Carl Henry: 20th Century Augustine

Every few centuries, a Christian thinker of universal significance makes his appearance and, through force of learning and persuasiveness, put his stamp on an entire movement or era. In the early church, we think of men like Athanasius, Ambrose, and Augustine. The Middle Ages had its Aquinas, the Reformation its Luther and Calvin. John Owen stands out among Puritan writers, Jonathan Edwards among the heirs of the Puritans.

In an article which I read a few years ago, Carl Henry was quoted as saying that he believed our age needed a new Augustine to rise to the challenge of a dying civilization and the emergence of a new Dark Ages. I believe that he is the very man for whom he called.

Since Augustine of Hippo is commonly regarded as one of the handful of theologians of world-class significance mentioned above, my association of Henry with him requires an explanation. This article will attempt to make that claim credible.

Differences

Everyone is unique, including Augustine and Henry. Separated by more than fifteen centuries, they differ in important respects. Augustine led a life of wild self-indulgence, even debauchery, before God changed him in a garden in Italy. He wallowed in lust and fornication, early taking a mistress who bore him a son. After his conversion, he sent her to a convent. Henry, on the other hand, though mischievous and quite attracted to pretty girls as a youth, did not run into the same excesses. He married while still a student and sired several children. In other words, Augustine was profligate before his conversion and celibate afterwards, but Henry was celibate before his conversion and then lived the rest of his life with his wife.

Their lifestyles differed in other ways. Augustine stayed close to home after returning from Italy to Africa following his decision to enter the Christian ministry. Though he traveled around his diocese after he was consecrated as Bishop of Hippo, he never again left North Africa. Most of his ministry concentrated upon his own church and theological college.

By contrast, few men have ranged as far and wide as Carl Henry, who has flown to every inhabited continent and several dozen different countries. Though he served several churches as pastor in his student years, he has for most of his life been connected not to a church, but to various “para-church” organizations, such as Fuller Seminary (where he taught for ten years as one of the founding faculty) and the magazine Christianity Today (of which he was founding editor). He has spoken to countless churches, seminaries, university student groups, conferences, academic meetings, and press conferences.

Though he is certainly not anti-church, Henry’s greatest organizational accomplishments and endeavors have produced not new churches but such ministries as Christianity Today, The Evangelical Theological Society, and Fuller Seminary.
Personalities vary widely among great men. Augustine’s Confessions – one of the most profound and eloquent books of all time – probes deeply into the author’s soul, and ranges widely over complex philosophical and theological questions. Henry entitled his autobiography Confessions of a Theologian, in obvious imitation of Augustine, but there the similarity ends.

Though engagingly written, salted with wit, and not without some self-revelation, his chronicle focuses more on his activities and crucial decisions (such as whether to become, and then remain, Editor of Christianity Today) than either the inner workings of his mind or the grand ideas that fill the pages of God, Revelation, & Authority (GRA). We are blessed to have this story, with all its details of both cooperation and strife, including betrayal, among Evangelicals. For one thing, it lays bare Henry’s passions – Evangelical engagement with the world, theological vigor, evangelistic outreach, and strategic alliances among those of like mind.

The two men hold certain opposing theological beliefs as well. Augustine defended infant baptism; Henry is a Baptist who believes in the immersion of adult believers. Recalling his own boyhood baptism by an Episcopalian minister who intoned the words from the Book of Common Prayer, “seeing that this child is now regenerate,” he remarked, “I was, in fact, no more regenerate than the Long Island telephone directory.” Augustine served as a bishop in what he called the Catholic (universal) Church, an organization marked by clear hierarchy. Henry belongs to the Northern Baptist Convention, which holds to congregational autonomy.

They would differ on other points, too.

Similarities

On the other hand, these two theological giants share so many distinctives that I see them as basically two manifestations of the same collection of ability, attitude, and activity that set them apart from the vast majority of church leaders over the past two thousand years.

Early Unbelief

Augustine’s mother, Monica, prayed for her son for many years. And with good reason. Not only was Augustine sexually immoral; he dabbled in all sorts of beliefs also. Spurning the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church, he joined the chief rival to Christianity in Africa, Manichaeism. Later, he became a skeptic.

Henry was born into a family of only nominal faith. One parent was a Lutheran, the other a Roman Catholic. As a compromise, they attended the Episcopal church, where Henry was baptized and confirmed as a teenager. As soon as he could, he abandoned any church connections and lived the life of a worldling, though never guilty of as much licentiousness as Augustine.

