Olson, Preface and Overview Part 2

Back on Track with Reviewing Olson

I have been double-rotten to the core about not posting on the Roger Olson book, Arminian Theology—Myths and Realities (IVP, 2006). This morning I read a bit more—I back-tracked some—and then re-skimmed the Table of Contents and what not.

He says on p. 12 that Arminian as a term is not commonly used in the 21^st century. I guess he’s suggesting that that’s true for the man on the street. It’s just not so in the circles where I run. My years at Evangelical Bible Book Store, and here in the OPC, I can pretty much say that there’s not a week that goes by and someone, some where is using the term. Again, in the circles where I run.

I first became acquainted with Arminian positions on salvation via four books: JI Packer’s pamphlet An Introductory Essay to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, the 1972 publication from Banner of Truth, The Grace of God in the Gospel, by John Cheeseman, Philip Gardner, Michael Sadgrove, Tom Wright (notice, this is the Tom Wright we’ve come to know as the prolific NT Wright), and two books by AW Pink Profiting From the Word and The Sovereignty of God.

Back in 1978 is when a few men got me started reading on the doctrines of grace.

Olson expresses concerns for those who get their Bible teaching, exegesis and theology about Arminianism from Calvinists. He’s writing about me.

G. Mark Sumpter