Interestingly, just before reading the article about Hawking on line I was reviewing some excerpts from Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript.  The Danish philosopher denies that Christian belief in God should depend on objective evidences such as cosmological arguments.  In fact, he argues, making faith in God depend on objective evidences and arguments undermines faith.

Personally, I don’t think Hawking or anyone can prove that God is not the creator of the universe.  If Hawking is right (according to at least some news reports) the existence of the universe is the ultimate free lunch.  It came from nothing without a divine creator or intelligent designer.  Although I am no physicist, that seems counter-intuitive to me.

On the other hand, we ought to avoid the old God-of-the-gaps approach to belief in God.  Surely authentic faith in God is something more than belief in an objective Supreme Being who is necessary to explain physical reality.

I don’t advocate extreme fideism, but neither do I think Christians should panic everytime a scientist or historian or other scholar “declares” something.  I think in this case Hawking, like so many before him (e.g., Carl Sagan) is over stepping his boundaries as a scientist and speaking as a philosopher.  I seriously doubt the non-existence of God can be proven (or the non-dependence of the universe on some supreme power greater than it).

In the meantime, as the scientists and philosophers debate the existence of a Supreme Being, I have the feeling they are not talking about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  If some Christian (or non-Christian, for that matter) scientist or philosopher could refute Hawking, would I be happy?  Yes, but not because Christian faith in God depends on that.  The only reason I would be happy about it is that it might help remove a false obstacle to faith put in the way of some seeker after God.

But that seeker won’t find the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at the end of a scientific or philosophical argument.

All that is required for belief in total depravity is belief that all persons (except Jesus Christ) since Adam are born with a corruption of nature such that willful sinning and consequent guilt are inevitable and that every aspect of a human person’s nature is corrupted by sin.  Most free church evangelicals and Baptists have always held this view of original sin and total depravity–whether they are Calvinists or Arminians.

If a person is going to declare everyone who does not believe in inherited guilt “not orthodox,” that would include a whole lot of Calvinists including many (I would say most) Reformed Baptists, Calvinist Evangelical Free members, etc.

These chapters are versions of papers presented at the John 3:16 Conference held in Georgia in 2008.  Some of the chapters are: “Congruent Election: Understanding Salvation from an ‘Eternal Now’ Perspective” by Richard Land, “The Atonement: Limited or Universal” by David L. Allen, “A Biblical and Theological Critique of Irresistible Grace” by Steve W. Lemke, “Was Calvin a ‘Calvinist’?” by Kevin Kennedy, “Reflections on Determinism and Human Freedom” by Jeremy A. Evans, and “Evil and God’s Sovereignty” by Bruce A. Little.  The book is published by B&H Academic.

The is the best book against Calvinism that I know of in print right now.  It suffers the weakness of being a multi-author, edited work, but individual chapters are excellent in that they are based on sound knowledge and present biblical and rational arguments against key Calvinist doctrines that should be convincing, I believe, to any open-minded person.

The only quarrel I have with the book is the editors’ and authors’ avoidance of the label “Arminian.”  For the most part, their theologies are completely consistent with classical Arminianism.  Yet, a couple of them criticize Arminianism and, in one case, I believe it is unfair criticism. 

So what’s going on with that?  In the South, especially, many Baptists are allergic to the label because it has come to be equated with denial of the doctrine of the security of the believer.  As I argued in Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities, however, that is a doctrine about which Arminans can and do disagree.  Arminius himself and the original Remonstrance never took a stand on this subject.  I believe what one believes about it is not crucial to being Arminian (or not).

Until my own book is published sometime next year, I think this one stands as the best anti-Calvinism book in print.  However, I would hesitate to recommend it to a student (e.g., undergraduate) because it is technical at points. 

The title I have suggested to the publisher for my own book is: Against Calvinism: Rescuing God’s Reputation from Radical Reformed Theology.  Of course, publishers assign titles to books.  Authors can only recommend.  The publisher will be a major Grand Rapids-based evangelical publishing house.  A book possibly entitled Against Arminianism is to be released simultaneously with my book.  It will be written by a leading scholarly exponent of high Calvinism.  I just hope he gets Arminianism right!  I don’t mind people disagreeing with my theology, but I rarely read or hear a Calvinist describing it correctly.