Perhaps these experiences of life without faith in Christ enabled both men to appreciate the transformation that conversion brings, as well as to understand the doubts and hesitations of non-believers. Significantly, each had a powerful effect on non-Christian thought and culture.

Training in “rhetoric”

Augustine was schooled in rhetoric, the leading academic discipline of his day. He became such an outstanding rhetorician that he was invited to become public orator in Milan, functional capital of the Roman Empire at the time. Though freedom of speech had long disappeared from Roman life, speeches of all sorts still held central place on public occasions. One could not advance far in professional life without learning how to speak well. To that end, students had to master not only grammar and logic, but the literature, religion, politics, and history of both Rome and Greece.

In some ways, journalism – at least before the domination of television – holds a similar place in modern society. Not only does a good journalist have to write well, but he must possess a wide knowledge of all sorts of disciplines in order to know about what to write, and how to place his stories in their appropriate context. Carl Henry started out as a newspaper reporter, then became editor for several small-town newspapers.
No doubt, his training as a journalist sharpened Henry’s natural gift for written expression, a gift which would mature into a brilliant and unique writing style.

Encyclopedic learning

Not many have possessed such vast learning as either of Augustine or Henry. You have only to skim a few pages of the former’s City of God or the latter’s God, Revelation, & Authority to realize that you are in the presence of a towering intellect furnished with stupendous knowledge. Augustine’s mastery of ancient philosophy, literature, and history is matched by Henry’s grasp of the philosophy, theology, and science of the past two millennia. Each one seems to have memorized huge portions of Scripture.

Augustine had fewer books to read, but he could cite the Roman historians and poets at will. Literally hundreds of authors and titles fill the pages of the bibliography of Henry’s 6-volume magnum opus, and he seems to be able to quote relevant passages from them whenever necessary to illustrate a point. Each one had a sure grasp of the writings of other theologians. Of Henry, Bishop Fulton Sheen wrote that his “knowledge of theology, both of contemporary and historical theology, is positively astounding.” (1)

Prodigious labors

Though Augustine did not have to work for a living as a youth, he made up for wasted years as an adult. After his conversion, he authored many volumes of ponderous theological and apologetical works. As a busy pastor, he preached almost daily, taught a school for prospective preachers, corresponded with the leading men of his age, handled the burdensome administrative duties of a big-city bishop, traveled to nearby towns and villages to oversee the churches in his diocese, and engaged in theological controversy. His literary output was enormous, and none of it can be called superficial, so he must have spent a corresponding amount of time reading and thinking.

Carl Henry was born into a life of unremitting toil. His family was not well off, so he supplemented his father’s income with his earnings from a variety of jobs, in addition to helping with household chores. With his siblings he pushed a cart loaded with produce to a nearby village, where they “peddled fresh vegetables and flowers house to house” until dark. Later, he worked as a caddy in a country club, but down pine trees for a local realtor, served in a hospital as assistant attendant. Finally, as a result of phenomenal typing speed (85 words per minute on an old-fashioned machine) he earned a job with a local newspaper, thus beginning his career as a journalist.

Never a person to do only one thing at a time, Henry typically carried several responsibilities simultaneously – reporting and writing for three or four newspaper; working as a journalist while earning various academic degrees; pursuing two Master’s degrees at one time, then two doctoral degrees; speaking, teaching in seminaries, lecturing around the world, writing, editing a major magazine. His biography abounds with references to long days and nights; weekends at his desk; vacations spent on some urgent project.

The result, as with Augustine, has been an amazing productivity well into his mid-eighties. God, Revelation, & Authority is only the longest and greatest of his publications. He has edited many volumes on vital subjects such as science and theology and the nature of the inspiration of the Bible; written countless editorials, columns, and articles; and authored stand-alone volumes on ethics, both personal and social, that still command attention for their balance and challenge.

Henry has traveled to every continent, giving lectures to dozens of seminaries, conferences, churches, student groups, and seminars. His speaking schedule alone would daunt most men; coupled with the constant travel, Henry’s public teaching ministry seems almost apostolic. The Preface to Volume Three of GRA, for example, lists Manila, Singapore, London, Hong Kong, Zagred (Yugoslavia), Toronto, Vancouver, and Taipei alongside almost a dozen cities in the United States as places where parts of various chapters were delivered in lecture form. Without secretarial help for the last two decades of his ministry, Henry nevertheless carried on a voluminous correspondence with professors, students, denominational executives, and church leaders all over the world.

