A Passionate Review

Due to unfortunate time constraints Ryan Thompson's review of Al Mohler's "Culture Shift" has been postponed until May 12. We hope you enjoy the following review on an obviously not Reformed (Roger Olson and Stanley Grenz!) but still highly useful book.

Who Needs Theology?
By Stanley J. Grenz and Roger Olson. Downers Grove: IVP, 1996, 150 pp. $16 (paper).

“The American church doesn’t need theology,” he said with no effort to hide the contempt in his voice, “When the Church realizes that theology is what damages its evangelism efforts and that theology is why churches are dying then it will be ready to move on.” “Today’s people don’t want to hear about doctrines like sin and hell or hear debates about old formulas. No, we just need to give people the person of Jesus.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing but I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me. Only a few months earlier the guy sitting across from me had been my best friend. We had played poker together, drank together, smoked together, went to church together, and lived “authentic” Christian walks. We believed that Jesus would approve. We believed we were making ourselves and the gospel more likable to non-Christians. “Away with formula! Christ unites, doctrine divides!” This was our battle cry. Of course I shouldn’t have been surprised by what he was saying. But I was.

A few weeks prior to this conversation, in the midst of a haze of alcohol and pornography I had picked up my Bible in act of desperation and was astounded by what I found: propositional, theological statements that were drastically affecting my life! This was the very thing that I was struggling so vehemently against. “Break up your fallow ground!” shouted Jeremiah to the hardened Jews. “If anyone who neglected God’s Law in the Old Testament died for even the slightest disobedience, how much worse will it be for you if you neglect Jesus?” preached the author of Hebrews. “I am the Way, the Truth, the Life! No one comes to the Father but by me!” stated Christ. Naturally, these statements demanded my reflection and they demanded that I do something in my life. They also brought up wild questions for anyone who could think beyond the words on the page like, “So then, no other religion gets to God? If I abandon Christ was I ever saved or did I simply not believe in the first place? What does it look like to neglect Jesus? What is God’s Law anyway and why were people punished for even small infractions? Why does the author of Hebrews compare Christ and the Law at all? What does it look like to break up my fallow ground? How on earth does that connect to everything else in the Bible?” Indeed, these questions lead to theology, to making a coherent systematic body of tangible and objective answers so that I know which way is up and what on earth I am here for. As I sat across from my friend I had a new perspective on the Christian life and a new view of the Bible. I had discovered that the Christian life is impossible without some theology. Believe it or not! And since then I have been fighting to show Christians that, love it or hate it, once they believe in Christ they are theologians. Indeed, they were theologians even before that and they likely came to Christ on the basis of theological statements! Thankfully, I am not alone in the fight to remind Christians that theology is necessary and inevitable.

Who needs theology? This was the question my friend was essentially asking. I wish I could have given him Stanley Grenz and Roger Olson’s book with just that title. I wish I could have just given him the obvious answer right then, “Everybody does! Not only does everybody need it, everybody already has it!” For anyone struggling with what theology means in their life, whether they struggle in anger and confusion, as my friend and I did, or whether they just plain want to be introduced to what all the fuss is about, Who Needs Theology? is a great jumping off point to begin their education.

I bought the book for a class and was immediately skeptical concerning the authors. Stanley Grenz, the author of many books on Postmodernism and an outspoken Egalitarian, seemed to me to be one who undermined good theology by his very embracing of so many Postmodern ideals and an Egalitarian hermeneutic. Roger Olson, unlike Grenz I think, has a more developed theology and certainly presents a more respectable case in many instances, though I still feel his theology is not that fantastic. “Why should I listen to someone who has such bad theology on the importance of theology?” I reasoned. I was therefore delighted when Grenz and Olson proceeded to explain themselves saying,

Authentic Christian faith always inclines one toward understanding the God who has claimed our lives. And to the extent that a Christian seeks to understand the meaning of faith for answering life’s ultimate questions or for simply answering basic questions about growing in relation to God, he or she is already a theologian. You, then, are a Christian theologian.

This is the mantra of the whole book: “Everyone is a theologian!” With this as their base they address many pertinent objections and complaints applying caution where caution is necessary (“Watch out for folk theology!”) and winsomely arguing their case for all Christians to engage in theology (“Be a reflective layperson!).

