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Recovering Classic Evangelicalism: Applying the Wisdom and Vision of Carl F. H. Henry
Once upon a time, evangelicalism was a countercultural upstart movement. Positioned in between mainline denominational liberalism and reactionary fundamentalism, evangelicals saw themselves as evangelists to all of culture. Billy Graham was reaching the masses with his Crusades, Francis Schaeffer was reaching artists and university students at L’Abri, Larry Norman was recording Jesus music on secular record labels and touring with Janis Joplin and the Doors, and Carl F. H. Henry was reaching the intellectuals through Christianity Today. It was the dawn of “classic evangelicalism.” Surveying the current evangelical landscape, however, one gets the feeling that we’re backpedaling quickly. We are more theologically diffuse, culturally gun-shy, and fragmented than ever before. What has happened? And how do we find our way back? Using the life and work of Carl F. H. Henry as a key to evangelicalism’s past and a cipher for its future, this book provides crucial insights for a renewed vision of the church’s place in modern society and charts a refreshing course toward unity under the banner of “classic evangelicalism.”
224 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
April 16, 2013
And what a wonderful book this was. It was so good that I was halfway braced for him to wreck it in the backstretch. So much good here.
November 9, 2014
Just read Greg Thornbury's "Recovering Classic Evangelicalism: Applying the Wisdom and Vision of Carl F. H. Henry." If I am asked, Evangelical Christian is my primary self-identification. But defining Evangelicalism has become problematic these days. It covers anything from Open Theists like Greg Boyd to modern day modalists like TD Jakes to Word of Faith leaders such as Kenneth Copeland. Scholars see the genesis of the movement in the ministry of George Whitefield in the early 1700s in his trans-denominational ministry, building a coalition of Christians emphasizing the necessity of the new birth. It was in the Second Great Awakening in the early 1800s that we find Evangelicalism taking a shape that made it an identifiable movement, building coalitions across denominational lines for purposes of missions, social reform and spiritual renewal. In the late 1800s revivalists such as DL Moody continued to build upon this movement in evangelistic outreach. It was in the early 1900s that Evangelicalism confronted modernism in the church as denomination after denomination drank from the cup of German higher criticism and brought into question the infallibility and inspiration of Holy Scripture. The publication of the series "The Fundamentals" marked Evangelicalism forever as a "fundamentalist" movement. (You can download this series at http://ntslibrary.com/…/Torrey%20-%20...…) Though the series highlighted the historic Christian doctrines and featured some of the most worthy scholars and spokesmen of the faith, it marked the beginning of a counter-cultural turn that landed Evangelicals in a religious ghetto, withdrawn from the broader culture and reactionary. It is at this point that it began to create its own institutions and culture, having given up hope of influencing the mainline denominations and their schools. Soon the movement became captive to anti-intellectual forces that isolated it from broader society. Fundamentalism became a phenomenon in its own right. Men like Carl Henry sought to restore Evangelicalism to its best and brightest. His book, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, trumpeted the call for fundamentalists to return to the academy and become a participant in the broader culture, believing, as he did, that supernatural Christianity could carry its own weight in the world of ideas. Thus we have the divide between Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism. It was Billy Graham who gave support to this burgeoning Evangelical movement, most readily identified with the periodical to which he lent his credibility, Christianity Today, the Evangelical answer to the liberal The Christian Century. Conservative Christianity moved back into the mainstream of American life and increasingly its leaders were taking degrees from elite institutions of higher learning and producing books that supported the intellectual credibility of historic Christian orthodoxy. Publishing houses such as Eerdmans and Inter Varsity Press offered books that took the offense in establishing a place at the table for bible-believing Christianity in the academy. Evangelicals became a force to be reckoned with, particularly in politics. However, some within the camp have pushed the boundaries of what it means to be an Evangelical to the degree that the movement is seeking to re-establish its identity and core commitments. Like any movement it finds boundary keeping notoriously difficult. Today Evangelicalism is immersed in any number of boundary disputes, especially having to do with the inspiration of the Bible, the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ, open theism, and historical Christian morality, particularly the issue of same sex marriage and abortion. The Evangelical consensus has broken down, though to what degree is in dispute. Books such as Thornbury's are calling Evangelicals back to their supposed roots. In Thornbury's case, it is Carl Henry who carries the water for the movement, particularly his epistemology, according to Thornbury.
June 3, 2024
The good:
- Henry needs introduction, and this is the first such introduction I’ve seen.
- Thornbury is really knowledgeable of contemporary evangelicalism and modern philosophy. Rare combo.
- Sympathetic yet honest about Henry
The less good:
- Some of his critiques of evangelicalism are interesting, but not sure they hit the mark. It’s also a little meta to critique evangelicalism for being too self-critical.
- I definitely get the historical narrative he’s painting, but I’m not sure it’s a complete picture. He describes a fall from the philosophically astute evangelicalism of Henry’s generation to our more post-modern/barthian/confused generation. But then he mentions that Henry’s successor at CT was far less ecumenical and made inerrancy a litmus test for faithful Christianity. I’m no expert, but I think more people in my generation are repulsed by that sort of evangelicalism than the variety espoused by Henry. I get the point Thornbury is making, and it’s definitely important. But there’s still a lot of fundamentalism in the air and that’s what makes younger evangelicalism interested in progressive forms of Christianity. But Thornbury’s right that Henry can help here.
- I’m still not getting Henry’s rejection of natural theology and aversion to Thomism. Why can’t God be the revealer of all truth and humans be able to determine certain things about him by reason? I’m probably misunderstanding Henry, but this is one of my biggest questions with his work.
