Side by Side

In just a few decades, the United States has changed from a largely Christian nation to the most religiously diverse country in the world. In this new book, retired professor and pastor Dick Olson reflects on living faithfully as a Christian in this new interreligious world. Reading the Gospels in this changing context, the author finds fresh insight and guidance to live out our faith with respect, love, and regard for those who follow a different religious path. In a conversational style, Olson shares a personal journey of encounters, experiences, and readings, inviting the reader to join him in a venture of discovery to reflect, explore, and meditate. Focuses on relations among Christians, Jews, and Muslims and with the “spiritual but not religious,” as well as on how to navigate conflicts between Christian traditions.

"RICHARD P. OLSON, MDiv, STM, PhD, is recently retired from Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas, where he was Distinguished Professor of Pastoral Theology. He has also had extensive ministry experience as a pastor in a variety of congregational settings. He earned his PhD in Social Ethics and Sociology of Religion from Boston University.More pertinently, Olson has had career-long participation in ecumenical organizations. He has studied at the United States Holocaust Museum and participated in 5-week study course, “A Religious Mosaic in the Holy Land,” at Galilee College, Israel. He chaired the planning committee for the ABCUSA sponsored Midwest Baptist-Muslim Dialogue event, and continues in extensive interfaith activity, study, and speaking on these matters. His current activities include conversations with leaders at the local Islamic Center, bringing seminary classes to Shabbat services at a nearby synagogue, taking a short online course on the Sufis (Muslim mystics), and helping with a summer interfaith study-action program for elementary school children at his local church."