The Enduring Vision of Carl F. H. Henry
Carl F. H. Henry was once described as “the thinking man’s Billy Graham” [1]. The evangelist Billy Graham is known throughout the world, but Henry’s name isn’t nearly as familiar. There have been many who have influenced the American church in a variety of ways. Some, like Graham, have done so from stadium platforms, preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ and pleading with all who would listen. Others, like Henry, have left their imprint in a less conspicuous way.
In the midst of a post-war society, the American church was on the brink of a schism. There appeared to be two options for American believers: (1) orthodoxy void of orthopraxy in the form of hyper-Fundamentalism; or (2) orthopraxy void of orthodoxy in the form of theological liberalism.
Enter Carl Henry. Through his leadership, and others like Harold Ockenga, the neo-evangelical movement was founded. This movement argued that we could engage culture without accommodating it—we could be in the world, but not of it. Once again the American church could embrace both orthodoxy (right belief) as well orthopraxy (right practice).
Henry may have helped us nearly 100 years ago, but he still matters today. In the following paragraphs we will look to Henry’s past, explain his importance for the present, and see his vision for the future.
Who Was He?
Carl Ferdinand Howard Henry was born on February 22, 1913 to German immigrant parents in New York City. He grew up on Long Island, and attended public school. He was interested in journalism from a young age, even editing the Suffolk county Smithtown Star. In this respect, Gregory Thornbury likens him to a real-life Tin-Tin. Paramount and central to his life, Henry would “encounter the Risen Lord” earlier in his life due to the efforts of an outreach group called “the Oxford Group” [2]. The miracle of personal conversion would be a theme that Henry would herald the rest of his life.
Educationally, Henry earned both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Wheaton College. He then earned doctoral degrees from both Northern Baptist Theological Seminary (Th.D.) and Boston University (Ph.D.). It was in college that he met his wife Helga, to whom he remained married until his death in 2003.
Henry wore many vocational hats, including journalist, editor, theologian, educator, and evangelist. This versatility made him a pivotal figure in the resurgence of post-war evangelicalism. Henry was a leader in establishing the National Association of Evangelicals in 1942, part of the team that founded Fuller Theological Seminary, and the founding editor of Christianity Today in 1956. He served as the chairman of the 1966 Berlin Congress on World Evangelism, a precursor to the Lausanne movement [3]. He was also one of the first signatories of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy in 1978. Suffice to say, Henry’s influence in modern-day evangelicalism cannot be underestimated. Finished in 1983, Henry published, in full, his six-volume magnum opus God, Revelation and Authority. Even in the latter years of his life Henry was a leader with the Evangelical Theological Society, and a theologian-at-large for World Vision International [4].
If one’s legacy is measured by the footprints they leave behind, Henry can easily be considered an evangelical giant. One can only speculate where American evangelicalism would be today if it weren’t for Henry’s leadership and influence. Roger Olson, an Arminian theologian, referred to Henry as the “Dean of Evangelical Theologians”—high praise to be sure [5]! While he may have left a large legacy in the past, we should consider his significance for evangelicals today.
Why Does He Matter?
Much of Henry’s importance can be summed up in his two most pivotal works. First is The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. Another one of our contributors has addressed the importance of this book at length, so I will keep my remarks here brief. It was Henry’s concern that though Fundamentalism got doctrinal truth correct, it failed to engage the culture biblically. Henry rightly noted that there seemed to be a cognitive dissonance between Fundamentalism’s beliefs and practice. In other words, Henry simply wanted to fuse practice and belief together. He writes in Uneasy Conscience, “It is an application of, not a revolt against, fundamentals of the faith, for which I plead” [6]
Second is Henry’s seminal work God, Revelation and Authority (“GRA”). This work is monumental in both its importance and size. Essentially, Henry tackled the largest issue in Christian circles at the time (and possibly today too): Scripture as God’s revelation of Himself to us. Whereas Henry addressed the problems with Fundamentalism in Uneasy Conscience, Henry valiantly defended the historical Christian view of Scripture against textual critics and liberal theologians in GRA. Drawing that line would consist of taking bold stances on historical orthodoxy. Within GRA Henry presents 15 theses on revelation. All are worthy of memorization, but specifically the first one [7]: “Revelation is a divinely initiated activity, God’s free communication by which he alone turns his personal privacy into a deliberate disclosure of his reality” [8].
