The Standard Reader

When historians chronicle the late-twentieth-century resurgence of evangelicalism, they will focus on two figures: the charismatic preacher Billy Graham, whose 1949 tent crusade in Los Angeles launched his worldwide ministry, and the gentle, self-effacing Carl F.H. Henry, who died December 7 at age ninety.

It was Henry’s 1947 book “The Uneasy Conscience of the Modern Fundamentalism” that summoned conservative Christians to return from their self-imposed exile. Early in the twentieth century, Protestant Christianity was sharply divided between those who fought for orthodoxy and those who thought orthodoxy should take a back seat to social reform. The “social-gospel” movement, led by Walter Rauschenbusch and others, placed commendable emphasis on feeding the poor, clothing the naked, and visiting prisoners. But the social-gospel movement also insisted that individual salvation was less important than changing institutions.

Rejecting this theological innovation, leaders of the orthodox wing of American Protestantism issued their famous statement of the “Five Fundamentals” of the faith–the origin of the modern use of the word “fundamentalist.” And they began a systematic retreat from the culture, tragically forgetting the nineteenth-century tradition of social involvement that was typified by abolition.

As a result, many fundamentalists didn’t vote, believing politics an irredeemable and dirty business. Most fundamentalists spurned intellectual pursuits for fear of being contaminated by “higher criticism” of the Bible and the universities’ increasing turn against religion. Those who did place some value on higher education built their own isolated institutions–at least a hundred miles, one quipster noted, from the nearest known sin.

Carl Henry was born at the very time American Protestant Christianity was being fractured. By age nineteen, the precocious young man, son of German immigrants, was editing a weekly newspaper in New York’s Nassau County. Then, through a series of seemingly unrelated events–Henry would say by God’s providence–he was dramatically converted to Christ. He attended Wheaton College for his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, then Northern Baptist Seminary and Boston University for his doctorates.

HENRY IMMEDIATELY became a rising star among the evangelicals who were searching for some way out of the trap into which the orthodox had fallen. He joined the newly organized Fuller Theological Seminary in California as acting dean. Shortly afterwards, at the behest of Billy Graham, he became editor of Christianity Today, a journal started in order to engage Christians once again in cultural issues.

This earned him no little animus from the fundamentalists who still thought retreat from the culture a necessity. But it was the beginning of a career that would soon help unite evangelicals. Henry was a vigorous guardian of orthodoxy, but he tirelessly exhorted the Church to do its job in society, to get back onto the mainline campuses, and to care for the poor.

Carl Henry had a hand in every event that shaped modern evangelicalism. He worked on the emergence of many key seminaries. And, with his passion for the poor, he helped with World Vision and served on the board of my own ministry, Prison Fellowship. He lectured around the world, and his many books, including his magnum opus, “God, Revelation, and Authority,” have been translated into scores of languages.

Though a tall, imposing figure, with a prodigious intellect and an intimidating depth of knowledge, Carl Henry was unfailingly humble and loving. Several times I went to Carl with questions that must have seemed pathetically immature to him. He would nonetheless patiently explain issues of great theological complexity in language I could understand.

WITHOUT TAKING into account Carl Henry’s life and work, no one can understand America over the last fifty years–the nation’s politics, intellectual battles, or cultural fights. Without Henry, no one can understand the Christians who are bringing their talent to bear in the arts and America’s colleges. Without Henry, no one can understand the Christian writers who not only preach to the Christian subculture but also, as C.S. Lewis put it, “ply their trade with great excellence.”

That’s quite a legacy for a converted journalist. Billy Graham was God’s megaphone, touching hearts. Carl Henry, patient teacher and healer, touched the mind. He lived as he taught–defending truth and overcoming evil with good.

–Charles W. Colson