I don’t know about my book’s counterpart, but mine is popularly written, although based on my reading of numerous books by leading Calvinist scholars.  I quote them throughout the book.

So some may wonder, why is Roger Olson, who says he values irenic discourse, writing a book against something–especially against a theology held by fellow evangelicals.  I hope my book is irenic even as it is polemical.  But it would never have occurred to me to write such a book before the rise of the “young, restless, Reformed” movement fueled by the sometimes furiously anti-Arminian rhetoric of some leading Calvinists who declared Arminianism “barely Christian,” “on the precipice of heresy,” “semi-Pelagian,” and not possibly evangelical.  One can find Calvinists on the internet declaring Arminians not even Christians.

Well, that’s why I wrote Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities.  This forthcoming book was written as a follow up to that to counter claims by many Calvinists that it is more intellectually respectable, more biblical, more evangelical, more rational than alternatives.  Some among the new Calvinists are claiming that five point Calvinism is simply “a transcript of the gospel itself.”

There was a time (in my own lifetime) when Calvinists and Arminians co-existed peacefully in the evangelical movement.  While they may have engaged in friendly debates, there was no widespread attempt to marginalize either group.  That has definitely changed and, in my experience, anyway, it has been mostly Calvinists who have attempted to persuade evangelical leaders that Arminianism is not authentically evangelical.  I once worked under an administrator who was Arminian but began calling himself a “recovering Arminian” under the influence of leading Calvinists.  Imagine how I felt about that as I worked under him.

I believe the time has come for a peaceful but powerful push back by Arminian evangelicals against the current wave of anti-Arminian sentiment among especially young, restless, Reformed Christians.

First, all classical Arminians AGREE that evil is not a “thing” or a substance; it is strictly no-thing: the absence of the good.  That is not a notion of evil unique to Calvinism.  And Augustine did not come up with it, either.  It is clearly articulated by Gregory of Nyssa before Augustine.

What evil is, exactly, is not pertinent to the Calvinist-Arminian debate.  We can agree that it is the absence of the good.  The issue is WHY evil exists.  (I realize “exists” not not the best word for “absence,” but any better way of stating the question eludes me right now.  By “exists” I simply mean “is.”)  Even though evil, like darkness, exists in the mode of absence and not substance it is still real.  (Try going on a cave tour and having the guide turn out the lights and sit in the dark for a while.  The absence of light is very real!)

The question, then, is not WHAT evil IS but WHY evil is.  From the Arminian perspective, the Calvinist (or any believer in what we regard as determinism whether they use that language for their view or not) MUST say (althought they do not always say) that the ultimate cause of evil is God.  That is not because we Arminians think Calvinists believe God forced Lucifer or Adam or anyone to sin but because we think the Calvinist system necessarily implies that God positively planned and rendered it certain. 

Contrary to the accounts of Calvinism offered here by some, Calvin himself strongly denied that God merely permitted the fall of Adam and Eve.  His language against that is quite strong; he scoffs at the idea that God would ever merely permit something.  We Arminians are confused and even bemused by contemporary Calvinists’ use of “permission” when referring to God’s relationship to sin and evil.

One reason is classical and contemporary Calvinists’ strong doctrine of providence.  (See Paul Helm, Providence and R. C. Sproul’s books as examples.)  According to this doctrine, God foreordains and renders certain and controls everything in creation including the very thoughts and intentions of every creature without exception.

After articulating this very strong idea of God’s sovereignty, some Calvinists turn around and say that God did not cause the fall of humanity but that it was freely chosen by Adam and Eve and that God permitted it.  When I look deeper into the meaning of “permitted it” in the leading Calvinists’ books, however, what they seem to mean is “efficacious permission.”  That is, God planned for the fall to happen, it was willed by God and God rendered it certain by withdrawing the grace Adam and Eve needed not to sin.  This is clearly and unequivocally stated by Edwards and other Calvinists.

