Why We Need Christian Think Tanks

Carl F. H. Henry talks about the challenge of critical thinking.

In our last issue we announced the formation of the Christianity Today Institute. We have sensed the need for mature, scholarly thought applied to critical issues; the April 19 issue will include a major supplement from the institute’s first meeting on “The Christian As Citizen.”

Contributing to that meeting and the April supplement was Carl F. H. Henry. In light of his present and past experience with think tanks and their relationship to CT and the leadership community, we have interviewed him on the general subject of the need for broadly disseminated Christian thought.

How are the values and national goals of American society becoming restructured?

All the struts of civilized society seem to be giving way today, and the ferment in America is an aspect of that turmoil. The overarching question concerns the meaning and worth of human existence and survival; this embraces all the dilemmas of contemporary life, from the breakup of the family to abuse of drugs.

The church is affected because its families are affected. Humanism has penetrated education, the mass media, and politics, and it has debased God by insisting that he is irrelevant to the public realm. Further, much as it may at times be concerned to advance democracy, it has tended to underestimate the threat of totalitarian atheism.

Is the church providing an adequate response?

If by adequacy we mean effective confrontation, the evangelical community tends to reduce its task in society to negation rather than recognizing the need to construct a full-orbed Christian alternative.

How should evangelical thought leaders begin to shape an adequate response?

There are really three aspects to that: the place of evangelical thought leaders, the nature of a critical response, and the ways to affect society. At the outset, it should be said that conservative Christians have not esteemed their thinkers very highly. While we should honor those whose ministry is to put ideas into action, we must not devalue the intellectuals in the evangelical movement. Leadership is now too often identified with public activism, or entrepreneurial bigness, or mass media personality appeal.

Next, we must understand the nature of critical response. This is something more than hot rhetoric or the simplistic one-liner. We must honestly assess the alternatives being posed, identifying their weaknesses and inconsistencies, and also fairly representing their undesirable consequences. Beyond that, it is just as important to stipulate a clear and reasoned statement of a superior alternative that is obviously evangelical.

Finally, we must deal with two crucial aspects of how we can affect society. First, whatever needs to be said, we must say well. It is one thing to frame the problem and its answer correctly, but another to say it well. We must do this to gain a hearing. But, further, what we say needs to be heard where it most needs to be heard. Evangelicals tend to speak mostly to evangelicals rather than to the larger world.

How can something like that be generated? Are action-oriented Christian groups filling the gap?

Lobbies are important, but they are weak apart from a comprehensive philosophy and strategy. The independent lobbies are mainly one-issue efforts that tend to exalt political clout above all other referents; sooner or later, political clout can be exercised by people on contrary sides of every subject. The answer needs to include the more reasoned efforts that address the issues; that means literature—books, journals, and articles that reach a secular audience.

Many think tanks in Washington, D.C., analyze issues reflectively and suggest policy-setting priorities. Have evangelicals overlooked this possibility?

Evangelical think tanks have great potential if they are wisely conceived. Their agenda ought primarily to be set by the Bible. This means that a think tank aiming to serve the church will function Christianly if it presses the church to conform her agenda to the biblical mandate, and to rearrange her priorities properly. A competent think tank can raise the right questions and identify and reinforce right answers, but it will always be answerable to Holy Writ.

A secular think tank is answerable mainly to the intellects involved in it. How would a Christian institute remain accountable to Scripture?

It will need theologians, philosophers, ethicists, lawyers, and politicians who seek above all else to be guided by scriptural concerns.

So you think the term “think tank” suggests a useful approach in developing an evangelical response?

Yes, because the term “think tank,” or perhaps “institute,” is so broad it is very adaptable. On the scientific front, consider the Pasteur Institute formed in Paris almost a century ago. It produced magnificent results. Speaking generally, an institute exists for distinctive principles, and for either research, or study, or teaching, or communication associated with them. Many are identified with universities.

I have been related to three very different kinds. One is the Institute for Advanced Christian Studies. This was originally a fallback from hopes for a Christian university. It is now in the midst of producing a dozen books on issues relating Christianity to various disciplines.

A different type of institute is the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. It has inner-city office space and workrooms, and a very competent intellectual at its helm. It has able research scholars and a highly trained office staff that produces books and pamphlets at the frontiers of contemporary social and political issues.

Another is the Institute for Religion and Democracy, also with a Washington base but much more modest quarters and limited staff. It functions well in dealing with issues of religious freedom, and with anxieties about Marxist penetration into Latin America.

You participated in the first session of the Christianity Today Institute, which brought together J. I. Packer, Vernon Grounds, Nathan Hatch, Steven Monsma, David McKenna, and Myron Augsburger. When you were editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, did you use the institute idea to bring together disparate points of view?

Yes and no. Years ago the Lilly Endowment gave CHRISTIANITY TODAY $10,000 to gather about 20 outstanding evangelical scholars from secular universities. For three days we discussed the hindrances to evangelical faith on the secular campuses and how to address these in an intellectual and literary way. This significantly influenced the content of the magazine in the years that followed.

In the church we have “practicing” leaders and “thought” leaders, though the two categories are not mutually exclusive. How do they need to inform one another?

Truth is Christianity’s most enduring asset. When all other things—the picketing and the protesting—pass away, it is the question of the truth of Christianity that will ultimately determine its endurance. There are times indeed when Christians properly take to the streets. But the demand for political justice and social righteousness must not displace the mandate to evangelize, or the need for righteousness in personal or public life. Ideally, the life of every believer would be a blend of all the concerns of thought and action. Practicing leaders and thought leaders must work together to discover and proclaim that blend in light of today’s particular pressures.

In a sense, you and Billy Graham represent the “thought leader” and “practical leader” types. What would you say about the purpose and potential of the Christianity Today Institute?

In the last analysis, an evangelical institute will be known for some point of view that it thinks can give direction in the whole Christian mainstream. No institute is greater than the competence of its members to elaborate its principles. Also, granting that competence, its success will ultimately depend on how effectively it infuses its convictions throughout the social order.

Yet the reflective Christian will be especially aware that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood,” but against the maddening misconceptions of a spiritually warped and morally malformed humanity. The apostle Paul, that great theologian—evangelist—social critic, reminds generation after generation that we contend against powers that require supernatural rebuttal, and without the Divine Superpower and our own comprehension of who the enemy truly is, all our efforts will be in vain.

The evangelists will have a way of keeping the institute on its knees and reminding those who participate in it of the indispensable mission to evangelize. The intellectuals can remind the evangelists that the task of the church is not one that neglects the course and fate of civilization.

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