Comments on: Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:10:51 +0000

Ah, nothing like the ol’ evangelicalism debate to get the comments flowing – enough with this serious doctrine of God stuff!

By: Kyle Strobel

Kyle Strobel — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:28:08 +0000

I hadn’t seen that yet! Olson’s review is worth its weight in gold. Hilarious.

By: Davey Henreckson

Davey Henreckson — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:06:25 +0000

Thanks for the tip. Olson raises some interesting (if not ground-breaking) points. At the same time, I wonder whether an evangelical who was formed theologically in any era other than the late 1960s and the 1970s would have the same nostalgia for neo-evangelicalism. That mid-century movement was amazingly short-lived — some kind of strange brew of fundamentalism and mainline Calvinism. I remember reading Marsden’s excellent book on the rise of Fuller Seminary and thinking: the debates of the 1960s were really no different from our own at the beginning of the 21st century. The ‘fundamentalist’ impulse, as Olson defines it, was apparently just as influential (read: flush with money) back then as it is now.

Perhaps the ideologies of individual institutions do, in fact, fluctuate. But I’m not so sure that evangelicalism itself has undergone so radical a paradigm shift. I suppose that at the most fundamental level, the trajectory of ‘evangelicalism’ really depends on how someone defines that term. Olson’s categorical distinction between fundamentalism and evangelicalism doesn’t really convince me, at least in historical terms.

By: Jason Sexton

Jason Sexton — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:50:28 +0000

Ahh, Kyle. You have failed to mention Olson’s other recent post, “Two new books on evangelicalism” (http://www.rogereolson.com/2010/08/12/two-new-books-about-evangelicalism/). His new blog is definitely one to watch!

On your question, it’s hard to argue with someone who was “there” when it all went down. When it comes to historical theology, Olson is in his own league. Just don’t ask him to do constructive theology.