The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform

Roger E. Olson

Aug 2009 · InterVarsity Press

About this ebook

Christianity Today Book of the Year Award
ECPA Gold Medallion Award

History is made up of stories--narratives that recount the events, movements, ideas and lives that have shaped religions and nations. Theologian Roger Olson believes that the history of Christian theology should be told as such a story, one replete with thick plots, exciting twists, interesting people and fascinating ideas.

In this panoramic work of historical theology Olson vividly recounts the deeds and words of the cultists and apostolic fathers of the second century, the clash between the theological schools of Alexandria and Antioch, the epochal division between East and West, the revolutionary advent of the Reformation and much more, right on up to the dazzling, sometimes dismaying fallout that has continued to shake Christians through the twentieth century. Through it all Olson detects and traces a common thread: a concern for salvation--God's redemptive activity in forgiving and transforming sinful human beings.

Evenhanded, refreshingly readable, impressive in its breadth and depth, The Story of Christian Theology is poised to become a standard historical theology text.

Ratings and reviews

It's ok as long as you start with the premise that nobody in Christianity had any idea what they were doing until 1500 years later in the Reformation. It takes a lot of balls to say that you understand the translated, cross-cultural and ancient writings of the apostles better than those who knew them personally and were discipled by the authors. I didn't read much further after that since it was pretty obvious he wasn't trying to understand the early church, just dismissing and judging them by modern Protestant standards.

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. He is the author of The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition Reform, The Mosaic of Christian Belief: Twenty Centuries of Unity Diversityand The Westminster Handbook to Evangelical Theology. He is also coauthor of 20th-Century Theology: God the World in a Transitional Age and Who Needs Theology? An Invitation to the Study of God (both with Stanley J. Grenz), and of The Trinity (with Christopher A. Hall).