Commitment to Theological education

Like St. Augustine, who founded a theological college, Henry has always had a burden for advanced Christian education. As one of the founding faculty of Fuller Seminary, he helped to shape an institution that soon rose to pre-eminence. He has lectured and taught courses at seminaries all over the world in pursuit of a more theologically-informed pastoral ministry among Evangelicals.

Henry has a flair for mobilizing others to cooperate in new ventures of strategic value. To strengthen theological education among Evangelicals, he helped to start the Evangelical Theological Society. ETS has brought together leading scholars from universities and seminaries in North America to discuss both burning issues and long-term perspectives for theologians. Almost all his books were aimed at theologically-trained readers. Even Christianity Today began as a magazine for clergy, seminarians, and theologians, not for laymen. Henry perceived that the pulpit led the church; to influence preachers and teachers was always his first priority.

Brilliant writing

One reason for linking Augustine and Henry is their common possession of a rare gift, that of stunningly brilliant writing. Interestingly, each employs a style that features a vast vocabulary, plays on words, scathing humor, long paragraphs, complex sentences, and tight construction. Somehow, both men achieve fullness of exposition without excess verbiage. Unlike his great antagonist, Karl Barth, Henry does not wear the reader out with endless qualifications and nice but unnecessary distinctions, nor does he weave a fabric of mutually-contradictory statements. Always clear and consistent, Henry, like Augustine, seems to have at his disposal a limitless supply of pointed words and phrases that express exactly what he wants to way.

To be sure, he sometimes does seem to go on too long when explaining the views of contemporary thinkers, which is why this writer has made an abridgment of the Chinese edition of GRA. Nevertheless, Henry’s prose is always excellent, and at times his style rises to the sublime. Some chapters in GRA were so beautiful and eloquent that I had to force myself to omit anything when making the abridgment.

Controversies

Like their primary theological model Paul, Augustine and Henry penned most of their works in the midst of controversy. The bishop of Hippo refuted the Manichaeans, Donatists, and Pelagians, asserting that God has no equal, but evil, force with whom or which to contend; that the church contains sinners; and that salvation comes through God’s sovereign grace alone.

Henry will always be known for his definitive defense of the inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy of Scripture, which he rightly saw to be the primary point at issue in the 20th century and beyond. Along the way, he expounded the knowability and sovereign freedom of God, the serviceability of language for revelation, the unique deity and humanity of Jesus, the meaning of history, the nature and purpose of the church, and the certainty of the Christian hope – among other key doctrines!

Like Augustine in his early Against the Academics and later in the City of God, Henry in GRA dealt a mortal blow to intellectual relativism and skepticism. If, as the relativist asserts, there is no absolute truth, or at least none that can be known, how can this “absolute” claim be made by skeptics? His analysis of the four ways of knowing, the rise and fall of logical positivism, the questionable use of “science” to challenge the Bible, and the inconsistencies of Neo-Orthodoxy and its offspring will remain essential weapons of Evangelicals for decades to come.

The Key to History

Augustine heard the news of the sack of Rome from his home in North Africa. Not many years later, the Vandals were banging on the gates of Carthage as he lay dying. Truly, Rome’s days of glory had long passed. From his perspective, Augustine could analyze both the rise and the fall of that great Empire. Much of the relevance of his City of God stems from its analysis of the causes both of Rome’s rise and of her descent into chaos. He turned current events, seen in the light of history, into a platform for propounding the deepest doctrines of God’s justice, love, and sovereignty, as well as the meaning of the flow of history. Indeed, Christian historiography began with the City of God, just as his Confessions paved the way for Western writers to share their deepest secrets and strongest longings (though Europe had to wait until Rousseau penned his own Confessions).

Just as Augustine enjoyed citizenship in a dying Rome, so Henry carried an American passport throughout many decades of America’s rise to world pre-eminence. GRA laid bare for all to see the seeds of internal rot that would eviscerate the mind and then cripple the will of a once-great nation. With a prophet’s perspective, Henry spied the coming intellectual and moral collapse of a civilization that had jettisoned its precious Christian heritage and taken on the scraps and refuse of Europe, itself a victim of its own mental suicide. For decades, Henry pleaded with both private individuals and public leaders in the church and the academy to stand firm against the encroaching plague of relativism. Towards the end, he seems to have understood that, lacking a sustained and reasoned cooperation among Evangelicals, American society would follow down the same path that had turned the Old World into a hollow shell.

