When I began working on The Blue Parakeet, I had in mind a book that would show the extremes in evangelicalism on four or five topics and show how a third way, the way of moderation, is both more accurate and more peaceable. Well, that intent didn’t happen because there was too much to be said about how we “apply” the Bible. So, I’m delighted that Roger Olson in his new book, Reformed and Always Reforming, does what I was thinking about and does it better.

Beginning in a little over a week I’ll start blogging through Olson’s Reformed and Always Reforming. This book sketches the case for a postconservative evangelical theology and, at the same time, names names and assigns theologians to categories and boxes. Some may dispute their location on his map, but mapping is inevitable for all of us. Maybe an accurate map ends the needs for mapping — once we understand where we are maybe we don’t need to talk about where we are. We’ll see.