So when I hear Calvinists talking about God’s permission of sin and evil, in light of their doctrine of God’s providence and their rejection of libertarian free will (as ability to do otherwise), I hear their language of “permission” as meaning something quite different than “the man in the street” or I mean by it.  I wish they would abandon it (following Calvin) and come up with some clearer language for what they mean.

Sure, no Calvinist I know believes God forced Adam and Eve to sin against their wills.  God exercised no compulsion on them.  But that’s not sufficient to say God is not the author of sin and evil.  EVEN if God only planned and rendered certain the fall by withdrawing the grace they needed not to fall, God is the author of sin and evil.  Sin and evil, in the Calvinist view, in contrast to the Arminian view, are positively the will of God to glorify himself (by overcoming them). 

What I still want to know that, no Calvinist here or anywhere, in my experience, has sufficiently answered, is why anything is considered truly evil in the Calvinist account of God and creation.  If everything is planned and rendered certain by God for his glory, including sin and evil (even as only absences and not substances) why not praise God for sin and evil?  They are, after all, his will and necessary for his full glorification. 

So, to sum up, we agree that evil is not a “something” but rather a “nothing” (in the sense of an absence, not a substance).  What we disagree about (among other things) is whether God positively willed evil to glorify himself and whether God’s causal agency with regard to sin and evil is determinative or not.  I think ONLY the Arminian (or person who holds a similar view of God’s sovereignty) can consistently say that God is not in any sense the author of sin and evil and use the language of permission for God’s relationship to them.  I wince when a Calvinist uses that language because it seems to me misleading at best and disingenuous at worst.

All Calvinists that I know affirm some kind of divine self-limitation, although they are much less likely to promote it as a crucial theological idea than, say, open theists.  I argue that it functions as a “control datum” for classical Arminians, as well.  (Reformed scholar Richard Mueller has found this through his own archeology of Arminius’ theological influences and ideas.) 

The reason God is not the author of sin and evil is that he limits his power in relation to creation.  By his own choice he is not, in the inimitable words of Baptist theologian E. Frank Tupper, a “do anything, anytime, anywhere kind of God.”  He COULD be because he is omnipotent, but he chooses not to be that kind of God.

Why?  For the sake of having real, rather than imaginary, relations with human persons.  (Perhaps also for the sake of having such relations with other kinds of persons, but we know little of that.)  We all believe that, in some way or other, God limited himself in the incarnation.  (Whether you are a kenoticist or not you have to believe in some kind of divine self-limitation in the incarnation.  Kenoticists just take it farther than, say, two minds or two consciousnesses Christologists.)  For example, he could not do miracles in certain times and places due to people’s lack of faith.

The idea of the “openness of God” to new experiences and to grief, etc., was proposed and promoted by Barthian theologian Thomas Torrance in Space, Time and Incarnation.  It was actually he, rather than Pinnock or any other open theist, who coined the phrase “openness of God.”  (See pp. 74-75 for the entire statement about God’s entering into time with us.)  Other non-open theist theologians who espouse a view of God limiting himself in relation to creation are Dallas Willard (see The Divine Conspiracy, pp. 245ff) and the previously mentioned E. Frank Tupper (see A Scandalous Providence: The Jesus Story of the Compassion of God, passim.) 

Why do these and many other theologians posit God’s self-limitation in relation to creation?  To make coherent belief in genuine personal relationships between God and persons and to avoid divine determinism which inevitably makes God the author of sin and evil. 

We don’t have to know all the “ins” and “outs” of God’s self-limitations to believe that he does limit himself and that his self-limitation is the reason for evil in the world.  That is, it is the indirect reason but not, of course, the effectual cause.  God allows evil without foreordaining it or rendering it certain.  Why does he intervene to prevent or stop it sometimes and not other times?  Well, we have no way of knowing that anymore than we can know why Jesus could sometimes do miracles and other times could not.  The reasons are hidden in God; he has not seen fit to tell us what they are.  We know faith sometimes plays a role.  Sometimes obedience does.  But we can’t know all the reasons.