And yet, no one seems to have a clearer sense of the purpose and goal of history than he. Despite the almost inevitable ruin of his beloved nation, Henry could remain positive about the future. His travels had merely strengthened the conclusions reached in his study that the Gospel would penetrate to, and influence, the far corners of the globe. On day, no matter which nation temporarily sat on the throne of world power, Jesus Christ will return to take his rightful place as visible and unchallenged ruler of nations and of individuals.

Indeed, one of the clearest links between Augustine and Henry can be found in their unwavering confidence that the purposes of God to build his city on earth would prevail. In contrast to competing views of the progress of human events, Henry’s analysis stands strong and bright, like a lighthouse in a raging hurricane, while the lights in little houses below flicker and fail one by one. To read his exposition of the revelation of God in history (found in the last section of Volume Two and the last two sections of Volume Four) is to stand on a very high mountain surveying a seemingly wild and convoluted terrain below. “The Awful Silences of Eternity (IV, 26) and “God Who Stays: The Finalities” (VI, 21) contain passages that seem to cast a heaven-sent beam illuminating the entire course of mankind’s arduous pilgrimage to the New Creation.

Theological Breadth

Although he never intended GRA to be a complete systematic theology, by re-stating key doctrines in dialogue with their chief detractors, Henry covered almost all the fundamental truths of the Bible and of historic theology. He thus achieved more than topical and temporary relevance in his ceaseless critique of spokesmen of the hydra-headed beast of modern Gnosticism. He never lived in some ivory tower, unaware of the currents of controversy swirling around the church and even sending torrents of false teaching down the aisle and into the pulpit (or perhaps we should say, from the pulpit to the pew!).

Even a cursory glance at the contents of GRA will show how widely Henry ranges in this six-volume set. Like Athanasius, Augustine, Martin Luther, John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, and a host of lesser theologians, Henry did not set out to write a complete systematic theology. Instead, like them, he concentrated upon the issues need the most attention at the time, or those which he felt most burdened and equipped to address.
Henry’s first well-known book – actually a very short work, was the Uneasy Conscience of American Fundamentalism, which called the church to more active engagement with the world. It was followed by volumes on personal ethics and on social ethics.

GRA, on the other hand, goes to the root of the matter: The truth and how we know it – or, more properly, Him. Perceiving that the fundamental challenge facing the church is a crisis in authority, he spent four volumes on what may be called the doctrine of the Word of God, or the doctrine of revelation. After an initial survey of different ways of knowing and the strengths and weaknesses of each, concluding with a presentation of what might be called Augustinian or Calvinistic epistemology (as distinct from Thomist epistemology), Henry moved on to treat God’s various forms of revelation from a variety of viewpoints.

In the process, he included chapters on the nature of Scripture, its inspiration, infallibility and inerrancy, along with a theistic view of language and of human logic. We would expect all that in a work on revelation and authority. As he expounds the doctrine of the Word of God, he treats us to a banquet of marvelous chapters on the image of God in man; the Logos of God; the incarnation, death, resurrection, and return of Christ; the work of the Holy Spirit in revelation and in the church; the names and nature of God, including his being, becoming, and attributes; the Trinity; the knowability of God; God as creator (with a brilliant expose of the mutual inconsistencies of various theories about evolution); angels, Satan, and the fall of man; the goodness of God and the problem of evil; the fatherhood, holiness, and love of God; the doctrine of providence; the nature of the church and its role in society; and the last things - and this is only a partial list!

Along the way, he discusses matters commonly associated with Biblical – as distinct from systematic – theology, demonstrating a mastery of modern scholarship dealing with both Old and New Testament. It was not for nothing that Henry earned a Bachelor of Divinity, two Masters of Theology, and two Doctorates (one in theology, one in philosophy). His skill in Hebrew and Greek allows him to interact with other scholars in matters of exegetical detail, while his grasp of both ancient and modern philosophy and theology enables him to see the big picture.

Thus, I was disappointed when I read in 20th Century Theology, by Stanley Grenz and Roger Olsen, that “Henry has never been a systematic theologian… Henry is perhaps better characterized as a commentator on the fortunes of theology in the twentieth century.” (2) The authors admit that GRA is systematic in nature, but chide Henry for constantly referring extensively to other writers even in this work.

True, Henry does not deal with all the topics of systematic theology, and in that sense is not a “systematic theologian,” but neither have most of the theologians they discuss in their overview of 20th century theology, nor have many of the greatest thinkers of the Christian church, as we saw above. One may as well criticize Augustine for citing so many non-biblical writers in his City of God! This fact highlights the thesis of this article, that Henry is a 20th century Augustine, and no less important an author for our time as Augustine was for his.

