In the numerous extant letters from Edward J. Carnell to Gordon H. Clark the address is always the same; when Carnell wrote to Clark his letters were simply addressed, “Dear Doc.” Carnell is a name that should be familiar to many American Evangelicals. He was a graduate of Wheaton College, class of 1939, and later President of Fuller Seminary. But even in reaching such heights he was always the student; Clark, his former Wheaton College philosophy professor, always the Doc. When Carnell published a book of his own and sent a copy to Clark he signed his name on the first page and wrote “To the grand old ‘Doc.’”
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Carnell was by no means the only American Evangelical to put Clark in such a place of honor in his mind. While doing research for The Presbyterian Philosopher, The Authorized Biography of Gordon H. Clark I flipped through the pages of many of Dr. Clark’s books in his personal library, now housed at Sangre de Cristo Seminary outside of Westcliffe, Colorado. In one of these books, I found a letter to Clark from Kenneth Kantzer; another name that should be familiar to many American evangelicals. Kenneth Kanzter taught theology here at Wheaton College from 1946 until 1963 and had a long connection also with Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.[1] What is particularly notable in the letter I found—the only one in fact that I’ve found between the two men—is a comment in the postscript where Kantzer writes to Clark:
“As always I enjoyed greatly our short time together at E.T.S. [The Evangelical Theological Society] In a way you are the grand patriarch of us all, but I have never heard of such a young and spritely patriarch as you. On second thought “leader” is much the better word.”