I, for one, would rather believe God limits his power than believe that God’s power is the ulterior reason for whatever is happening.

For a powerful refutation of meticulous providence see theologian David Bentley Hart’s little book The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? (Eerdmans, 2005)  It’s a powerful critique of any theology that attributes all calamaties to God’s providence.  Hart doesn’t quote this adage (paraphrased), but his book is consistent with it: “Nobody should articulate a theology that cannot be spoken standing in front of burning children.”  Hart warns against any theology (such as he sees in consistent Calvinism) that makes God (however inadvertently) “morally loathsome.”  “[i]f indeed there were a God whose true nature–whose justice and sovereignty–were revealed in the death of a child or the dereliction of a soul or a predestined hell, then it would be no great transgression to think of him as a kind of malevolent or contemptible demiurge, and to hate him, and to deny him worship, and to seek a better God than he.”

The only way to avoid that (logically, in my opinion) is to affirm God’s voluntary self-limitations in relation to creation. 

Fortunately, most divine determinists (including most Calvinists and many Lutherans) DO NOT go so far as to attribute sin and evil to God.  In fact, most strongly deny that God is the author of sin and evil.  The point is, however, that logical consistency would seem to require that within their systems.  And we all know someone who has taken it that far. 

Calvinists often say that Armianians “can be” Christians by virtue of a “felicitous inconsistency.”  Well, I will say the same about Calvinists at this point.  Their theology requires, as a “good and necessary consequence,” that God be the author of sin and evil.  That they deny he is the author of sin and evil is a felicitous inconsistency.  I applaud them for not following the logic of their doctrines of providence and predestination to their natural conclusions.  However, I worry that many of the “young, restless, Reformed” people will carry it that far.  I have seen it done.

However, I have the same problem with open theism as with Calvinism when it comes to theology’s normed norm–tradition.  The key Calvinist doctrines of unconditional election. limited atonement and irresistible grace were not even thought of until at least Augustine in the fifth century.  (And, I still believe, no Christian suggested limited atonement until the ninth century.)

If open theism were true, it seems to me early church fathers such as Irenaeus, who learned the faith under Polycarp who learned it under John the Apostle, would have known of it and taught it.  I realize this is not a knock-down, drag-out proof against open theism.  However, I’m cautious about embracing doctrinal ideas (or even theologoumena which is what open theism really is) that are so new in terms of church history.

I’m also stuck on Jesus’ prediction/prophecy to Peter that he would deny him three times before the rooster crows.  Open theist explanations just don’t convince me yet. 

I don’t see any great need to make up my mind about this in some kind of hard and fast way.  In fact, I kind of like thinking about it.  As I said before, it really doesn’t make any difference to worship or piety.

My first encounters with evangelical opinions about postmodernism were when I was editor of Christian Scholar’s Review.  I received and handled many manuscripts by evangelical scholars attempting to explicate and evaluate something they called postmodernism.  I noticed then, as I see now, that even the best evangelical scholars involved in the conversation disagree with each other about the very nature of postmodernism.

Fairly recently three relatively light, easy-to-read books about postmodernism have been published by respected evangelical scholars: Douglas Groothuis’s Truth Decay, James K. A. Smith’s Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? and Carl Raschke’s The Next Reformation: Why Evangelicals Must Embrace Postmodernity.  All are good books, but their “takes” on the value of postmodernism for Christianity are poles apart.  And, to a very large extent, they deal with different postmodern thinkers.