Apologetics

Like Augustine in the City of God and several other works, especially Against the Academics, Henry shows himself to be a master apologist. Realizing that the church was swamped with anti-Christian theories from without, and intellectual confusion from within, Henry sought to equip evangelicals to answer objections to Biblical truth as well as to re-state the fundamental points of Christian doctrine for believers. Non-Christians reading GRA – or any of his several important compendia of essays assessing modern theology and expounding an Evangelical position - would be challenged to re-think their assumptions and conclusions and to admit that, at the very least, Biblical Christianity is a reasonable faith – indeed, the most credible of all world views.

He shows that skepticism about God flows more from prejudice than sound reasoning or solid knowledge of the Bible. He demolishes the various 20th century objections to Biblical faith, including logical positivism. He demonstrates why a belief both in God and in the Bible stands on very solid grounds.

Augustine, after a long attachment to Platonism (or at least the form in which he found it), later wrote against speculative philosophy in the City of God. Likewise, Henry, armed with a Ph.D. in modern philosophy and a sound knowledge of ancient philosophical systems, shows in many places why philosophers who ignore God’s revelation cannot ever arrive at a solid clear knowledge of God.

In the City of God, Augustine replied to those who blamed the fall of Rome on the failings of Christians. Henry’s earlier ethical writings refuted the charge that Christians are “so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.” The sections in GRA on the role of Christians and of the church as the new society of God state more briefly the case for engagement with the world by individual believers and the church as a whole.

Henry’s apologetic approach stands squarely in the Augustinian tradition. Unlike Aquinas in the Middle Ages and such modern Protestant apologists as C.S. Lewis, Norman Geisler, and R.C. Sproul, he does not try to reason from the visible world to the invisible God. He rejects as insufficient the so-called “arguments” or “proofs” for the existence of God which Aquinas popularized in his Summa Theologica. Noting the question whether the traditional five arguments are really one, he merely shows why they are logically inconclusive. Instead, he believes that they demonstrate that belief in God is reasonable.

Like Augustine, Henry employs all the tools of reason, not to prove the Christian faith, but to understand it and manifest its superior internal consistency and logical power.
Nor does he adopt the evidentialist approach of J.W. Montgomery and the popular Josh Mc Dowell. Though he fills the first four volumes of GRA with sufficient evidence to support his conviction that the Bible is true in every respect – see, for example, his chapter on the evidence for the resurrection of Christ – he knows that mountains of evidence will never persuade the determined skeptic.

Both the rationalist and the evidential approaches fail, Henry explains, because of what he calls “the noetic effects of sin” or of the Fall. In other words, the doctrine of original sin – which he believes is fully Biblical – teaches that the mind, as well as the will, has been corrupted by the rebellion of Adam and our willful resistance to God (as outline in the first chapter of Romans). Thus, neither our reason nor our senses can grasp eternal verities unless they have been liberated and enlightened by the revelation of God.

On the other hand, he does not fully subscribe to the presuppositionalist view of Cornelis Van Til and his disciples. Indeed, he shows their similarity to Karl Barth, who argued that there is absolutely no common ground between faith and unbelief, no contact point between Biblical and non-biblical world views. Like Gordon Clark, whom he freely acknowledges as his mentor, Henry affirms that, though the mind is corrupted by sin, we are still bearers of the image of God. Just as our wills are capable of some virtuous acts (though not good enough to satisfy God’s absolute standards), so our minds are capable of receiving words from God and of reasoning out the implications of His divine revelation.

No one has defended the universal validity of the laws of logic more fiercely than Carl Henry. Against the confusing and self-contradictory dialectical ramblings of the other great “Karl” of the 20th century, Henry argues for the clarity and consistency of Biblical revelation. Turning to those who would propose the existence of many kinds of logic, he insists that all human think in basically the same ways, though their manners of expression may vary. His chapters on language and logic, like so much else in GRA, make prophetic reading for those confronting the post-modern milieu of the academy.

