In 1992, at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I stood on the lawn as a brand new, doctoral student and lifted my gaze to a windowless wall of an academic edifice that looked plain and industrial, except for the part on its upper half where it featured in bold black lettering the building’s name: “Carl F.H. Henry Resource Center.” I paused and stared at it, having no idea of who Carl Henry was and having no thought whatsoever that I would ever meet him. I just stood there for several minutes. It’s the only time in my life that I have ever been halted to take in a name on a building. To this day, I vividly remember the experience of lingering in silent intrigue.
Not realizing I had just lived a moment I would never forget, I forged up the slope of the small incline that led to the registrar’s office where I was to sign up for my very first doctoral classes. On the list of Fall Courses one, in particular, struck me. It was labeled “TBA” and said to be taught by Professor Carl F.H. Henry. Though it was yet To Be Announced what the course subject would be, I thought to myself, “Hmmm, since the professor’s name is emblazoned on the building that I just stared at, I better sign up for that course.” To me, it didn’t matter whether or not I needed the course for future graduation; what mattered in my mind was seizing the opportunity before me. With a sense of deep peace, I signed up.
Little did I know that Carl Henry was debatably the premier theologian of conservative Christianity for the entire 20th century in the United States. He was Billy Graham’s theologian and the author of a book titled, “The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism,” which became the manifesto that defined the evangelical movement. Dr. Henry either founded or helped found the National Association of Evangelicals, the Evangelical Theological Society, Fuller Seminary, the Institute for Religion and Democracy, and Christianity Today magazine where he worked for twelve years as founding editor-in-chief. He held two earned doctorates, lectured globally in numerous countries, and wrote important volumes of scholarly work.
Though I was the controversial (very naive) first woman to be accepted into the Ph.D. program for Systematic Theology, I wasn’t controversial in the eyes of Dr. Henry. He was known by some as championing men only as theologians, but the first time I met him, I knew right away that he was fully supportive of my endeavor. I initially encountered him at Trinity’s on-campus basement diner called the White Knight. I was standing in line near the food counter, about to order my lunch, when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Look there’s Carl Henry.” I forfeited my place in line and then repositioned myself at the back of the line where Dr. Henry was. Excited to meet him, I walked up to him and said, “You’re Dr. Henry? I signed up for your class this afternoon.” With a grin on his face and a twinkle in his eye, Dr. Henry blurted out, “Well, you must be Sarah. I heard you’re trouble.” I laughed in response, and he laughed as well. Ours was a warm and confident beginning, the start of a great relationship between professor and student.
I take it as the grace of God that Dr. Henry, on his own initiative, took me under his wing. He was like a grandfather to me. Sometimes he would beam at me in class as if I was his own granddaughter. At the end of class one day, he motioned for me to come up to his lectern, then invited me to walk over with him to his on-campus apartment in order “to meet the Mrs.” From that day onward, I steadily grew closer to Carl and Helga Henry. Soon I was hired to serve as Dr. Henry’s teaching assistant, and not long after that, I was working harder for him, editing his writing, than I was working on my own schoolwork. I respected him so much and aspired to please him academically.
In class, unlike any other professor I have ever observed, he spoke in publishable sentences often with his eyes closed. He taught us by engaging us as upcoming leaders. He wasn’t there to show off his vast knowledge. He was there to raise the standard of our thinking. Dr. Henry was austere. Almost everyone, especially other professors, seemed noticeably intimidated by him. He was the opposite of a flatterer. To be commended by him meant that he had become convinced that you had tried your best. One day after I had edited an essay he was writing for publication, he asked me to sit down on the chair in front of his desk. He picked up the document that I had been editing with my own handwriting, then looked at me with his professorial face and said, “You worked hard on that, didn’t you?” I said, “Yes, Sir.” Then he talked to me about investing more of my time in writing my own stuff. I was taken aback that he believed in me as a writer.
But the opposite was true of him as well. To be critiqued by Dr. Henry meant that you had not achieved your potential. To illustrate what I mean, in one of the courses I took with Dr. Henry (I signed up for everything he taught), he marked out the “A” on my paper and replaced it with “A-”. Sternly he explained to me that my paper was only an “A” relative to the norm, and that it was not a real “A” in accordance with the quality of “A” that I could produce. He said I could do better and that his sense was that I had not worked wholeheartedly. My respect for him grew higher on that day. The way Dr. Henry graded me is the way he graded Christians in America. He thought all of us could do better as a group. His lament was that we, as believers, did not go public enough with our faith in Christ. He wanted people to know that Jesus Christ is Lord, not just in the minds of private religious citizens, but truly Lord over all creation. He wanted Christians to engage culture and not retreat by being separatists. He wanted us to demonstrate the intelligence of the gospel. If Dr. Henry was alive today, I believe he would keel over, appalled at how we have drifted, as a movement, so far away from the gracious demands of the gospel and so far away from our public witness that Jesus Christ is Lord.
I write all this in order to give you a glimpse of the person who influenced me most in my theological training. I have deep laments – and assume that you might too – about the waywardness of the evangelical movement. I hope Right On Mission can take part in redefining the evangelical movement. We need to reboot. We need to take account of what we’ve done wrong and do a course correction.
I plan to write again soon, but first, it seemed important to introduce you to Carl Henry. He was just a man, as vulnerable and human as everyone else, but I believe it is time to pick up the same mantle that he picked up and cast a fresh vision of what the evangelical movement could look like if we would all think Christianly and find the moral courage to act with integrity as Christ followers, even in the face of opposition.
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