Be True and Is It Heresy? Of course I’ve addressed this before here and elsewhere. But, since I have posted about two thousand essays here, there is very little about which I have not written here. So, I am returning to a basic theme here—Calvinism. As everyone knows, I am an evangelical Christian theologian who is not a Calvinist. I am Arminian, as the title of this blog implies. This has caused me some difficulties over the... Read more

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2024-04-19T15:19:34-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

How Many Gods Do Christians Believe In?

Last updated on: April 19, 2024 at 3:19 pm By Roger E. Olson

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How Many Gods Do Christians Believe in? Titles generally require that all nouns begin with capital letters, but now I will revise the title of this blog post to correct it: “How many gods do Christians believe in?” Notice the difference. And know that here I am not talking about Mormonism or Latter Day Saints. This essay focuses exclusively on evangelical Christians who are saying we should believe in more gods than God (Yahweh). Two evangelical Christian influencers are in... Read more

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2024-04-13T15:09:01-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Political Meaning of Christianity: Power & State

Last updated on: April 13, 2024 at 3:09 pm By Roger E. Olson

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The Political Meaning of Christianity: Power & State Several readers and I are here discussing the book The Political Meaning of Christianity by Glenn Tinder (HarperSanFrancisco, 1991). Those who are reading the book, and have read the pages I’m commenting on, are welcome to comment and question. Others are welcome to question. Two sections of Chapter Three being discussed here are “Power” and “The State and Its Justification” (pp. 133-149). (Chapter Three is “Liberty.”) Predictably, Tinder argues that true, authentic... Read more

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2024-04-12T11:02:14-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

What Is (Christian) Folk Religion?

Last updated on: April 12, 2024 at 11:02 am By Roger E. Olson

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What Is (Christian) Folk Religion? Folk religion is an anthropological category also used in the sociology of religion. It is religion done, believed, practiced, by the people, not the scholars. Every religion has its own form of folk religion. However, folk religions share some common features. Here I am writing specifically about American Christian folk religion, but the features I identify overlap with other folk religions. Folk religion thrives on comfort and other feelings (e.g., excitement) to the neglect, even... Read more

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2024-04-10T10:34:45-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

What Does “The Blood of Jesus” Mean?

Last updated on: April 10, 2024 at 10:34 am By Roger E. Olson

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What Does “The Blood of Jesus” Mean? Recently there has been some public criticism of Christian “talk” about “the blood,” the “blood of Jesus,” especially. Of course, there’s nothing new about that. Even many Christians shy away, or more, from talking or singing about the blood of Jesus. Famous and influential Protestant preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick spoke about “slaughterhouse religion” and rejected talk about “the blood.” More recently, a leading and influential Womanist theologian has declared that we don’t need... Read more

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2024-04-07T17:52:49-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Meaning of Christianity: Liberty and Tolerance

Last updated on: April 7, 2024 at 5:52 pm By Roger E. Olson

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The Meaning of Christianity: Liberty and Tolerance Under discussion here are two small portions of The Meaning of Christianity (by Glenn Tinder) in Chapter Three. They are “Liberty and Community” and “Tolerance” (pp. 116-133). In a nutshell, Tinder argues, surprisingly perhaps (to some) that true Christianity, as opposed to much historical, empirical “Christianity,” promotes liberty and tolerance. Tinder explicitly distinguishes between much historical Christianity and true Christianity, as I have here. People who cannot think abstractly will necessarily struggle with... Read more

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2024-04-06T15:34:13-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

What Is a “Resurrection Body?”

Last updated on: April 6, 2024 at 3:34 pm By Roger E. Olson

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What Is a “Resurrection Body?” We are not a week away (past) Easter Sunday. And I am musing (not pontificating) about the meaning of “resurrection body.” Christian belief that the tomb of Christ was empty, emptied by God, and that Christ’s body was changed, not left to rot or merely resuscitated, calls for explanation. However, all Christians admit it is a mystery to our minds, incapable of complete explanation. Might it be the case that part of our perplexity about... Read more

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