- Yes, evangelicalism needs to return to philosophy. Yes, the refusal to do so has hurt the credibility of the gospel. But I know that personally, the biggest stumbling block for me to accept the Evangelical view of the Bible is not philosophy per se, but science and history. And the comment that people don’t reject inerrancy for empirical reasons is not true.
So this is a good book, but it hasn’t rescued classical evangelicalism for me. At least not right now. For me, I need to see a clear account of how one can do justice to the biblical text and the scientific data in order to see how evangelicalism and its view of the Bible are able to make sense of the world in which we live.
- Henry needs introduction, and this is the first such introduction I’ve seen.
- Thornbury is really knowledgeable of contemporary evangelicalism and modern philosophy. Rare combo.
- Sympathetic yet honest about Henry
The less good:
- Some of his critiques of evangelicalism are interesting, but not sure they hit the mark. It’s also a little meta to critique evangelicalism for being too self-critical.
- I definitely get the historical narrative he’s painting, but I’m not sure it’s a complete picture. He describes a fall from the philosophically astute evangelicalism of Henry’s generation to our more post-modern/barthian/confused generation. But then he mentions that Henry’s successor at CT was far less ecumenical and made inerrancy a litmus test for faithful Christianity. I’m no expert, but I think more people in my generation are repulsed by that sort of evangelicalism than the variety espoused by Henry. I get the point Thornbury is making, and it’s definitely important. But there’s still a lot of fundamentalism in the air and that’s what makes younger evangelicalism interested in progressive forms of Christianity. But Thornbury’s right that Henry can help here.
- I’m still not getting Henry’s rejection of natural theology and aversion to Thomism. Why can’t God be the revealer of all truth and humans be able to determine certain things about him by reason? I’m probably misunderstanding Henry, but this is one of my biggest questions with his work.
- Yes, evangelicalism needs to return to philosophy. Yes, the refusal to do so has hurt the credibility of the gospel. But I know that personally, the biggest stumbling block for me to accept the Evangelical view of the Bible is not philosophy per se, but science and history. And the comment that people don’t reject inerrancy for empirical reasons is not true.
So this is a good book, but it hasn’t rescued classical evangelicalism for me. At least not right now. For me, I need to see a clear account of how one can do justice to the biblical text and the scientific data in order to see how evangelicalism and its view of the Bible are able to make sense of the world in which we live.
December 20, 2017
This book will help anyone become conversant with Henry's key ideas, as well as with the historical context of his own work. Thornbury works to show us how Henry's belief in the intellectual fortitude of evangelicalism properly informs our impetus for cultural engagement today in that at its core, the focus upon the necessity of the Scriptures for understanding truth along with the centrality of redemption provides us with a worldview that meets the great need for meaning in our times. The retreat of fundamentalism is not an option because the gospel was never intended to just end with us. Indeed, it has only reached us on account of the fact that those within the Church took Christ at His word in the Great Commission. It still goes out, and Henry encourages us to realize that despite the many attempts of the secular world to prove otherwise, evangelicalism still has its place in the arena. It's up to us to decide whether or not we will stand our ground.
August 5, 2020
This book is quite ironic. Most people in my opinion, including the leaders of the church, will not pick this book up and read it through. Yet, its contents thoroughly speak to the foundations of our current evangelicalism. Admittedly, I gleaned the premise of the book in the first 55 pages, then I skimmed the rest. However, I deeply value what it has to say, and it will be a book I go back to for deeper study. I'm sure there is plenty to disagree with here, but the books value isn't with what you agree with. It is with the roots of our movement and how we think that it wrestles with and thereby gives great value.
April 11, 2017
Summary: Addressing an evangelical context that seemingly has lost a sense of its identity, core convictions, and model for cultural engagement, the author commends a re-appraisal of the work of Carl F. H. Henry as a source of wisdom for the future.
It seems there are numerous books being published at present addressing what is perceived the parlous state of the contemporary church in America. They seem to fall into two camps. Either they recommend innovation, or they call for a return or recovery of some lost tradition, whether the church fathers, Benedict, or the Reformers.
This book, written particularly for that part of the church that would identify as "evangelical" proposes that the way forward is to recover the philosophical, theological, and cultural vision of the movement birthed in the post-World War II years. This was the time of the founding of Christianity Today as a periodical of both evangelical conviction and theological and intellectual heft, befitting the concerns of two of its' founders, Billy Graham and Carl F. H. Henry. This work focuses on the work of Henry, who was evangelicalism's leading theologian, probably until his death in 2003.
Thornbury hardly consider's Henry to be perfect, and in the first chapter enumerates some of the flaws in both his personality and work. He also chronicles the "drubbing" Henry has faced from scholars criticizing his commitments to inerrancy, his epistemology, and more. Furthermore, what may be his most significant work, his six-volume systematic theology, God, Revelation, and Authority is also largely unread and unknown, particularly because few got beyond its first, densely written volume. Yet Thornbury commends Henry as a model of someone who brought a Christian mind to bear on both the theological and cultural questions facing evangelicalism, and as one whose example and advocacy paved the way for renewed efforts to bring Christian thought to bear in the academy and the culture.
The focus of Thornbury's discussion is volumes two and four of God, Revelation, and Authority (hereafter GRA) and Henry's much more approachable The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. He focuses on four significant contributions of Henry that he believes deserve renewed attention. First was his rooting epistemology in a God who reveals God's self and does so in language and propositions. Second was that theology matters, and here, he focuses his discussion around the fifteen theses found in volume two of GRA. He engages the theology of speech-act theory and the work of Hans Frei and Kevin Van Hoozer, and still comes back to the idea that while language may do more than what Henry allowed, it does no less--that we may find more than just theological propositions arising from the scripture, but for a God who reveals God's self effectively, we will find no less.
