I read my first Carl Henry book around 1975. I remember where I was and that Carl Henry’s words were both challenging and precise. The year was 1975. I was at my parent’s house at 4200 Spruce Street and stole away into my Dad’s office for a quiet place to read. The book was a slim volume called The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. First published in 1947, it showed a mind and heart awake to the truth and was one of the books that began to make a distinction between what Fundamentalism had become, (narrow, separatistic, exclusive, fearful, angry, and anti-intellectual), and what Evangelicals needed to become.
My next experience with Dr. Henry was in seminary in California around 1984. And my third and final interaction with him was at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, IL around 2000, just three years before he changed address to heaven. It was a rainstorm and I stopped to give him a ride from one building to another on campus. He was gracious and kind man, just like in his books.
Today, I ran across this homily from the great man. Enjoy.
The Song in the Night (Luke 2:8-20)
A Christmas Homily from Carl F. H. Henry
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace to men of good will.”
Carl Ferdinand Howard Henry (1913-2003) was an American evangelical Christian theologian who provided intellectual and institutional leadership to the neo-evangelical movement in the mid-to-late 20th century. His early book, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (Eerdmans, 1947), was influential in calling evangelicals to differentiate themselves from separatist fundamentalism and claim a role in influencing the wider American culture.
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