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Mission

The Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding is dedicated to the advancement of Christian wisdom in all areas of life and thought — for the glory of God, the good of His church, and the welfare of the world. We agree with the late Carl F. H. Henry, a long-time faculty member at Trinity, that Christian thought can and must make a difference in the academy, church, and secular world. We also believe that gospel labors are too important to be shouldered alone. Christians need a center for evangelical collaboration. We hope that experts of all specialties and backgrounds, in partnership with the HCTU, will work together to engage the pressing challenges of our day, both in the U.S. and around the world. We therefore provide unique opportunities for ministers, professionals, and academics to collaborate with seminary faculty for the promotion of gospel-centered thinking and living.

 

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Modern Context

We live in an information age with more knowledge than ever at our fingertips, yet some social prophets warn of new Dark Ages to come. Although we remain ever-connected to Wikipedia through our personal devices, do we know what to do with all that information? T. S. Eliot asks:

“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

Wisdom, the ability to apply knowledge and “do the truth” in order to live fruitfully (1 Jn. 1:6; 3:18), is one of the first casualties of our over-saturated world. While moving further from our Judeo-Christian roots, western culture’s worldview and values have disintegrated. The gospel no longer undergirds the intellectual framework of society, and most people cannot properly articulate or understand their own thoughts about truth, goodness, or beauty.

In a context where every important discussion appears political, where decisions are made on the basis of short-term pragmatism, and where uncertainty about truth breeds indifference and cynicism, individuals from different camps have lost the ability to communicate meaningfully with each other. Even evangelicals have been affected, with many local churches adrift in this cultural current. Seminaries, too, struggle to overcome fragmentation, with specialization frustrating scholarly conversation between departments.

Christians need a place to come together and converse clearly about biblical wisdom in today’s world. At the Henry Center, we are looking to make this place into a reality, catalyzing partnerships that orbit around three main areas: church, academy, and world. Focused on these domains, we’re harnessing Trinity International University’s impressive faculty and resources to rebuild dissolved foundations and establish unifying communication.

 

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Objectives

1. Providing an articulate evangelical voice
   • The Henry Center acts as a multicultural base for excellent, biblically-informed reflection, providing an articulate evangelical voice in the church, academy, and world.
2. Creating a forum for mutual dialogue and collaboration
   • Both through our perennial ministries and our faculty-led initiatives, the Henry Center provides a forum in which biblical and theological scholars are able to interact with other experts — ministry practitioners, minority voices, scholars from non-theological disciplines — about the diverse social and cultural factors which complicate or enrich our modern-day biblical understanding.
3. Financially and institutionally supporting wisdom-oriented theological reflection
   • We aim to support each of our initiatives by offering various forms of institutional aid while constantly pointing all our efforts toward our central mission: the pursuit of biblical wisdom for the whole body of Christ.
4. Identifying and responding to crucial points of cultural crisis
   • Our initiatives seek to identify crucial points of cultural crisis and develop practical response strategies for the church, academy, and world.
5. Developing faith-based, wisdom-oriented methods of theological understanding
   • We’re dedicated to developing methods of theological interpretation that will serve as paradigms of excellent evangelical practice.
6. Promoting the reform of theological education
   • Starting at TEDS and spreading to other confessionally-based academic institutions around the world, we hope to catalyze a new wisdom-oriented model of higher theological education.
7. Establishing a legacy
   • Our goal is to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word, lay persons and scholars alike, for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.

 

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Leadership

Geoffrey Fulkerson — Director

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Heather Cordero — Events Coordinator

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Ian Prince — Senior Program & Operations Manager

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Joel Chopp – Project & Communications Manager

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Matthew Wiley — Content Manager & Managing Editor

 

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Doctrinal Affirmations

As an outreach ministry of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and the TEDS faculty, we subscribe to the doctrinal standards of the Evangelical Free Church of America (the parent denomination of TEDS and the Henry Center). The Henry Center’s identity reflects that of Trinity’s faculty, which includes Calvinists and Arminians, Lutherans and Anabaptists, egalitarians and complementarians, and much more. Trinity not only includes North Americans, but also employs, affirms, and is indebted to the work of scholars and ministers from all around the world.

From time to time we will feature speakers or writers who do not share the doctrinal commitments of TEDS, but who deserve a thoughtful hearing and an informed, biblical response. Our center is happy to partner with ministries and individuals with differing stances, so long as we are all primarily committed to the advancement of God’s glorious gospel.

In keeping with the vision of Carl Henry, we believe that a robust evangelical Protestantism must confidently stand on the Word of God, no matter the challenges that the world presents.