For Henry, the inerrancy of scripture, so much under fire even in evangelical circles today, was of utmost concern because of its connection to the authority. His concerns were not merely liberal criticism, but the hermeneutical relativism of Continental philosophy. It was not that Henry was unmindful of both problem texts in scripture and the fallibility of interpreters. Rather, he was convinced that concessions here would cast a shadow over the whole of scripture and the Church's proclamation.
Finally, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism was a kind of manifesto that brought to bear biblical thought on the social, political, and economic issues of the day. It lead to the recovery of a social conscience that had been lost in the fundamentalist retreat from society. It provided an argument that culture, and cultural engagement that was not culture war mattered deeply.
Thornbury concludes by arguing that our evangelical roots matter. To unthinking shift from these or to live cut off from our roots can be fatal. To re-examine these roots, in this case the roots provided by the work of Carl F. H. Henry, is not necessarily to affirm that these roots are adequate, but rather important and not to be neglected. It strikes me that in growing things, roots continue to grow as well as the plant above ground, and the plant draws nourishment from an growing root system, both new roots and old.
I have to admit that I have not paid attention to Henry in recent years, paying more heed to newer thinkers. Yet this book reminds me of the personal debt I owe him, and those like him. As a young Christian working in the university context, Christianity Today, which in the seventies still reflected Henry's intellectual influence and heft, was a great encouragement that I could both believe and think, that I could root my thought in a trustworthy and authoritative revelation that provided the foundation to wrestles with the deepest questions being asked in the university world. I could root a commitment to justice and compassion in the care and standards God established for human societies, and the words of the prophets who called a straying people back to such things. Reading Thornbury, I realized that I have often heard but never read Uneasy Conscience. It now sits on my TBR pile. Look for a review.
It seems there are numerous books being published at present addressing what is perceived the parlous state of the contemporary church in America. They seem to fall into two camps. Either they recommend innovation, or they call for a return or recovery of some lost tradition, whether the church fathers, Benedict, or the Reformers.
This book, written particularly for that part of the church that would identify as "evangelical" proposes that the way forward is to recover the philosophical, theological, and cultural vision of the movement birthed in the post-World War II years. This was the time of the founding of Christianity Today as a periodical of both evangelical conviction and theological and intellectual heft, befitting the concerns of two of its' founders, Billy Graham and Carl F. H. Henry. This work focuses on the work of Henry, who was evangelicalism's leading theologian, probably until his death in 2003.
Thornbury hardly consider's Henry to be perfect, and in the first chapter enumerates some of the flaws in both his personality and work. He also chronicles the "drubbing" Henry has faced from scholars criticizing his commitments to inerrancy, his epistemology, and more. Furthermore, what may be his most significant work, his six-volume systematic theology, God, Revelation, and Authority is also largely unread and unknown, particularly because few got beyond its first, densely written volume. Yet Thornbury commends Henry as a model of someone who brought a Christian mind to bear on both the theological and cultural questions facing evangelicalism, and as one whose example and advocacy paved the way for renewed efforts to bring Christian thought to bear in the academy and the culture.
The focus of Thornbury's discussion is volumes two and four of God, Revelation, and Authority (hereafter GRA) and Henry's much more approachable The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. He focuses on four significant contributions of Henry that he believes deserve renewed attention. First was his rooting epistemology in a God who reveals God's self and does so in language and propositions. Second was that theology matters, and here, he focuses his discussion around the fifteen theses found in volume two of GRA. He engages the theology of speech-act theory and the work of Hans Frei and Kevin Van Hoozer, and still comes back to the idea that while language may do more than what Henry allowed, it does no less--that we may find more than just theological propositions arising from the scripture, but for a God who reveals God's self effectively, we will find no less.
For Henry, the inerrancy of scripture, so much under fire even in evangelical circles today, was of utmost concern because of its connection to the authority. His concerns were not merely liberal criticism, but the hermeneutical relativism of Continental philosophy. It was not that Henry was unmindful of both problem texts in scripture and the fallibility of interpreters. Rather, he was convinced that concessions here would cast a shadow over the whole of scripture and the Church's proclamation.
Finally, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism was a kind of manifesto that brought to bear biblical thought on the social, political, and economic issues of the day. It lead to the recovery of a social conscience that had been lost in the fundamentalist retreat from society. It provided an argument that culture, and cultural engagement that was not culture war mattered deeply.
Thornbury concludes by arguing that our evangelical roots matter. To unthinking shift from these or to live cut off from our roots can be fatal. To re-examine these roots, in this case the roots provided by the work of Carl F. H. Henry, is not necessarily to affirm that these roots are adequate, but rather important and not to be neglected. It strikes me that in growing things, roots continue to grow as well as the plant above ground, and the plant draws nourishment from an growing root system, both new roots and old.
I have to admit that I have not paid attention to Henry in recent years, paying more heed to newer thinkers. Yet this book reminds me of the personal debt I owe him, and those like him. As a young Christian working in the university context, Christianity Today, which in the seventies still reflected Henry's intellectual influence and heft, was a great encouragement that I could both believe and think, that I could root my thought in a trustworthy and authoritative revelation that provided the foundation to wrestles with the deepest questions being asked in the university world. I could root a commitment to justice and compassion in the care and standards God established for human societies, and the words of the prophets who called a straying people back to such things. Reading Thornbury, I realized that I have often heard but never read Uneasy Conscience. It now sits on my TBR pile. Look for a review.
