Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 17:3 (Fall 2013)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

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SBTJ 17:3 (Fall 2013) p. 74

Book Reviews

Recovering Classic Evangelicalism: Applying the Wisdom and Vision of Carl F. H. Henry. By Gregory Alan Thornbury. Wheaton: Crossway, 2013, 223 pp., $17.99 paper.

Thornbury, who has just completed fifteen years of service at Union University and now been appointed President of The King’s College, aims in this book to rekindle some of Carl Henry’s theology with a view to strengthening “classic evangelicalism.” Compared with the evangelicalism of our day, which in Thornbury’s view is insipid, awash in defeatism, confused in theology, and almost destitute of cultural influence, the evangelicalism that Henry led surged with faithfulness and genuine promise. Henry himself was one of several “giants” who led the movement. Today, however, when one surveys 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 … And how do we find our way back?” (32). By bringing to life some of Henry’s thought, Thornbury hopes with this book to promote some of the strengths of our recent past. In other words, Thornbury does not aim simply to provide an evenhanded summary and evaluation of Henry the theologian, but by expounding what one might call the essential Henry to bring robust theology and passionate renewal to a movement that sometimes feels as if it has slipped past its “sell by” date.

After an opening chapter in which he lays out “The Lost World of Classic Evangelicalism,” in five further chapters Thornbury successively attempts to show, from Henry, why “Epistemology Matters,” “Theology Matters,” “Inerrancy Matters,” “Culture Matters,” and (in a brief concluding chapter) “Evangelicalism Matters.” The volume concludes with a selected bibliography of works by Carl F. H. Henry.

Thornbury draws attention to the fact that, although he refers to a number of Henry’s works (but not to any archival material), in this book he primarily interacts with only three of them: volumes 2 and 4 of God, Revelation and Authority, and The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism.

SBTJ 17:3 (Fall 2013) p. 75

These focus on the themes he chooses to address. Thornbury convincingly argues that Henry should be seen as an heir of “Reformation epistemology”—that is, a theologian in the heritage of the Reformation who begins with God and God’s self-disclosure as the theologian confronts the challenges of modernity. The charge that Henry is himself hopelessly ensnared in the modernity he confronts, frequently leveled against Henry, Thornbury refutes in some detail. McGrath, for example, criticizes Henry’s view of revelation, dismissing it on the groun...

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