Overall, I was impressed with the coherence and irenic tone of the book. While this may be due to the fact that in Postmodernism (Grenz) everyone is tolerant of everything, I would be more likely to attribute this tone and attitude to the vast personal experience of two seasoned teachers of God’s word. I was given the impression throughout the book that these two men truly loved theology and that they had battled out their beliefs doctrine by doctrine through many years of teaching. Because of their excitement and charisma I was excitedly drawn to a deeper study of theology myself even though I am already a committed Bible and theology student myself. Indeed, the book was peppered with practical “down to earth” applications and many stories of students and curious Christians that I could easily relate to.

I was also struck by the consistent exhortation to be intellectual and reflective which should lead to growing in a warm love for Christ and a strong concern for the lost in the world. In fact I was much moved by the following words,

Good theology is never content to remain on the theoretical level; it always affects life.

This exhortation, smattered throughout the book, would do many of those in the current stream of historic Christian orthodoxy some good to hear. It amazes me how many times my friends and I have demoted the beautiful doctrines of grace, right as they are, to just a set of formulas and boxes to put God in. This is the temptation of all those who may call themselves theologically conservative and Grenz and Olson effectively battle against it.

I suppose that this would be a decent time to address some of my concerns about the book. Before I do that, I think it would be good to note that for anyone unacquainted with theology these objections certainly do not undermine the great value of Grenz and Olson’s basic thesis: everyone is a theologian and should be reflectively and joyfully engaging in theology. There are books whose contents erode the book and thesis itself and thus deservingly receive the “avoid” disclaimer on some people’s book lists. This is not one of those books. As a matter of fact, it was theological issues that received my skepticism and critique, something which should not drive the curious reader away from a book dealing with how to do theology!

My chief areas of critique land mainly upon Grenz and Olson for “slipping” their respective theologies into the book and making some unqualified statements that probably shouldn’t have been made in a book that is supposed to be presented as an objective treatment of theology for the layperson or curious Christian. Grenz’s underlying beliefs about Postmodernism come to the fore when he (and I suppose Olson since he is the co-author) define the integrative motif of Scripture as “community” and really don’t seem to leave much room for another motif. Or, perhaps, they leave too much room for another motif by simply calling their motif a “candidate” for an integrative motif. This seems dangerous to me and makes choosing a motif at all seem like an exercise in being overly cavalier.

A second qualm that I took up with the authors was that the major issue of the atonement is treated as merely, “an expression of the gospel, that speaks within a specific cultural situation.” This, as I was happy to jot down in my margin, is just plain wrong and I must say that I lose some respect for a theologian like Roger Olson (I am not surprised that Grenz was so bold) to insert this opinion, dare say sneakily, at a key moment in the book about an issue that is a terribly important issue and demote it to the level of mere “cultural expression”. I would also vehemently disagree that, “No one theory [of the atonement] ranks as the orthodox interpretation.” When one looks at the history of the last 500 years of Protestant evangelical orthodoxy one will find that yes, in fact, the overwhelming majority of Christians have held to the theory of the penal substitutionary atonement. Likewise, when one looks into the history of Roman Catholic and early church orthodoxy there were two main streams of thought, that is, the governmental and moral influence theories of the atonement, which were most certainly considered the orthodox interpretations of the first 1100 years of Christianity. To make the unqualified statements which Grenz and Olson make concerning this issue in such an “oh, by the way” fashion does not seem like a wise idea to me in a book geared for a simple readership.

Besides the occasional “slip-in” of either Grenz or Olson’s theologies, Who Needs Theology? is a wonderful and encouraging little book in the battle to tell a Christian world raised on TV and 5 second clips of entertainment that they really do need to be thinking more than an inch in front of their faces and ought not be so light and fluffy in their pursuit of God. I now disagree with my friend more than ever that what the American church needs (and what they cannot avoid even if they wanted to) is. . .theology! I believe that the authors have effectively communicated their point and that this book should be a book that everyone from the fresh convert to the seasoned reader ought to have on their shelf.
Happy reading!