May 29, 2019
Put down at page 87.
“Obscurity reaching for profundity”.
These are the words used by Billy Graham to describe Carl Henry’s first article for Christianity Today and they too offer a good description of this book.
Boring, clunky, inaccessible, long-winded, lacks clarity and precision, specialist.
“Obscurity reaching for profundity”.
These are the words used by Billy Graham to describe Carl Henry’s first article for Christianity Today and they too offer a good description of this book.
Boring, clunky, inaccessible, long-winded, lacks clarity and precision, specialist.
December 1, 2017
My biggest takeaways for this book is how Thornbury portrays Carl F.H. Henry's view of the Bible and how the gospel was to influence Culture. An intellectual “old-school” way of describing God’s revelation with his 15 theses found in his volume entitled "God, Revelation and Authority: God Who Speaks and Shows, Fifteen Theses, Part One" is insightful. Gregory Thornbury spends a good amount of pages on Henry’s view of inerrancy. Nowadays, it is refreshing to read about a certainty one can have when it comes to the Scriptures being divinely inspired. This particular chapter lifted my spirits. It also (surprisingly enough) dealt with how the gospel should view social justice issues. It reassured me that evangelicals with no concern for social justice issues have not believed the gospel. This is not a biography of Carl F.H. Henry so much as it is a definition and the implications of Classic Evangelicalism.
Here are some of my favorite quotes.
First sentence:
Everyone loves a good opening sequence in a film, and one of my favorites has to be the first fifteen minutes of Jurassic Park, the adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novel. -13
If Billy Graham was the heart of evangelicalism, Carl F. H. Henry was its head. It was a time in which young evangelicals could look to a figure like Henry, the man with the massive brain, a journalist’s pen, and an Athanasian fortitude. -22
Once a open a time, evangelicalism was a countercultural upstart movement. Positioned in between mainline denominational liberalism and reactionary fundamentalism, the evangelicals saw themselves as evangelists to all of culture. -32
Surveying the evangelical landscape, one gets the feeling that we’re backpedaling quickly. We are more theologically diffuse, culturally gun-shy, and balkanized than ever before. What happened? And how do we find our way back? -32
Classic evangelical thinkers once dared to set forth a prolegomena for evangelicalism that stood in continuity with the Reformers. -40
In Kuyperian fashion, Henry averred that all knowledge owes its origin to the God who speaks and shows. -55
“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.” -61
Even though our knowledge of God is not exhaustive, we are not rendered silent or incapable of describing God faithfully; the Word that we have is trustworthy. -67
God is the only source of revelation, nit human reason, or human experience, and his revelation is unified. However, just because his revelation is one, the forms of his revelation need not be so: God reveals himself through creation, in Christ, and at the eschaton. -69
Revealed religions insists that Yahweh intervenes even in events that seem to deny him, and all historical events are subject to his sovereignty. The pax Romana crumbled, Henry eloquently observes, as did the pax Britanica, and as the pax Americana now crumbles, the eschatological pax Christi is biblically assured. -80
Henry thought of inerrancy as a matter of authenticity and identity-the consequence of believing that we can trust the utterances of God. -118
Henry comments that whereas in a previous generation skeptics rejected Christianity on the grounds that it was factually false, now it is denied on the grounds that we are not able to determine the truth a all. -126
Christianity, in Henry’s view, must root itself firmly in the assertion that the definitive and final revelatory word for all Christian belief and action is wholly contained in the authority of Scripture. -129
“Social justice, is not, moreover, simply an appendage to the evangelical message; it is an intrinsic part of the whole, without which the preaching of the gospel is truncated. Theology devoid of social justice is a deforming weakness of much present-day evangelical weakness.” -152
Henry thus theorizes that any strain of evangelicalism not motivated to transform the world radically through direct opposition of social evil is not true to the Christian gospel, and ultimately cannot be the message that reaches troubled souls with the good news of Christ the Lord. In sum, Christianity without a passion to turn the world upside down bears no relation to apostolic Christianity. -169
The original spirit of historic Christianity was a social conscience deeply rooted in an apostolic understanding of the New Testament, a way of thinking that realized that any social effort or program of reform not rooted in the redemptive, world-changing power o the gospel is ultimately unsustainable and inadequate to offer substantive solutions to social evil. -170
In both Old and New Testament thought there exists but one sure foundation for an enduring civilization, and its cornerstone is a vital knowledge of the redemptive God. This only makes sense since the universe is designed along moral lines. All attempts to build civilization on other foundations, whether before or after Christ’s coming into the world, are doomed before they begin. -172
Contemporary evangelicalism needs (1) to reawaken to the relevance of its redemptive message to the global predicament; (2) to stress the great evangelical agreements in a common world front; (3) to discard contradictory to the inherent genius of Christianity any elements of its message that cut the nerve of world compassion; and (4) to restudy eschatological convictions for a proper perspective that will not unnecessarily dispute evangelical strength in controversies over secondary positions in a day when the primary instances have international significance. -173
The message for decadent modern civilization must ring with the present tense. We must confront the world now “with an ethics to make it tremble, and with a dynamic to give it hope.” -174
If historic Christianity is again to compete as a vital world ideology, evangelicalism must project a solution for the most pressing world problems. -174
Here is Henry’s deepest conviction: when the current evangelical community begins to “out-live” its environment as the first-century church outreached its pagan neighbors, the modern mind will stop casting about for other solutions. -176
If the Christian community is indeed interested in reaching an ideologically laden age with the gospel, as did Henry, then perhaps it is appropriate to begin not so much with an apologetic, but with the words, “We’re sorry.” -177
Despite earnest attempts to do away with religion in modern times, it cannot and will not go away. Faith shapes culture. It is simply a matter of which belief system a society chooses and how effectively that faith nourishes the animating impulses of a people. -179
The First and Second World Wars, Mao’s Revolution, Stalin’s slaughter of innocents, and the killing fields of Cambodia clearly were not conflicts fought upon religious grounds, but resulted in horrors completely out of proportion to the wars of religion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. -185
For as Kierkegaard once averred, “He who marries the spirit of the age is likely to be a widower in the next.” -187
Regaining the trust of one’s neighbors is the first step to building cultural credibility. Christians who invest themselves wholeheartedly in the local contexts where they are planted-and this not for merely utilitarian reasons-see themselves, said Bonhoeffer, as “belonging wholly to the world.” In their example, he wrote his friend Bethge, “Christ is no longer [merely] an object of religion, but rather something entirely different: Lord of the universe.” -195
The coming years will require renewed efforts that demonstrate the attractiveness of traditional Christian thought and practice in ways that are winsome both intellectually and existentially. Our cultural strategy must equally focus on both the mind and the heart. Historic orthodoxy must be seen to be true intellectually ad communally at the same tim. As we think about a future for making men moral, we will see that the future of Christianity in Europe and America rests not upon the will to power, but the will to do the good, and believe the tradition. -198
Last Sentence:
[Henry] "Echoing from Creation to Calvary to consumption, God’s eternal Word invites a parched humanity to the Well that never runs dry, to the Water of Life that alone truly and fully quenches the thirst of stricken pilgrims.” -199
Here are some of my favorite quotes.
