Carl Henry had an uncanny but winsome knack for seeing where the American church failed to live out the whole counsel of Scripture. As Jesse Payne’s incisive and readable Carl F. H. Henry on the Holy Spirit makes clear, one of Henry’s constant exhortations was for churches and individual Christians to depend utterly on the Spirit for effective ministry and transformative virtue. Admirers of Henry and students of evangelicalism will want to read this book. —Thomas S. Kidd, Vardaman Distinguished Professor of History, Baylor University
Evangelicalism will not experience renewal apart from a renewed dependence on the work of the Holy Spirit. And yet, evangelicals have often struggled to understand the Spirit, veering at times either to excess or to neglect. Who better to help navigate these pitfalls than evangelicalism’s architect, Carl F. H. Henry? In this book, Jesse Payne provides an accessible and well-researched study of Henry’s pneumatology, examining the work of the Spirit in revelation, the church, and the Christian life. For pastors and theologians alike, this is a work not only of historical scholarship but of discipleship, as we learn from Henry about the crucial role of the Spirit in our lives today. —Geoffrey Chang, assistant professor of historical theology and curator of the Spurgeon Library, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Jesse Payne’s work provides a fresh and convincing correction to the perception that Henry's theology was one-sided, lacking a developed pneumatology. Guiding readers through Henry’s treatment of the doctrine of revelation, the church, and Christian ethics, we find that Henry’s thought was thoroughly dependent on and inconceivable apart from the Holy Spirit. Payne’s volume fills an important role in our interpretation and understanding of this evangelical giant. I count it a privilege to recommend this fine book. —David S. Dockery, Distinguished Professor of Theology, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; president, International Alliance for Christian Education
Many think of the theology and life of Carl Henry as all head and no heart, but Payne corrects this misunderstanding. Henry’s theology wasn’t limited to propositional revelation but he also recognized, as Payne ably shows, that we desperately need the Holy Spirit for illumination, for the life of the church, and for personal ethics. Payne can be thanked for addressing an area of Henry’s theology that has been neglected. —Thomas R. Schreiner, James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation and professor of biblical theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Jesse Payne has performed a profound service for evangelicalism by disclosing the spirituality of America’s greatest propositional theologian. Digging deep into both well-known and less-consulted writings, Payne demonstrates irrefutably that Carl F. H. Henry is likewise a ‘theologian of the Spirit.’ This rings true, not only with regard to Henry’s teachings on the locus of revelation, but also the loci of the church and Christian ethics. —Malcolm B. Yarnell III, Research Professor of Theology, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; author of God the Trinity and Who Is the Holy Spirit?
Carl F. H. Henry on the Holy Spirit is a welcomed study that shines new and needed light on one of the twentieth century’s most important evangelical theologians. What’s welcomed is that Jesse Payne does not attempt to recast Henry as a primary pneumatological theologian, but rather lets the reader see how his pneumatology served to deepen and brighten Henry’s focal doctrine of revelation. This approach is something all ‘people of the book’ should cherish. —Jason G. Duesing, provost and professor of historical theology, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Here is a fresh, insightful study of Carl F. H. Henry’s pneumatology. Based on a close reading of Henry’s voluminous writings as well as his interaction with competing voices, Payne shows the importance of the Holy Spirit both in Henry’s thought and in the evangelical movement he loved and nurtured. Highly recommended! —Timothy George, Distinguished Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University; general editor, Reformation Commentary on Scripture