Groothuis, a philosopher of religion at Denver Seminary, rejects postmodernism and regards it as inimical to evangelical faith.  For him, it leads stright into relativism.  But the postmodern thinkers he seems most conversant with are Rorty and Foucault.  Smith, who teaches at Calvin College, seems to want to use a very moderate kind of postmodernism (decidedly not Rorty or Foucault) to open a new cultural and philosophical door to Christian dogmatic orthodoxy.  Smith represents a version of what is often called Radical Orthodoxy and he sees that as postmodern or compatible with the best of postmodern thought.  Raschke, who has taught for many years at The University of Denver and has recently rediscovered his evangelical faith, calls for evangelicals to run into the arms of postmodernism as a refuge from the spiritually stultifying effects of modern thought.  But the postmodern thinkers he uses to build his case are not Rorty or Foucault (who hardly appear in his account of postmodernity) but Levinas and (the later) Derrida.  Raschke seems to view postmodernity of this kind as a resource for evangelical recovery of its original pietist and revivalist impulses.

So my question is: Are evangelicals who enter into this discussion even talking about the same thing?  I’m inclined to think not.  What does Rorty have to do with Levinas?  The only thing they seem to have in common is desire to rise above and move beyond the rationalism of Enlightenment-influenced modernity (e.g., epistemological foundationalism).

I would like to suggest that evangelical scholars interested in building some kind of consensus about postmodernism hold a summit and come to some kind of agreement about what that means.  In the meantime, evangelical readers of Groothuis only are going to think Smith and Raschke and others who have positive things to say about postmodernism are traitors to the evangelical cause when, in fact, they may not be talking about the same thing Groothuis is talking about at all.

Again, I found myself indirectly embroiled in a controversy among evangelicals that was unfortunate and largely unnecessary due to widespread misunderstanding.  My late friend and co-author Stanley J. Grenz wrote and spoke positively about postmodernism.  Some of his critics obviously did not read him carefully because they rushed to criticize him for promoting relativism.  They assumed, with no real warrant, that he was promoting the pragmatism of Rorty or social constructionism of Foucault.  If they had bothered to read the ending of his book A Primer on Postmodernism they would have discovered that he was very critical of those approaches.  But once his critics made the label “apologist for postmodernism” stick to him, many evangelicals jumped on the anti-Grenz bandwagon without discovering for themselves what he did and did not mean by the positive aspects of postmodernism.

A similar controversy swirled around the book Truth Is Stranger than It Used to Be by Walsh and Middleton.  I read the book when it first came out and recognized it as a critical reception of some aspects of postmodernity.  One of my conservative evangelical colleagues at that time complained to me that Walsh and Middleton denied the Christian metanarrative.  I felt sorry for him, because he obviously either didn’t read the entire book or just didn’t understand it.  He was making a fool of himself.  What the authors were arguing was that the Christian, biblical metanarrative is the only non-totalizing metanarrative and therefore not subject to Lyotard’s axiom of incredulity toward all metanarratives.

One evangelical university administrator declared dogmatically in my presence that non-foundationalist epistemology is “anti-Christian.”  But as I listened to this biblical scholar I realized he did not understand the philosophical or theological issues.  He was simply repeating a mantra that has caught on among evangelicals.

Like so many terms, “postmodern” is an essentially contested concept.  When someone asks me whether I am postmodern I can’t answer unless they have time to talk about what it means.  Unfortunately, most evangelicals I have talked to have made up their minds about postmodernism (viz., that it is cognitive nihilism) and are not open to learning from postmodern thinkers themselves what it is.  Of course, many leading postmodern thinkers haven’t made that easy for anyone! 

Recently, I have discovered the writings of a postmodern philospher of religion named John Caputo.  I heard of him and read articles about his thought years ago when I edited CSR.  However, only recently, under the tutelage of a brilliant seminary student, have I actually begun to study Caputo.  His account of postmodern thought, building largely on the later Derrida, may not be exactly evangelical, but I think it can be very helpful to evangelicals insofar as we are interested in avoiding and even opposing idolatry.

(Sidebar: From experience I know what is going to happen with those previous and the following paragraphs.  Some conservative evangelical neo-fundamentalist is going to take what I say out of context and blow it all out of proportion, dropping the qualifiers, and “out me” as a full blown apologist for postmodern relativism and cognitive nihilism.  This sort of thing happens frequently.  Why?  Because in certain neo-fundamentalist circles people get rewarded for exposing heresy where it doesn’t exist.  My advice to especially young evangelicals is this: Run!  Get away from those people as fast as you can and stay way!)