First sentence:
Everyone loves a good opening sequence in a film, and one of my favorites has to be the first fifteen minutes of Jurassic Park, the adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novel. -13
If Billy Graham was the heart of evangelicalism, Carl F. H. Henry was its head. It was a time in which young evangelicals could look to a figure like Henry, the man with the massive brain, a journalist’s pen, and an Athanasian fortitude. -22
Once a open a time, evangelicalism was a countercultural upstart movement. Positioned in between mainline denominational liberalism and reactionary fundamentalism, the evangelicals saw themselves as evangelists to all of culture. -32
Surveying the evangelical landscape, one gets the feeling that we’re backpedaling quickly. We are more theologically diffuse, culturally gun-shy, and balkanized than ever before. What happened? And how do we find our way back? -32
Classic evangelical thinkers once dared to set forth a prolegomena for evangelicalism that stood in continuity with the Reformers. -40
In Kuyperian fashion, Henry averred that all knowledge owes its origin to the God who speaks and shows. -55
“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.” -61
Even though our knowledge of God is not exhaustive, we are not rendered silent or incapable of describing God faithfully; the Word that we have is trustworthy. -67
God is the only source of revelation, nit human reason, or human experience, and his revelation is unified. However, just because his revelation is one, the forms of his revelation need not be so: God reveals himself through creation, in Christ, and at the eschaton. -69
Revealed religions insists that Yahweh intervenes even in events that seem to deny him, and all historical events are subject to his sovereignty. The pax Romana crumbled, Henry eloquently observes, as did the pax Britanica, and as the pax Americana now crumbles, the eschatological pax Christi is biblically assured. -80
Henry thought of inerrancy as a matter of authenticity and identity-the consequence of believing that we can trust the utterances of God. -118
Henry comments that whereas in a previous generation skeptics rejected Christianity on the grounds that it was factually false, now it is denied on the grounds that we are not able to determine the truth a all. -126
Christianity, in Henry’s view, must root itself firmly in the assertion that the definitive and final revelatory word for all Christian belief and action is wholly contained in the authority of Scripture. -129
“Social justice, is not, moreover, simply an appendage to the evangelical message; it is an intrinsic part of the whole, without which the preaching of the gospel is truncated. Theology devoid of social justice is a deforming weakness of much present-day evangelical weakness.” -152
Henry thus theorizes that any strain of evangelicalism not motivated to transform the world radically through direct opposition of social evil is not true to the Christian gospel, and ultimately cannot be the message that reaches troubled souls with the good news of Christ the Lord. In sum, Christianity without a passion to turn the world upside down bears no relation to apostolic Christianity. -169
The original spirit of historic Christianity was a social conscience deeply rooted in an apostolic understanding of the New Testament, a way of thinking that realized that any social effort or program of reform not rooted in the redemptive, world-changing power o the gospel is ultimately unsustainable and inadequate to offer substantive solutions to social evil. -170
In both Old and New Testament thought there exists but one sure foundation for an enduring civilization, and its cornerstone is a vital knowledge of the redemptive God. This only makes sense since the universe is designed along moral lines. All attempts to build civilization on other foundations, whether before or after Christ’s coming into the world, are doomed before they begin. -172
Contemporary evangelicalism needs (1) to reawaken to the relevance of its redemptive message to the global predicament; (2) to stress the great evangelical agreements in a common world front; (3) to discard contradictory to the inherent genius of Christianity any elements of its message that cut the nerve of world compassion; and (4) to restudy eschatological convictions for a proper perspective that will not unnecessarily dispute evangelical strength in controversies over secondary positions in a day when the primary instances have international significance. -173
The message for decadent modern civilization must ring with the present tense. We must confront the world now “with an ethics to make it tremble, and with a dynamic to give it hope.” -174
If historic Christianity is again to compete as a vital world ideology, evangelicalism must project a solution for the most pressing world problems. -174
Here is Henry’s deepest conviction: when the current evangelical community begins to “out-live” its environment as the first-century church outreached its pagan neighbors, the modern mind will stop casting about for other solutions. -176
If the Christian community is indeed interested in reaching an ideologically laden age with the gospel, as did Henry, then perhaps it is appropriate to begin not so much with an apologetic, but with the words, “We’re sorry.” -177
Despite earnest attempts to do away with religion in modern times, it cannot and will not go away. Faith shapes culture. It is simply a matter of which belief system a society chooses and how effectively that faith nourishes the animating impulses of a people. -179
The First and Second World Wars, Mao’s Revolution, Stalin’s slaughter of innocents, and the killing fields of Cambodia clearly were not conflicts fought upon religious grounds, but resulted in horrors completely out of proportion to the wars of religion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. -185