In other words, he has imitated Paul in Athens when he reasoned with the pagan philosophers. Henry dignifies the unbeliever by treating him like a fellow person created in the image of God. He assumes that an honest pagan will recognize certain arguments and lines of evidence as either true or at least valid. Throughout his long career, Henry eagerly engaged in debate and dialogue with those who rejected outright the Christian position, and always with the gentility and courtesy for which he was justly famous. (3)

Theology

Like Luther, Calvin, Owen, and Edwards before him, Henry shares Augustine’s basic theological framework: God has revealed himself through the Scriptures as a sovereign and gracious Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer of men and women created in his own image. Henry’s theology is first, last, and always Biblical, though he uses reason, intuition, and experiential evidence to elucidate and support the words of the Bible.

He holds to the doctrine of the Trinity, though he does not accept all of Augustine’s formulation of it in De Trinitate (On the Trinity). For him, as for Augustine, God’s grace is free and unmerited, and totally independent of man’s choice. He too believe in election and predestination, based as these doctrines are on both the nature of God and the pervasive corruption of human sin, which makes “free” choice of God impossible for the unregenerate.

He shares Augustine’s intense passion for personal holiness and for the purity of the church, which he also sees as a bastion and foretaste of the kingdom of God on earth. Though we await the full manifestation of God’s total rule over a renewed heaven and earth, we are not without responsibility. Indeed, the lives of Christians individually and corporately reflect the character of the God whom they profess to worship, and make the Gospel credible or incredible to a watching world. As we saw above, both men believed that the Bible applies to the Bible to the state and to humanity as a whole, including all the arts and sciences.

Despite their different church affiliations, neither Augustine nor Henry was a “puritan.” They recognized that sin will remain in the fellowship of the converted, and that even ministers of the Gospel will be infected by its corrosion. Allowing for the necessary changes in situation, I assume that Henry would also have disagreed with the Donatists, who sought a pure church.

Throughout his career, Henry sought to strengthen the hands of those who chose to remain in denominations which were repudiating the apostolic faith. He kept his own membership in the American Baptist Convention, and gladly lectured at seminaries where, because of his convictions, he would not have been allowed to join the faculty. Some Evangelicals might fault him for an excessive desire to influence “liberal” church leaders, but at least we can say that he, like Augustine, eschewed the notion that any Christian organization could be free from sin and error.

World-wide Influence

Though confined to his own diocese, Augustine exercised international influence through his writings, including his extensive correspondence with Christian leaders around the Mediterranean world. Henry, too, has made an impact on the church in every continent. We have already noted his globe-circling travels. His many books added to the reach of Christianity Today, and not just only during his twelve-year term as Editor of that journal. Given the opportunity, former students of his at Fuller Seminary and eager listeners to his lectures would join grateful readers of his substantial works to give thanks to God for the insight and encouragement Henry has conveyed to countless believers and seekers.

Humility

If they did express appreciation, from my experience I think he would deflect all praise towards God. Once, when I thanked him for the immense labor which gave us GRA, he said, “We all do our part.” Then he added, “I couldn’t do it now,” referring to his age and frailty.

As I write these lines, he lies in bed, unable to walk. A back injury in his youth caused pain, but did not stop him from going wherever duty called until last year, when it finally gave out. I can only guess, but it would not surprise me if he, too, were, like his grand predecessor, spending his days in confession and humble contrition. As he lay on his deathbed, Augustine ordered that the penitential psalms be put up on the walls and ceiling of his room, that he might bewail his manifold offenses and call upon the mercy of the God in whose grace he had trusted.

Passion for the salvation of souls and for God Himself

Despite its marked dissimilarity to the Confessions of Augustine, Henry’s autobiography leaves no doubt about the driving passions of his life. Through profound theological writing, incisive commentary, sharp debate; through evangelistic sermons and articles; and through the steady determination that pushes through pain and does not complain, Carl Henry always sought the salvation of souls through faith in Jesus Christ.

At the end of his story, Henry recounts a dream-like experience he had while waiting in yet another airport for yet another flight. It seemed that someone like his son was prodding him with pointed questions about his life. "What do you treasure most?" this person asked. "What is your greatest treasure?'

Let Henry’s last words conclude this essay:

"I’d begin with the Scripture… the most read book of my life. And communion with God…waiting before God. I have done less waiting than working, and my works would have been better had I waited more. But I have enjoyed God’s incomparable companionship…My deepest memories are those spent waiting before God, often praying for others…sometimes waiting before him in tears, sometimes in joy, sometimes wrestling alternatives, sometimes just worshipping him in adoration. Heaven will be an unending feast for the soul that basks in his presence. And it will be brighter because some will be there who I brought to Jesus… It is Christ alone who will give unending meaning to a future that will become and remain ever present."

(4)