Product Description

In recent years the American media have portrayed the evangelical movement as a conservative force in society equating it with fundamentalism. Many people equate evangelical Christianity with conservatism in religion, politics, theology and social attitudes. But is this the whole story of evangelicalism?

Roger Olson’s new book sets forth evidence that the link between evangelicalism and conservatism has not always been as strong as it is today in the popular mind. Olson shows how contemporary evangelicals—who want to remain evangelical—can do so without identifying with conservatism in every way.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #73097 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 208 pages

From the Back Cover
Many people equate evangelical Christianity with conservatism in religion, politics, theology and social attitudes. Some are scandalized by any separation between them. As one evangelical pastor's wife declared to a church group "We are a conservative people!"

In fact, however, evangelicals have not always been conservative; radical stances on doctrines, worship, social norms, politics and church leadership have often marked evangelicalism in the past. The 2007 movie Amazing Grace about William Wilberforce's protracted battle against the slave trade featured a small group of British evangelicals committed to abolition. The same radicalism characterized much of American evangelicalism in the years before the Civil War.

In recent years the American media have portrayed the evangelical movement as a conservative force in society sometimes equating it with fundamentalism and puritanism. The missing piece of the story is, however, that both fundamentalism and puritanism contained radical elements that opposed the status quo.

This book sets forth evidence that the link between evangelicalism and conservatism has not always been as strong as it is today in the popular mind and it will provide suggestions for contemporary evangelicals who want to remain evangelical (and not become "post-evangelical") without identifying with conservatism in every way.

About the Author
Roger E. Olson, PhD (Rice University) is Professor of Theology at George W. Truett Theological Seminary of Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Olson received the "Critics’ Choice Award" for 20th Century Theology: God and the World in a Transitional Age, a book he co-authored with Stanley J. Grenz. He has published numerous books and articles, including his recent works How to Be Evangelical without Being Conservative and Reformed and Always Reforming: The Postconservative Approach to Evangelical Theology.

Customer Reviews

Read the First Half... Skip the rest...
How to be Evangelical without being Conservative by Roger Olson starts with great potential, by the end it becomes annoying. The early chapters deliver good analysis and reasoned challenges to the status quo of many American Evangelicals. By the end it feels a lot more like an axe-grinding polemic.

Olson's definition of Evangelical is traditional and accurate - so we're starting from a common point. His definition of Conservative is too much of a caricature - like a caricature it has a basis in fact, but is over-emphasized. His definition is true of a great many who are just afraid of change, yet Olson dismisses, or ignores the fact, that many Conservatives have actually looked at the options and made a rational choice...not just a longing to avoid change.

His arguments that Evangelicals should be biblical without orthodoxy as well as build character without moralism are good chapters. His main thesis in the former is that the church is not only reformata - reformed, but should so be semper reformanda - always reforming. Olson eschews what he calls "hardening of the categories" (pg. 33). In his attack on moralism Olson rightly points out that Evangelicals "have specialized in moralism toward society outside the church while neglecting church discipline" (pg. 48).

Olson is not afraid to take on some Evangelical sacred cows as he addresses the difference between patriotism vs. nationalism. Many of us can learn from his theses that American is not God's gift to the 20th Century, the "American way" is not tantamount to the Christian way; nor is Democracy or Capitalism any more biblical than other forms of government or economy. We should not "blend free market Capitalism with `God and the American way'" (pg. 131).

Though this is where Olson starts to grid his axes. He is right that we should not make Capitalism into some biblical doctrine. His definition of capitalism, though, is a thinly veiled and pejorative attack on the system. It too is a caricature, maybe even a straw man.

Olson also uses contradictory methods of applying Scripture; in one place saying that since the New Testaments church did not do "X" why should we? Then latter arguing that even though the Scriptures do not argue for governmental redistribution of wealth - Christian should support it. He makes some good points, but belabors them to the point of near incredulity.