For as Kierkegaard once averred, “He who marries the spirit of the age is likely to be a widower in the next.” -187
Regaining the trust of one’s neighbors is the first step to building cultural credibility. Christians who invest themselves wholeheartedly in the local contexts where they are planted-and this not for merely utilitarian reasons-see themselves, said Bonhoeffer, as “belonging wholly to the world.” In their example, he wrote his friend Bethge, “Christ is no longer [merely] an object of religion, but rather something entirely different: Lord of the universe.” -195
The coming years will require renewed efforts that demonstrate the attractiveness of traditional Christian thought and practice in ways that are winsome both intellectually and existentially. Our cultural strategy must equally focus on both the mind and the heart. Historic orthodoxy must be seen to be true intellectually ad communally at the same tim. As we think about a future for making men moral, we will see that the future of Christianity in Europe and America rests not upon the will to power, but the will to do the good, and believe the tradition. -198
Last Sentence:
[Henry] "Echoing from Creation to Calvary to consumption, God’s eternal Word invites a parched humanity to the Well that never runs dry, to the Water of Life that alone truly and fully quenches the thirst of stricken pilgrims.” -199
August 23, 2019
The book summarizes an epistemological basis for evangelical theology in our postmodern world. I block the book into three sections you can read separately; Henry overview, christian philosophy, and cultural relevance. First, the book describes Henry's influence and significance for intellectual evangelicals. It highlights the significance of Henry's contribution in parallel to a survey of epistemology from both secular and Christian circles. Next, Henry's major thesis's from his magnum opus 'God, Revelation and Authority' are exposited along with another literary survey of epistemology, theology and biblical inerrancy. A challenging esoteric read. Over my head, but I still learned a lot about important thinkers. Finally, the book sums up with a discussion about culture and evangelism.
April 11, 2022
Fantastic book.
Carl F. H. Henry was the architect and unfortunately seems to have been the high watermark of evangelicalism. I don't know that it ever lived up to what he hoped. Therefore it seems there was a misplaced optimism.
Henry wrote "The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism" in 1947, right as the neo-evangelical movement was about to take off. He saw that the fundamentalist movement of 1910-1925 was too narrow, anti-intellectual, hypocritical towards caring for the world, so he hoped to remake the pieces of it into something that embodied the open, intelligent and honest engagement the world needed, and he would go on to be the architect of it.
Thornbury does a great job of reviewing the intellectual history of the 66 years between 1947 and 2013 when this book was published, and stating that if evangelicalism doesn't live up to the obvious ideals of Christianity it will fall apart, heritage and opportunity will be lost.
It seems quite timely that in 2016 most white evangelicals endorsed Trump, an obvious contradiction of those ideals. Thornbury stepped down from Kings College NY and in 2018 the denomination that birthed him, the Southern Baptist Convention, lost more members than they ever have in their history, only to break that record the following year, and break it again the year after that, we'll see what is in store when their numbers come out for 2021.
After reading this wonderful book I recommend listening to a podcast Greg Thornbury did with Warren Throckmorton, available on youtube, where he talks through what seems to have been the demise of Henry's goals for evangelicalism.
And for the beginning of how to understand Christianity after its repeated failures an essay in Cornel West's book "Democracy Matters": "The Crisis of Christian Identity in America"
Carl F. H. Henry was the architect and unfortunately seems to have been the high watermark of evangelicalism. I don't know that it ever lived up to what he hoped. Therefore it seems there was a misplaced optimism.
Henry wrote "The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism" in 1947, right as the neo-evangelical movement was about to take off. He saw that the fundamentalist movement of 1910-1925 was too narrow, anti-intellectual, hypocritical towards caring for the world, so he hoped to remake the pieces of it into something that embodied the open, intelligent and honest engagement the world needed, and he would go on to be the architect of it.
Thornbury does a great job of reviewing the intellectual history of the 66 years between 1947 and 2013 when this book was published, and stating that if evangelicalism doesn't live up to the obvious ideals of Christianity it will fall apart, heritage and opportunity will be lost.
It seems quite timely that in 2016 most white evangelicals endorsed Trump, an obvious contradiction of those ideals. Thornbury stepped down from Kings College NY and in 2018 the denomination that birthed him, the Southern Baptist Convention, lost more members than they ever have in their history, only to break that record the following year, and break it again the year after that, we'll see what is in store when their numbers come out for 2021.
After reading this wonderful book I recommend listening to a podcast Greg Thornbury did with Warren Throckmorton, available on youtube, where he talks through what seems to have been the demise of Henry's goals for evangelicalism.
