The following is a short review of Roger E. Olson's Questions to All Your Answers: The Journey From Folk Religion to Examined Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007):
This is a fantastic work that challenges the trite and shallow faith that sometimes manifests itself within the evangelical world today. Olson challenges Christians to go deeper, toward an examined faith that is biblically faithful, interpreting the text in its original context using the tools of reason, experience, and tradition.
His concern "is that too many Christians are stuck in folk religion and need to deepen their faith with reflection" (187). Each of Olson's ten chapters covers a common evangelical cliché and critiques it using Scripture, reason, experience, and Christian tradition. He states: "Each cliché communicates truth in a distorted way. Folk religion swallows the distortion as well as the inner truth; reflective Christianity tries to separate them and hold onto the inner truth while questioning the way in which it is being communicated or believed" (189).
Some of Olson’s chapter titles:
All Sins Are Equal: So Is Reusing a Stamp as Bad as Murder?
Judge Not: So How Can We Preach to Sinners?
Money Isn’t Bad, But Only What We Do With It: So Why Did Jesus Say It’s Hard for a Rich Man to Enter Heaven?
Jesus is the Answer: So What is the Question?
The Bible has All the Answers: So What About Cloning?
God has a Perfect Plan for Your Life: So What if You Miss It?
God Helps Those Who Help Themselves: So Who Needs Grace?
Olson concludes this little (but very helpful) book by contrasting “reflective” Christianity with the shallow Americanized folk religion often found in our churches. He urges evangelicals to “take any unexamined religious slogan and put a question mark after it. Begin with an attitude of wonder. Is this really true? Is it partly true but partly false? Is it true in some contexts but not in others? Is it an overstatement? Is is biblical? Is it reasonable? … The reflective Christian is one who questions what she believes while continuing to believe what she is questioning” (188).
I highly recommend this wonderful book for personal or small group study.
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