He finishes the book with an argument for the role of women in leadership of churches in general and the position of pastor in specific. Here he ignores any biblical passages used by some to limit the position(s) to men. Instead he argues from an appeal to equality (which is poorly defined) and his own experience (even though elsewhere he maintains that experience must be secondary to Scripture). Here Olson relies too heavily on his subjective experience. It would have been much better had he engaged the Scriptures to advance his point.

So - after all is said and read I still recommend (the first-half of) the book. Even though the latter chapters become rather mediocre, Olson offers some very good challenges and alternatives to how we "do church" and how we are "Christians."

A good book that raises lots of very imnportant questions
"How to be Evangelical Without Being Conservative" is a good book and I recommend it, especially to those who believe that conservatism and evangelicalism are directed linked together.

The author is very open about his own background and his own questions and concerns. I appreciate his honesty and his ability to open himself to the attacks he will receive for asking "those kind of questions."


This book raises many excellent questions, and while I do not agree with all that is put forth, I do believe the issues highlighted are important and NEED to be discussed within Christian churches. Christians should not be afraid of deep and hard questions, and we all need to ponder how Christians should interact with the world to be effective salt and light, as well as keeping ourselves unstained by the world.

Too often in the world evangelicals have been "played" by politicians and have ended up being used. Christians need to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. This book, "How to be Evangelical Without Being Conservative" can help us to be all that God calls us to be.

This book would serve well as a discussion starter in an adult class at church.

Don't blame me I am not a conservative
We live in a time when it is not fashionable to have strong opinions or convictions concerning things that are labeled as conservative. This book is another of a current list of books being released and promoted, aimed directly at the not easily defined but all too easily subjected to name calling, conservative movement. When it comes to broad generalizations of conservatives, this book does not disappoint. The lead thought in every chapter is some disparaging characterization of conservative evangelicals. Things like "Conservative evangelicals have not come very far..." (p171) "Conservative evangelicals are notorious for lapsing a couple of decades or more behind everyone else when it comes to accepting behaviors as normal."(p.175) When I consider all that the faith community has lead the charge on through the centuries, I am convinced that Olson is more interested in slaying the caricature that is often advanced by a media empire that finds Christianity to be at odds with the world view it owns and promotes. As one looks at societal norms, maybe there is an argument to be made that embracing change is not always the wisest response.

Fundamentally, I just find myself not agreeing with Olson's positions. That is the long and short of it. His solutions seem to me to be warmed over government interventionism and intrusion. Have the government take money from everyone through taxation and then redistribute it as the government assesses the greater needs. I am sorry, but that strikes me as ill-advised. Giving the government more reach and more money is the action of a hopeless optimist. There are real problems facing us as a people and they do deserve a theological framework in which to discuss them. But offering tired solutions from the last sixty years that have failed time and time again strikes me as not being a bold step forward but rather maintaining the status-quo.

Olson betrays his own bias with a simple definitional proposal for free market, free enterprise system and capitalism, "... the desire to gain wealth by investing money in enterprises that will take money away from people..." (p.129-130) Maybe a better definition would be to take a risk to build an enterprise that will meet a need in society that will be able to satisfy a consumer's desire for that good or service. Olson seems to imply that taking money away from a person for a product at a profit is less noble. I suppose it is okay to take thousands of dollars a semester from students (actually parents) in exchange for an education that is fraught with personal opinions and not so subtle personal agendas.

If you have strong feelings that being conservative is basically a mask for meanness and a heart of stone then you will love this book. If you enjoy the broad stroke smearing of people who hold to a conservative position then you will want this book in your library. If on the other hand, you find yourself trying to adhere to a political and theological framework that is conservative you will find this book less than satisfying. Either way these books are written to bolster positions already held and rarely succeed in changing minds and attitudes. These types of books must be read, on the outside chance that there really is some fresh new insight, but unfortunately this one failed to deliver.