And for the beginning of how to understand Christianity after its repeated failures an essay in Cornel West's book "Democracy Matters": "The Crisis of Christian Identity in America"
June 1, 2017
I enjoy reading this book. I had never truly been introduced to the life and thought of Dr. Carl F. H. Henry. I had heard about him before and knew that he was one of the people who brought Dr. Mark Dever to Capitol Hill Baptist Church. I knew that he founded 'Christianity Today' and was one of the evangelical forbearers of the 20th century but still had not read him. This book gave me a desire to know Henry more. I'm grateful that Dr. Thornbury wrote this book. The purpose of this book was to recover the 'classical evangelicalism' that Dr. Henry espoused throughout his life and writings. Dr. Henry called on Fundamentalists to engage in the public square and to have a robust theological vision for answering the skeptics questions in all areas of life, from a distinctly Trinitarian perspective. This is why Dr. Henry talked so much about epistomolgy and challenged pastors specifically to reexamine their presuppositional commitments and where they were coming from. This book was a good reminder of why innerency matters as well. I think we need to instruct the church more and more on what we mean by that phrase and why it matters today. I also appreciate Dr. Henry's emphasis on the role of the universal church to speak into public discourse and have intelligent responses to a plethora of issues in the contemporary world from a biblical worldview.
August 1, 2017
If you've never read Henry as a primary source, this will be a helpful, interpretive primer not only to the Carl F.H. Henry corpus but also (and more importantly) to Henry's vision, as the subtitle suggests.
Thornbury is "a fan" and seeks to make Henry "cool again." And after reading this tome, Thornbury is the right man for the task of throwing back the dusty curtains of the forsaken Henry room in the Evangelical "castle."
Thornbury is "a fan" and seeks to make Henry "cool again." And after reading this tome, Thornbury is the right man for the task of throwing back the dusty curtains of the forsaken Henry room in the Evangelical "castle."
April 22, 2018
A sweeping look at the pivotal works of Carl F H Henry and the impact they have had on Evangelicalism. Thorn bury contends that we must not lose sight of Henry’s contributions. He pits his Neo-Evangelical Theology against the liberal, post-liberal, neo-orthodox, and present day evangelical ideas. A tough read that requires some background, not for the typical layman.
May 31, 2018
I’m really not the intended reader of this book. I’m interested in Carl FH Henry on biographical and intellectual grounds. This book evaluates and tries to reinvigorate Henry’s theology in the 21st century. Thus much of the book was simply not relevant or accessible to me. But it generally well written and persuasive.
March 18, 2020
My first by Thornbury; really enjoyed his insight and his writing style. I would recommend the book to anyone interested in epistemology, the theology of Carl Henry, a brief evangelical view of the key developments in modern theological prolegomena, or the origins/intent of evangelicalism.
April 30, 2020
Critical historical and theological analysis of Evangelicals on drifting away from "classic evangelicalism." The author argues to return to classic evangelicalism—manifested in the life and works of Carl Henry.
May 2, 2018
Carl Henry is as timely as ever in our evangelical and cultural moment.
January 23, 2017
Foundational for anybody doing evangelical theology
March 18, 2017
At a later point in my life I'll give this 5 stars. It was too precise and academic for me, in my current understanding of the evangelical theology. The author, who is an exhilarating lecturer, uses a vocabulary that is 400-level, as well as references to philosophers by last name only .. and I was left in the dust. Now, the core message of the book around a social critique of evangelicalism and how we should stop critiquing ourselves.. was awesome. Thornbury nailed it. Just needed some help to get through it!
July 18, 2013
When I finished this book I wanted to sit, think, and reflect on its message (though I'm usually eager to move on to the next book). The thrust of Thornbury's argument is that evangelicalism must recover its philosophical and epistemological roots, roots that Carl F.H. Henry tried to send deep into the soil of the movement. Cut loose from those roots, the doctrines we cherish are in danger of being cast off and we lack a comprehensive worldview that can answer the fundamental questions that are being asked today.
Reading this book also made me want to read Henry himself. Though from what I read in this book, Henry's philosophical and theological works would be rough sledding to be sure. Thornberry points out that Henry lost readers because of how philosophical his writings were. I'm afraid that the same problem will attend this book. It is appropriate that it be philosophical and focus on Henry's epistemology, given the argument of the book. But I'm afraid that the density of that aspect of the book will also cost Thornbury some readers.
Aside from the density of part of the book, it's major weakness is the length of the chapters. In a book of just over two hundred pages and six chapters, two chapters run about forty pages and one about fifty pages. Those three chapters alone make up about seventy percent of the book and the longest of those chapters is perhaps the most dense and difficult of them all.
But I walked away from the book wondering how someone who was so instrumental in the establishment of classic evangelicalism and who was such a prolific author is so little known today. If this book begins to remedy that ignorance, it will have served evangelicalism well. Perhaps the next Carl Henry will read this work and be inspired to lead evangelicalism back to its philosophical roots. We certainly need it.
Reading this book also made me want to read Henry himself. Though from what I read in this book, Henry's philosophical and theological works would be rough sledding to be sure. Thornberry points out that Henry lost readers because of how philosophical his writings were. I'm afraid that the same problem will attend this book. It is appropriate that it be philosophical and focus on Henry's epistemology, given the argument of the book. But I'm afraid that the density of that aspect of the book will also cost Thornbury some readers.
Aside from the density of part of the book, it's major weakness is the length of the chapters. In a book of just over two hundred pages and six chapters, two chapters run about forty pages and one about fifty pages. Those three chapters alone make up about seventy percent of the book and the longest of those chapters is perhaps the most dense and difficult of them all.
But I walked away from the book wondering how someone who was so instrumental in the establishment of classic evangelicalism and who was such a prolific author is so little known today. If this book begins to remedy that ignorance, it will have served evangelicalism well. Perhaps the next Carl Henry will read this work and be inspired to lead evangelicalism back to its philosophical roots. We certainly need it.
