Carl F. H. Henry and Kenneth Kantzer Lectures on Evangelicalism

Dr. Carl F. H. Henry

The following links are at the Henry Center website of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.  Please click on these links to see the videos of the lectures:

Know Your Roots:  Part 1:  Kenneth Kantzer

Know Your Roots:  Part 2:  Carl F. H. Henry

Know Your Roots:  Part 3:  D. A. Carson:  Q & A

Know Your Roots:  Part 4:  Discussion Continued


Unfortunately, the lecture of Kenneth Kantzer is overly optimistic about Neo-Evangelicalism and centers on a doctrinal minimalism that reduces Evangelicalism to an ecumenical unity that even includes Roman Catholics as having "Evangelicals" in the ranks of the Roman Catholic Church.  Unfortunately, the Roman Catholic Church still officially condemns the Gospel in the canons of the Council of Trent. 

Kantzer also confuses civil religion with biblical Christianity as if being a Christian is more about opposing abortion and pornography and homosexual marriage than promoting the law/gospel distinstinction and the ordinary means of grace.  Kantzer's lecture is typical of the theology of glory and social transformation rather than the eternal consequences for souls who reject the theology of the cross.

Carl F. H. Henry, a student of Gordon H. Clark believed that the Bible is literally the Word of God and consists of binding propositional truth claims in logical form.  Carl Henry's critique of Evangelicalism is much more pointed and biblical and Reformed in nature.  He does not give a blanket endorsement to any and every claim to be "Evangelical" but focuses on the doctrinal issues at stake.  See lecture number 2.  Yet, even Carl Henry was a bit too optimistic.  Cultural involvement is not necessarily a sure way to transform society. Henry himself overlooked the dangers of the Neo-Evangelical ecumenicalism that reduced the distinctions between Arminianism and Calvinism, Reformed and classical Protestant theology and the neo-paganism of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement, and the differences between Rome and Geneva to merely issues of degree rather than absolute differences that separate true Christianity from false Christianity.

Henry's warning at the end of the lecture concerning the postmodernist view is applicable to Michael Horton's new systematic theology, which in my opinion gives away the bank to the postmodernists and the neo-orthodox view.

In Christ,

Charlie

Addendum:  After carefully listening to all four of these sessions, I have to say the entire thing is overly optimistic, particularly in light of the open hostility between Arminians and Calvinists and particularly the open hostility between Pentecostal/Charismatics and the Reformed side of things.  Evangelicalism is indeed a meaningless term and so is the term "Calvinist" these days.  The internecine theological and cultural wars within the Reformed traditon between the Clarkians and the Van Tilians, between the Federal Visionists and the more traditional Calvinists, and even the hostility between Lutherans and Calvinists all points to what is basically a facade of "unity" in Evangelicalism.  Basically, the only unity that exists is on the political front, a unity which is in name only as well.  As Westminster Seminary California likes to point out, any secularization of the church and accommodation to the culture is in the end detrimental to the Gospel.

I was particularly amused when Carl Henry called Jimmy Carter an "Evangelical".  If Carter is an Evangelical, then so is Barack Obama!  Carter was part of the "moderate" wing of the Southern Baptist Convention, which then left and started another denomination.  Basically, Kenneth Kantzer wound up being more honest in saying there is no real unity.  I think Carl Henry wound up being a Baptist and not a confessional Reformed theologian.  In the end his Baptist theology led him in the direction of a facade we call "broad Evangelicalism".  It is indeed 3,000 miles long and 1/4 inch deep.

Charlie