Christian Countermoves in a Decadent Culture

by Carl F.H. Henry

Hardcover

149 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Carl Ferdinand Howard Henry was an American evangelical Christian theologian who served as the first editor-in-chief of the magazine Christianity Today, established to serve as a scholarly voice for evangelical Christianity and a challenge to the liberal Christian Century.

Reviews

[Ryan Reed]

This book contains a lot of good articles from Henry, but the editorial composition of the book - most of the chapters are a miscellanies collection of Henry’s sermons or talks - hampers its unity and readability.

Nevertheless, it is helpful to see Henry a preacher and an exegete.

[Gene]

This was one of those books I was in a hurry to get through. I think there were several reasons why the book didn't grip me: 1) I already agreed with most of the author's views and have heard/read better presentations of these views elsewhere, 2) The tone of the book was overly scholarly, and not in a good sense, but in the sense in which lots of words are used to say very little, to tone down absolute statements with lots of hedging and equivocating, 3) The book is a bit dated and some of the issues (e.g. the Moral Majority, nuclear annihilation) are not so relevant anymore, 4) It seemed a bit like preaching to the choir, rallying the Evangelicals to finally really publish something that would speak to the culture in one united voice. But that seems a bit forced to me; better to let evangelicals do what they do best.

And that is teach Scripture. And when Carl F.H. Henry does that in this book, he actually does it quite well. That's one of the strong suits of the book. His analyses of the account of the woman at the well and the Gospel contents related to mental illness were really interesting.

Also interesting, and related to #2 and #3 above, is that the pro-life stance he takes seems a bit weaker than what I'm used to hearing now. Pro-lifers are much stronger and more confident than they were back in the '80s. Good, progress is being made.

Still, glad to be done with the book and I don't feel any great enthusiasm to read anything by CFHH again anytime soon.