Roger Olson, historical theologian extraordinaire and professor at Baylor’s Truett Seminary, is our guest on the first full episode of The Pietist Schoolman Podcast. Join our conversation as it turns to the crisis of evangelicalism and why evangelicals need to reclaim a Pietist ethos, why a Christ-centered (or, better, “Jesus-centered”) model of education is also person-centered, and the importance of spiritual formation within seminary education.

As I say in the episode introduction, it’s hard to imagine a better person to start this series of episodes — expanding the conversation that started with our Pietist Vision of Christian Higher Education book — than with Roger. Not only was he a key contributor to our book and the author of another recent work on Pietism, but two of his return visits to Bethel University (where he taught before relocating to Baylor) did much to move forward our project: a 2006 address to Bethel’s faculty retreat, in which he critiqued Wheaton president Duane Litfin’s understanding of “the Christ-centered college”; and the 2013 faculty workshop that directly led to our 2015 book.

Further reading:

• Roger E. Olson and Christian T. Collins Winn, Reclaiming Pietism: Retrieving an Evangelical Tradition (Eerdmans, 2015)
• Olson, The Journey of Modern Theology: From Reconstruction to Deconstruction (IVP Academic, 2013)
• Olson, Reformed and Always Reforming: The Postconservative Approach to Evangelical Theology (Baker Academic, 2007) — Roger alludes to “postconservative” evangelicalism in our conversation, and I mention the distinction he draws in this book between bounded- and centered-set theologies
• Roger’s blog at Patheos — here’s one of his posts explaining why he won’t abandon the term “evangelical”