Arminian Theology

Myths and Realities

by

Roger E. Olson

©2006 by Roger E. Olson. Database © 2013 WORD search.

Preface

I have always been an Arminian. I was raised in a Pentecostal preacher’s home, and my family was most definitely and proudly Arminian. I don’t remember when I first heard the term. But it first sunk into my consciousness when a well-known charismatic leader of Armenian background rose to prominence. My parents and some of my aunts and uncles (missionaries, pastors and denominational leaders) distinguished between Armenian and Arminian. I probably heard it even before that, however, as some of my relatives were faithful members of Christian Reformed Churches, and behind their backs my parents and other relations discussed their Calvinism and contrasted it with our Arminianism. I recall sitting in a college theology class and the professor reminded us that we are Arminians, to which one student muttered loudly, “Who would want to be from Armenia?” In one class we read Arminian theologian Robert Shank’s books Life in the Son and Elect in the Son (both from Bethany House, 1989). I had trouble understanding them, partly, I think, because of the author’s Church of Christ theology. So I got my hands on a couple other books on Arminian theology in an attempt to figure out “our” theology. One was Nazarene theologian Mildred Bangs-Wynkoop’s Foundations of Wesleyan-Arminian Theology (Beacon Hill Press, 2000). Another was Nazarene theologian H. Orton Wiley’s onevolume summary of Christian doctrine titled Introduction to Christian Doctrine (Beacon Hill Press, 1946). Eventually I felt I had a fairly good grasp on the subject and laid it aside. After all, everyone around me was Arminian (whether they knew it or not), and there was no particular need to defend that point of view.

Things changed when I enrolled in an evangelical Baptist seminary and began to hear Arminian used in a pejorative sense. In my studies there my own theology was equated with the heresy of semi-Pelagianism. Now I had to find out what that was! One of my professors was eminent evangelical Calvinist James Montgomery Boice, who was then pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. We sparred a little over Calvinism and Arminianism, but I perceived he had already made up his mind that my church’s theology was heretical. Boice stimulated me to study the matter further and also to subscribe to Eternity magazine, which was the leading evangelical alternative to Christianity Today in the 1970s. I was an avid reader of both publications. There, in both of these evangelical magazines, I found a fascinating irony. Their unofficial editorial policies were clearly guided by Reformed theology; most of the theologians who wrote for them were Calvinists. Both also, however, included Arminian voices from time to time and tried to be irenic about the theological differences among evangelicals. I felt affirmed—and somewhat marginalized.

Only after Clark Pinnock, one of my theological ...