Don't Call Me Postconservative - Christianity Today

Growing numbers of evangelical theologians now describe themselves as postconservative. Roger Olson of Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary defends what he calls the distinctively postconservative approach to theology in his book Reformed and Always Reforming (Baker Academic). He champions a range of evangelical theologians who offer tremendous gifts to evangelicalism. Their voices should be heard by more evangelicals, and Olson’s grand tour and useful introductions will help that happen.

Nevertheless, my appreciation comes with a major concern. By Olson’s definition, I am postconservative. But I think the term is more trouble than it’s worth: rashly triumphalist, historically confused, philosophically incoherent, and needlessly divisive.

Postconservatives “try to move beyond the limitations of conservative theology,” Olson writes, “without rejecting everything about it.” They still center theology on the Bible, conversion, the Cross, and transformation. But whereas conservatives show “slavish adherence” to an “incorrigible” tradition, postconservative evangelicals say they defer to tradition and orthodox doctrine critically and constructively.

Olson roots postconservatism in Pietist circles rather than the Old Princeton School of Reformed theology that dominates conservatism. Conservatives “under the spell of the Enlightenment” understand theology mainly as information, while postconservatives, he says, are grateful for postmodernity and regard theology as “a pilgrimage and a journey rather than a discovery and conquest” aimed primarily at transformation.

Alongside all that conservative limitation, slavery, incorrigibility, bewitchment, and conquest, Olson attempts to display the fruit of postconservative doctrines of God, rich theological uses of Scripture, and a style that “demands humility, generosity, and openness of spirit.”

Sounds great, right? Not to everyone—even to those who might be natural allies. Olson wonders why some postconservatives resist the label. Here are a few reasons I do:

First, if Olson is right to root postconservative theology in his own Arminian Pietism, then this is not a line of succession but a battle for succession—the latest counterattack in the long struggle between Calvinists and Arminians over the evangelical mantle. That makes Olson’s label presumptuous. Scholars have repeatedly shown that evangelicalism is bigger than these rivals.

Second, postconservatism is not a radical enough name for “evangelical theology after modernity.” A better one would be postliberalism. Why? Because postliberals abandon the Enlightenment project that sparked the whole fundamentalist-modernist controversy, and thus both contemporary liberal theology and contemporary evangelical theology.

Third, and paradoxically, postconservatism is also too radical a term. To treat conservatism as reactionary, as Olson does, fails to respect conservatism’s inherent flexibility. Conservatism has evolved as it has critically absorbed traditions from before, during, and after the Enlightenment. This absorption naturally creates evangelical change and diversity. So classical Protestant loyalists jostle with modern revivalists, fundamentalists, and Pentecostals, as well as “emergent” postmoderns. Conservatives will always have plenty to fight about! Yet these different conservators should be natural allies, mentors, and pupils—and yes, fellow conservatives.

Evangelicals and mainliners are far-flung cousins. Like children of estranged ancestors, we are emerging from the modern culture that set us at odds. We face our new context, and each other, in new ways. We also face recalcitrant siblings who resist the change and refuse to reconcile. Among these are many of Olson’s fellow Pietists. Their missions, catechesis, worship, cultural engagement, and theology are all finely adapted to modernity.

If postconservative theology isn’t postconservative, what is it? Olson is right about its Arminian and postmodern qualities. Yet more is going on. Olson senses this when he justifies the label “post-” as retaining a thing’s best features while leaving behind its problems. Olson, meanwhile, portrays conservatism as tending to defend a status quo. His comment suggests both the heart of the postconservative approach and the reason it is misnamed.

Theologians commonly distinguish several degrees of authority in Christian teaching. Elsewhere Olson designates these as dogma, doctrine, and opinion. Dogma represents our most solemn formulation of the apostolic faith: for instance, the Nicene Creed. Doctrine teaches the faith in a more local form and so has a more local authority: for instance, Lutheran Pietism. Opinion comes from individual voices and schools who articulate the faith constructively, critically, and creatively: for instance, Roger Olson’s Reformed and Always Reforming.

Each of these tests the others. New proposals lead eyes back to hallowed traditions to see whether they adequately represent biblical faith. Hallowed traditions guide our judgments of whether new proposals have discovered things or distorted them.

This process of discerning living tradition through living tradition only works when all these organs of discernment are healthy. Guardians embalm tradition when they treat their doctrines as dogma. Adventurers disrupt it when they treat either dogma or their own opinions as doctrine. Conflict dismembers it as each group comes to regard the other as a foe.

Olson’s Arminianism, postmodernism, and adventurousness do not trouble me. After all, though I reject the label, I myself am postconservative in almost every way Olson describes. I am a friend and a fan of many of the theologians he champions. As I said in my blurb on the book’s back cover, they are worthy of respectful engagement. But I worry that Olson is setting opinion against dogma in ways harmful to both.

Olson tries to be fair to conservatives, but frustration and even bitterness repeatedly surface in stereotypes, swipes, and straw men. Olson is an adventurer from one evangelical stream who has lost his patience with the guardians of another.

I sympathize with Olson’s frustration. How many ex-fundamentalists, ex-conservatives, ex-evangelicals, and ex-Christians are casualties of misdirected criticism? Indeed, here postconservatism is a fitting term. It proves that some conservative evangelicals will take only so much inquisition and abuse before they leave. Yet I do not share Olson’s confidence that postconservatives have really transcended modern habits. Our pluralist culture has trained us so well that we find them easier to disavow than to discard. From political activism to the church-growth movement to the allegedly postmodern “emerging church,” evangelicals are borrowing more than ever from late modern liberalism. We need the scrutiny of both postliberals and traditional conservatives.

Evangelicals cannot afford this battle. Our movement does not need postconservative converts or apostates. We need thinkers who appreciate conservatism’s and evangelicalism’s multiple streams, our new cultural situation, theology’s guardians as well as its adventurers, and the call to face one another’s scrutiny with inextinguishable hope.

Telford Work (telfordwork.net), associate professor of theology, Westmont College.