For those interested in reading something more positive about postmodernity and its possible benefits for contemporary Christian faith I recommend Caputo’s What would Jesus Deconstruct?  A little deeper into the philosophy of Derridaean postmodernism is Caputo’s edited work Deconstruction in a Nutshell which contains an interview with Derrida about religion.

I am coming to the conclusion that being anti-postmodern is simply another evangelical shibboleth.  Too many evangelicals (and my main concern here is with evangelical administrators) won’t take the time to investigate postmodernism from its own proponents but learn about it only from certain conservative evangelical authors who seem to talk about it only drawing on the likes of Rorty and Foucault who hardly exhaust the meaning of postmodernism.

I suggest that evangelicals stop using the term “postmodern” without qualification.  There doesn’t really seem to be one postmodernism.  Let’s go back to the beginning and learn about postmodernism from primary sources and stop relying on half baked critiques by fellow evangelicals.  Or, at least, let’s read the spectrum of evangelical treatments of postmodernism and not be swayed by one or two voices.

To my Calvinist interlocutors I ask: If free will as uncaused choice is logically incoherent, what about God’s decision to create the world?  I asked this earlier, but I haven’t seen any response.  What caused God to decide to create the world?  Don’t say “his wisdom,” because that doesn’t articulate a cause.  (If I said that a sinner’s grace-enabled decision to accept the gospel was caused by his wisdom I’m sure you would reject that as an  unsatisfactory causal account.) 

Some time ago John Frame and I had an e-mail discussion about this.  As I recall (I kept the e-mails for a long time but eventually lost them) he finally admitted that it is not correct to say that undetermined free will decision and choice (incompatibilist free will exercised) is strictly logically incoherent IF one affirms (as he does) that God makes such decisions and choices.  IF one denies it, then, of course, the world’s existence is necessary and in that case it is not of grace (i.e., pure gift) and becomes an extension of God’s own existence which borders on panentheism (a charge rightly leveled, I judge, against Jonathan Edwards’ view of God and the world).

The Calvinist (or other theist) who wishes to argue that even situated, limited free will (moderate or soft libertarian free will) is logically incoherent because it amounts to belief in an uncaused effect (as John Feinberg quoted here seems say) MUST then say that even God cannot have that kind of free will.  The result is what I articulated above.  But I have found very few Calvinists who will admit the consequences of their argument against free will for God himself. 

What I have trouble understanding is why open theism is so bad compared with affirmation that God does not have free will?  Why are evangelicals so exercised over open theism but not over the implicit denial of God’s free will which makes the world necessary and thus not a realm of God’s grace?  That would have been considered a heresy by the early church fathers.

The tenor of the controversy is one thing; the truth status of open theism is another thing.  I was writing then primarily about the controversy.  I believe that, for the most part, it was left unfinished.  The anti-open theists, mostly Calvinists, won the day insofar as they persuaded (often, I am convinced, through misrepresentation) evangelical leaders such as administrators of institutions of higher learning to shun open theists.

One reason I am convinced the discussion about open theism should continue (in a different way) is that I know many “closet open theists” and open theists who “changed their minds” in order to secure or keep their positions in evangelical organizations.  This is unfortunate; a position so widely held by biblically committed evangelical men and women should be open to lengthy, detailed, careful examination through dialogue and debate and not anathematized without that. 

One example of what I’m referring to is the Southern Baptist Convention’s 2000 revision of the Baptist Faith and Message.  It explicitly excluded open theism, in my opinion, without a full and fair hearing of that view from open theists themselves.

