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In the not-too-distant past, Kenneth Kantzer says, evangelicalism almost "went the way of the dodo and the dinosaur." "By 1930," he says, "the centers of American culture had become solidly unevangelical if not antievangelical." Carl F. H. Henry adds to this picture by calling "our century … one of the most turning and churning times in the history of humanity. Nowhere in the religious history of the West have the controlling beliefs of society changed so swiftly and as radically as in our twentieth-century struggle between theism and naturalism."

Both of these leaders, along with a host of others from various sectors, lived through this tumultuous period of ideological realignment and contended vigorously for the preservation and advancement of the faith of the Reformation. Because of their vision, tenacity, and theological acuity, evangelicalism as we know it today was able to regroup and rise from its nadir point of the thirties and, thankfully, did not go the way of the dodo.

Kenneth Kantzer earned a Ph.D. at Harvard and has taught at Wheaton College, served as dean of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and as editor of Christianity Today from 1978 to 1982. Carl Henry has earned two doctorates (from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary and from Boston University), has taught at Northern, Fuller Theological Seminary, and Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary and served as the first editor of Christianity Today, from 1956 to 1968. He has written many books, including the six-volume set God, Revelation, and Authority (1976-83).

John Woodbridge, professor of church history at Trinity, and CT associate editor Wendy Murray Zoba interviewed Drs. Kantzer and Henry, getting them to reflect on the battles waged and won in the forties and fifties, on issues more recently confronting contemporary evangelicalism, and on their vision for the future.

Most Christians are not familiar with your personal lives. Would you tell us something about your family backgrounds?

Henry: I was the oldest of eight children. As children we were sent to the Episcopal church for Sunday school. My parents were German immigrants, hard working, who became citizens. But they were merely nominal Christians. We had no prayers at table, no Bible, no devotions. The first Bible I ever had I pilfered from the pew racks of the Episcopal church.

Kantzer: My parents were loyal Lutherans, but knew very little about basic Lutheran doctrine. They were trying to be good enough so that in the final judgment they would pass muster and, hopefully, get into heaven. They were kind parents who felt that all children should go to Sunday school. In church I learned the Beatitudes, the Ten Commandments, and how a good Christian ought to live. Yet the gospel never came through to me. I'm sure the pastor believed it, but it never registered with me.

How did you come to a saving knowledge of Christ?

Henry: I was working as a suburban reporter for the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune, which led me finally to a position as an editor of a Long Island weekly. My thoughts at that time were shaped by the secular environment, except for the hour in Sunday school. About that time a University of Pennsylvania alumnus took an interest in me and made an appointment with me, which I broke three times. But even after that, he drove 50 miles to see me, and we talked for three hours about the implications of a Christian faith. My friend asked whether I would pray with him. He prayed the Lord's Prayer, and I prayed it after him. God met me in that prayer. From the Episcopal services I remembered the words "we look to the shed blood of Christ and are thankful." It all came together in that moment. I would have readily gone to China for Christ the very next day.

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September 16 1996, Vol. 40, No. 10