A Review of “Recovering Classic Evangelicalism” by Gregory Alan Thornbury

This is the most philosophically robust tiny book I have ever read! It’s a relatively thin paperback, and yet I was shocked at how rich and deep its content was. What surprised me about this book, however, is also what makes it an important work. We live in an age of pseudo, pop, “experts.” Their books line the shelves of Christian bookstores and get celebrated on Christian websites. Most of these books communicate the same sorts of pop-theology that have come to characterize far too much of Christian interest in recent years. Celebrity pastors who consider themselves experts on everything write books with poorly developed arguments and simplistic theology and they are celebrated as “ground-breaking.” Such was not the case with Carl F. Henry, as Thornbury makes evidently clear in this book. Recovering Classic Evangelicalism is far more than a biography, however. It is a thorough interaction with the key ideas of Henry and a call to recover his vision for a philosophically robust and culturally relevant Evangelicalism. This is a book the church needs today to restrengthen modern Evangelicalism.

Evangelicalism has a bit of an identity crisis today, says Thornbury. It’s part of our heritage at one level. “Evangelicals are a people constantly second-guessing themselves and constantly reimaginning their project(s) along those lines” (17). But this trend, particularly in the 21st century, is leading us “to the threshold of dispensing with certain convictions that once inspired and animated evangelicals towards greatness” (21). These convictions make up the chapters of Thornbury’s book. Stated positively they are listed as “Epistemology Matters,” “Theology Matters,” “Inerrancy Matters,” and “Culture Matters.” It is because these very subjects are held in suspicion among modern Evangelicals that Thornbury aims to reintroduce us to the person and work of Carl F. H. Henry, the former dean of Evangelicalism. But this is no mere hagiography. The book is at once both about and not about Carl Henry. Henry is a lens through which to contemplate and wrestle with the modern state of Evangelicalism. Henry has much to share with those of us who still go by this label.

What is it that made the Evangelicalism of Henry’s day so much stronger than the Evangelicalism of the present? For starters, argues Thornbury, it had a prolegomena. “What seems to be missing…is a substantive milieu – an epistemological backdrop against which the drama of redemption and the work of the church are played out” (39). In chapter one Thornbury calls for a renewed interest in epistemology among contemporary theologians. A great amount of the self-doubt and second-guessing so common among the contemporary scene is a result, he argues, of our abandoning the foundational work of epistemology. This was a compelling chapter for me where the author’s erudition shown through. Thornbury knows the work of Henry and of the continental philosophers well, and he utilizes that knowledge to argue for a return to foundationalist philosophy within Evangelicalism.

As he approaches the broader subject of theology Thornbury directs us to consider seven of the fifteen theses of Henry’s 6 volume masterpiece God, Revelation, and Authority. In this chapter Thornbury argues that what ultimately “makes evangelicals evangelical and what keeps them that way” is the doctrine of divine revelation (61). Much of the book can, in fact, be summarized as a defense of the evangelical conception of divine revelation. Thornbury, through Henry, summarizes the contemporary movement away from this conviction and the damage that it has done to Evangelicalism. The analysis of Hans Frei, George Lindbeck, Stanley Grenz, and even Kevin Vanhoozer in this section can be dense, but Thornbury avoids being overly technical. Throughout the discussion, however, the author highlights the weaknesses of the theological methodologies utilized today and calls us to a return to Henry’s theology built on a confidence in the Word of God.

In chapter four the author continues the trend of defending the Evangelical doctrine of revelation. Particularly he argues against the contemporary critiques that want to so nuance inerrancy as to obfuscate the very concept, or who simply attempt to dismiss it as a juvenile remnant of unenlightened age. Thornbury excels at interacting with and exposing these critiques. Perhaps even more helpfully he explores how the loss of this conviction in modern evangelicalism has simply weakened the movement as a whole. He believes the that the doctrine of inerrancy matters for the health and future of the movement. In fact the “recovery of confidence in propositional revelation and an inerrant Bible is, despite now decades of neglect and/or disdain, the last stand between the evangelical community and a new era of radical hermeneutics” (158). That’s what makes Henry so important, he argues. Henry was “tuned to a different frequency – that of theory and epistemology.” What Henry had that other Evangelical scholars don’t today was a conviction that “foundationalism” was essential. So Thornbury writes:

Although he was keen to defend the specifics of inerrancy on material grounds, his project in GRA was much greater. In essence, GRA sought to demonstrate that metaphysics is still philosophically and theologically viable. Ultimately, that is where the real debate lies. Henry sought to repair the great Copernican divide initiated by Kant and perpetuated by virtually every significant theologian of the twentieth century. In this sense, “foundationalism” was his chief and primary concern. (154)

Theologians today just aren’t cut from the same cloth. To strengthen Evangelicalism we need both restored confidence in the Word of God and a more thoroughly articulated philosophical foundation for that conviction. Those were things Henry provided.

Finally, Greg Thornbury asks us to believe that culture matters. Turning to Henry’s cultural agenda the author targets modern Evangelicalism’s hands-off approach to the culture. Citing Henry’s The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism Thornbury finds plenty of relevance. He challenges us to revisit our view of the Kingdom and of eschatology and see its connection and relevance to the present. We cannot change the world, he carefully reminds us, but that is not the same as saying we can’t influence positive reform within it. Evangelicalism in the past was powerful precisely because it was seen to be relevant to the culture. This is not a call to abandon theology and evangelism for social agendas. Henry is very clear on the futility of such a shift, Thornbury reminds us. Rather, it is a call to let our sound doctrine drive us to real engagement with the world. “In sum, Christianity without a passion to turn the world upside down bears no relation to apostolic Christianity” (169). Even here the answers is renewed theological vigor. Recovering social relevance means, for Henry, restudying our eschatology.

This is a significant work for many reasons. Primarily it’s important because of its emphasis on a renewed interest in foundationalism. Evangelicalism’s identity crisis has developed as it moved away from the development of prolegomena. Thornbury interacts with a number of Henry critics who saw the man as a cold, rationalistic, academic. Nothing could be further from the truth, he assures us, citing evidence from Henry’s own works. But for Thornbury the point is that Henry was very much interested in the issues of metaphysics, epistemology, and ontology. These philosophical subjects have waned in importance among evangelicals today ad as such Evangelicalism itself has suffered. Though the book has a positive development it’s very clearly written as a critique of modern evangelicalism. What we need today is not simply Carl F. H. Henry, rather we need to apply the vision that Henry had for Evangelicalism. Classic Evangelicalism was great, modern Evangelicalism can be again too. This book is a great starting place in restrengthening it. Pastors and Evangelical theologians would be well served in reading it.