Know Your Roots: Evangelicalism Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

D. A. Carson, in Basics for Believers: An Exposition of Philippians (p. 58), writes:

Several
years ago I was asked to interview Dr. Carl F. H. Henry and Dr. Kenneth
S. Kantzer for a videotaping. These two American theologians have been
at the heart of much of the evangelical renaissance in the Western
world, especially, but not exclusively, in America. Each was about
eighty years of age at the time of the videotaping. One [i.e., Henry]
has written many books; the other [i.e,. Kantzer] brought to birth and
nurtured one of the most influential seminaries in the Western world.
They both have been connected with Billy Graham, the Lausanne movement,
the assorted congresses on evangelism, the influential magazine Christianity Today,
and much more. The influence of these Christian leaders extends to the
countless numbers of younger pastors and scholars whom they have helped
to shape not only by their publications and public teaching but by the
personal encouragement at which both have excelled. Both men gave
lectures for the video cameras before several hundred theological
students, and then I interviewed them. Toward the end of that
discussion, I asked them a question more or less in these terms: “You
two men have been extraordinarily influential for almost half a
century. Without wanting to indulge in cheap flattery, I must say that
what is attractive about your ministries is that you have retained
integrity. Both of you are strong, yet neither of you is egotistical.
You have not succumbed to eccentricity in doctrine, nor to
individualistic empire-building. In God’s good grace, what has been
instrumental in preserving you in these areas?”

Both spluttered
in deep embarrassment. And then one of them [i.e., Henry] ventured,
with a kind of gentle outrage, “How on earth can anyone be arrogant
when standing beside the cross?”

That was a great moment, not
least because it was so spontaneous. These men had retained their
integrity precisely because they knew their attitude should be the same
as that of Jesus Christ (Phil. 2:5). They knew that they had been
called not only to believe in Christ but also to suffer for him. If
their Master had viewed equality with God not as something to be
exploited for personal advantage but as the basis for the humiliating
path to the cross, how could they view influential posts of Christian
leadership as something they should exploit for personal advantage?

The Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding, has now made this four-part, 120-minute video is available online for free.