January 20, 2015
Taking Carl F Henry's neglected "God, Revelation and Authority" as its point of departure, Thornbury shows how Henry helps Christians answer the vital questions of "Is this stuff actually true? How would we know?"
Thornbury presents in an accessible way Henry's argument that Christianity depends on God revealing himself, clearly, truthfully and trustworthily, by infallible scripture, and brings philosophical muscle to the debate. He shows how Henry engaged with philosophers such as Kant and Heidegger to defend the knowability of God's revelation, and how evangelicals have shifted away from Henry's position, emphasising the narrative and literary quality of the Bible (no bad thing in itself) but downplaying its objective truth. He engages helpfully with current theologians, notably Kevin Vanhoozer on speech-act theory and theodrama.
Thornbury gives an impassioned plea for a recovery of the intellectually confident and socially engaged evangelicalism that Henry envisioned, which is truly committed to the good of the world on the basis of God's authoritative Word. Clear, helpful and inspiring.
Thornbury presents in an accessible way Henry's argument that Christianity depends on God revealing himself, clearly, truthfully and trustworthily, by infallible scripture, and brings philosophical muscle to the debate. He shows how Henry engaged with philosophers such as Kant and Heidegger to defend the knowability of God's revelation, and how evangelicals have shifted away from Henry's position, emphasising the narrative and literary quality of the Bible (no bad thing in itself) but downplaying its objective truth. He engages helpfully with current theologians, notably Kevin Vanhoozer on speech-act theory and theodrama.
Thornbury gives an impassioned plea for a recovery of the intellectually confident and socially engaged evangelicalism that Henry envisioned, which is truly committed to the good of the world on the basis of God's authoritative Word. Clear, helpful and inspiring.
March 14, 2014
This book is clearly not intended for the casual reader. Many parts of it are only understandable to the person with an advanced degree in theology or philosophy, or both, neither of which I am. Nevertheless, it was a worthwhile read, though a difficult slog at points. I particularly appreciated his chapters on inerrancy and culture. In spite of its highly academic nature, I would readily recommend it to someone who wishes to have a better understanding of where Evangelicalism is wandering from its previous foundations and epistemology.I plan to set down soon with a friend who read the book about a year ago and discuss a number of issues raised by the book, and to try to clarify some things I didn't understand.
December 31, 2016
I recall reading a section of Henry's God, Revelation, and Authority for an assignment in Systematic Theology during my first semester of seminary. I found that section so helpful that I began to piece together a hardback set of God, Revelation, and Authority during my seminary years. Despite disagreements on apologetic method, ecclesial strategy, etc., I've found Henry very much worth reading.
Gregory Alan Thornbury is of the same mind, and yet finds Henry too neglected, and even misrepresented, by evangelicals at present. To remedy that situation he has written an excellent, readable introduction to the thought of Carl Henry as well as a defense of the value of that thought for evangelicalism at present.
Gregory Alan Thornbury is of the same mind, and yet finds Henry too neglected, and even misrepresented, by evangelicals at present. To remedy that situation he has written an excellent, readable introduction to the thought of Carl Henry as well as a defense of the value of that thought for evangelicalism at present.
July 18, 2013
With so many wondering what evangelicalism is, Thornbury makes it plain. It's astonishing to think that a man so scholarly yet practical as Carl Henry founded Christianity Today. The book begins in thick material--epistemology, theology and nuances of inerrancy and the follies of abandoning it. All this is very good and informative, foundational stuff for sound faith and life. Then he really gets into the full-orbed vision for culture and mission. Evangelicalism isn't confined to pulpits and classrooms, but like true worship, drives love, joy, cultural transformation and good works. Highly recommended.
January 3, 2014
I really liked this book, especially the chapters on Inerrancy and Culture.
Thornbury essentially summarizes Henry's "God, Revelation, and Authority," and "The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism," and applies a modern appraisal and slight critique. It's impressive and should stand as a rally call for evangelicals, especially those who are unwitting fundamentalists.
I loved the chapter on culture because it showed how 20th-cent evangelicals divorced social justice and spirituality from one another.
The first half of the book was hard for me to read, especially when Thornbury talked about philosophers in terms I did not understand.
Thornbury essentially summarizes Henry's "God, Revelation, and Authority," and "The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism," and applies a modern appraisal and slight critique. It's impressive and should stand as a rally call for evangelicals, especially those who are unwitting fundamentalists.
I loved the chapter on culture because it showed how 20th-cent evangelicals divorced social justice and spirituality from one another.
The first half of the book was hard for me to read, especially when Thornbury talked about philosophers in terms I did not understand.
January 5, 2014
It's an excellent piece. As a minister, I think Christian leaders need to weigh the implications of what Thornbury and his colleagues (e.g. Moore, Mohler) are proposing that seems to extend beyond just cultural engagement—they want to shape culture by political and social means—but at what cost and what end? Is their evangelical thrust the solution to reclaiming America for God? As a nondenominational conservative who is often lumped into the evangelical category (perhaps imprecisely), I am skeptical of their top-down approach, but I am simultaneously intrigued by the premise and their attempts. It is certainly something to think and pray on.
November 5, 2013
It delves more into contemporary theological debates than I expected, but it's always a plus to learn of a largely unknown landscape. Nonetheless, I think I've highlighted passages from every single page because the book contained so many interesting points.
August 2, 2016
VERY good. Not for the faint of heart.
May 9, 2013
My review here.
May 22, 2013
More Evangelicalism like this would benefit the church and the world.
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