April 6 1998

ARTICLE TOOLS

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A Finite Elasticity
* Roger Olson's article "The Future of Evangelical Theology" [Feb. 9] provided a helpful summary of the multifaceted divisions among evangelicals, although I think Tom Oden's challenge of Olson's traditionalist/reformist paradigm was a needed corrective. Olson was almost successful in writing in a nonpejorative fashion, but his sympathies appeared in general to line up with the reformists' emphases.

Oden's use several times of the term heresy reminds us that biblical error should be taken seriously, lest we be guilty of "dances with wolves." There are, indeed, occasions in which the right thing to do is to call someone to recant.

Someone needs to ask the question: at what point does one cease to be an evangelical? The term itself, like other words, has only a finite elasticity.

Prof. Larry Dixon
Columbia International University
Columbia, S.C.

* I commend Roger Olson for his sincere desire for unity and peace in the evangelical movement, but despair at his statement that "the various positions in these evangelical debates do not themselves call into question our core commitments."

The core commitments of evangelicals have always included belief in God's omniscience, including his comprehensive knowledge of future events; we have always believed that, though it may be correct to say that God in some way responds to events in history, he is in not "in process" so as to be changed by them; we have always affirmed that the revelation of creation is not sufficient for the salvation of the lost and that they must hear the gospel of Christ in order to be saved. These and other core commitments are denied by some or all of those whom Olson terms reformist evangelicals.

I hope all evangelicals will realize that the ...