With these two books we rightly calibrate Henry’s importance. To believe right doctrine was not enough, according to Henry. Believers are called to engage culture in a thoughtful, biblical way that preaches the Gospel, but also lives in light of it. But Henry drew a line in the sand against liberal thought and theology. Brilliantly and thoughtfully he articulated a belief in Scripture as God’s special revelation that was intellectually robust. As clearly exhibited in GRA, Henry saw the epistemological priority of Scripture to be absolutely vital to Christians—and it is!
The importance of Henry may come as a surprise to many Free Will Baptists. Interesting enough, the issues important to Henry throughout his life overlap heavily with those taught by Free Will Baptist theologian, F. Leroy Forlines. Issues such as epistemology (e.g., inerrancy and revelation), theology for life, and most importantly the Gospel, were constant and vital themes of Forlines’ teaching at Welch College for decades. Forlines may write like Francis Schaeffer, but he thinks like Carl Henry.
His Vision For the Future
Though Henry’s work bears great significance for today, his vision for the future is even more important. As previously stated, Henry sought to bring biblical exegesis and the Gospel to bear not only on the fundamentals of the faith, but also contemporary problems and social ills [9]. Thornbury writes, “Henry maintains the power of the preached Word—not just through inscripturated revelation or systematic theology—but also through the testimony of all those who exhibit solidarity with the risen Christ.” In this is part of Henry’s vision for the future, that “the great witnesses of the truth of an inspired and inerrant Bible will be a loving, gospel-motivated church engaged with the concerns, ails, joys, and sorrows of the planet around them” [10].
With this, Henry wanted evangelicalism to reclaim its lost identity. As many have pointed out, evangelicalism is diffused across a wide map, both culturally and theologically. Thankfully, within the body of his work, Henry has given greater evangelicalism an identity to claim. One author writes, “Beyond our tribes, there is this sense of solidarity around a confidence in Scripture and vicarious atonement and the need for the world to repent and believe the gospel” [11]. This was Henry’s prophetic vision for the future—one we need to pursue.
In that same thread, Henry believed in and had a vision of Gospel-centrality. This was truly at the heart of all he wrote. Henry penned,
The Gospel resounds with good news for the needy and oppressed. It conveys assurance that injustice, repression, exploitation, discrimination and poverty are dated and doomed, that no one is forced to accept the crush of evil powers as finally determinative for his or her existence. Into the morass of sinful human history and experience the gospel heralds a new order of life shaped by God’s redemptive intervention [12].
This was Henry’s heartbeat. To conclude, Thornbury shares a story of an inquiring seminarian taking a class with Henry. Henry had come to teach a Ph.D. seminar on contemporary theology. A student asked, “What is the great theological question of our time?” Henry didn’t hesitate. His answer: “Have you met the risen Lord?” [13]
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[1] Chris Donato, The Legacy of Carl F. H. Henry: An Evangelical’s Evangelical, TIU Newsroom, http://news.tiu.edu/2013/10/09/henry-legacy/ (accessed January 25, 2014).
[2] Gregory Alan Thornbury, Recovering Classic Evangelicalism: Applying the Wisdom and Vision of Carl F. H. Henry (Wheaton: Crossway, 2013), 25.
[3] For those unfamiliar with the Lausanne Movement, it is “a global movement that mobilizes evangelical leaders to collaborate for world evangelization.” For more information, click the link in the body of the article.
[4] About Carl F. H. Henry, SBTS Carl F. H. Henry | A Centennial Celebration, http://events.sbts.edu/carlhenry/about-carl-f-h-henry/ (accessed January 25, 2014).
[5] Roger Olson, Pocket History of Evangelical Theology (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2007), 96.
[6] Carl F. H. Henry, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1947), xviii.
[7] Thornbury, 61.
[8] Carl F. H. Henry, God Revelation and Authority, vol. 2, God Who Speaks and Shows: Fifteen Theses, Part One (Waco: Word, 1976), 17 as cited in Recovering Classic Evangelicalism, 61.
[9] Thornbury, 150.
[10] Ibid., 151.
[11] Aaron Cline Hanbury, Seven Questions About Carl F. H. Henry with Gregory Alan Thornbury, SBTS Resources, http://www.sbts.edu/resources/towers/seven-questions-about-carl-f-h-henry-with-gregory-alan-thornbury/ (accessed January 30, 2014).
[12] Carl F. H. Henry, God Revelation and Authority, vol. 4, God Who Speaks and Shows: Fifteen Theses, Part Three (Waco: Word, 1976), 542 as cited in Recovering Classic Evangelicalism, 152.
[13] Hanbury.
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