One example of the lack of charitable and fair dialogue appears in a message posted here.  Many of open theism’s critics claim that it denies God’s omnipotence.  This is simply another example of the neo-fundamentalist tendency to accuse others of actually holding beliefs they do not hold because the accuser thinks those beliefs are logically entailed by other beliefs.  For example: “Open theism denies God’s omnipotence because if God does not have exhaustive foreknowledge….”  The plain fact is that open theism DOES NOT deny God’s omnipotence and to say otherwise is to come close to vicious calumny and even outright dishonesty.  It is equivalent to the claim made by some notable Calvinists that Arminianism denies the sovereignty of God.  That’s simply a bold-faced lie UNLESS the person making the claim explains that he or she means Arminianism denies the Calvinist view of the sovereignty of God.  Calvinists would feel the same way (and do) if Arminians or other non-Calvinists say that Calvinism denies the love of God without going on to explain that Calvinists claim to believe in the love of God but it is a different account of God’s love than the Arminian believes is biblical and reasonable.

Open theism is not heresy because it does affirm God’s omnipotence and even God’s omniscience.  Anyone who says otherwise needs to go back and read books by open theists such as The Openness of God (by Pinnock, Hasker, Rice, Sanders and Basinger) and The God Who Risks (by Sanders) and The God of the Possible (by Boyd). 

What is at issue is NOT God’s nature or abilities but the nature of the future.  Is it closed or is it open? 

So why do I say open theism doesn’t matter?  Because it firmly insists that God is omnipotent and omniresourceful and knows all possibilities and is fully able to respond to whatever free agents do to bring about his intended ends and purposes.  Open theism changes nothing about prayer, worship, adoration of God (who is fully glorious and whose limitations, if any, are voluntary) and even proclamation of the gospel (all open theists affirm salvation by grace through faith alone).

What galls me and makes me angry is that so many evangelicals do not seem to care that they do not fully understand open theism and go about condemning it or excluding people who hold it on the grounds that it is “controversial.”  All that means is that IF a small group of people have the ability to make something controversial they win over others.  And I personally think that’s a lot of what the controversy over open theism has been about–winning in the (unfortunate) battle for the minds of evangelical power brokers. 

Years ago one of my favorite evangelical authors, Joe Bayly, published a column in Eternity magazine entitled “Why the absolute absolutists always win.”  He pointed out way back in the 1970s that in too many controversies among evangelicals (the case he had in mind was over women’s roles in church, home and society) loud mouthed extremists tend to win by creating fear of controversy.  They move among the untutored lay people (and unfortunately too many untutored pastors!) and create fear that some view with which they disagree MIGHT be heretical and, as we all know from youth group talk illustrations, it is ALWAYS best to err on the side of safety.  Nobody ever accused Joe Bayly of being a liberal!  He was a noted conservative evangelical speaker and author.  (For those of you old like me you may remember the book and movie “The Gospel Blimb” which he wrote.) What he was, however, was a provoker (to borrow a term from one poster here).  He had a unique ability to make people think about things they take for granted.

The controversy over open theism has convinced me that American evangelicalism has not yet come of age sufficiently to be able to handle a controversy such as that over open theism in a mature, fair, even-handed manner.  Rather, in my opinion, it was largely conducted in a mean-spirit manner too often intended to keep fellow evangelicals from getting a fair hearing.

I could cite many specific examples, but one comes especially clearly to mind.  My colleague who was under seige asked a well-known conservative evangelical theologian who was speaking against open theism in constituent churches to meet with him to clear up some misconceptions about open theism.  These two gentlemen (I use the word loosely of one of them!) lived and worked in close proximity.  The conservative evangelical theologian refused.  My respect for him has never recovered.  The conservative evangelical theologian continued to go around to constituent churches strongly implying that open theism is a version of process theology or at least of the old “Boston personalism” school of liberal Protestant theology that taught that God is essentially finite (Edgar Sheffield Brightman, Borden Parker Bowne and others whose writings were popular and influential in the early part of the 20th century before process theology largely replaced it).

In fact, if I ever become an open theist, nothing will change in the way I pray or worship or witness or try to glorify God in all that I do.  Simply put, open theism doesn’t matter to being evangelical.  If anything, it might, as open theists themselves argue, serve to revitalize many people’s interest in and commitment to spiritual warfare (as Greg Boyd has tirelessly argued).