wfn.org | Gillespie addresses Presbyterians for Renewal

[PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org]

03-July-1996 
 
GA96085 
 
Gillespie addresses Presbyterians for Renewal 
 
ALBUQUERQUE--Dr. Thomas W. Gillespie, president of Princeton Theological 
Seminary, reminded a large crowd at the Presbyterians for Renewal breakfast 
Wednesday that the Gospel is the power of God for salvation and said, "My 
interest is not in condoning what God seeks to redeem." 
 
    Speaking on "After Three Years: What Have We Learned," he told of a 
senator facing a controversial bill who said, "`Well, some of my friends 
are for it, and some of my friends are against it, and I want you to know 
that I'm for my friends.'"  He said he was for his friends, too, and he 
wanted to maintain those friendships, but "there's a seriousness about this 
issue that can not be dodged." 
 
    He quoted the theologian Wolfhart Pannenburg who said, "`...Those who 
urge the church to change the norm of its teaching on this matter must know 
that they are promoting schism.  If the church were to let itself be pushed 
to the point where it ceased to treat homosexual activity as a departure 
from the Biblical norm...such a church would stand no longer on Biblical 
ground, but against the unequivocal witness of Scripture....[it] would 
thereby cease to be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic." 
 
    "I think that we are skating close to the blue ice of division in the 
church.  I pray, with our moderator and many others, that it will not 
happen." 
 
    PFR awarded the 1996 Bell-Mackay Prize to the Rev. Bill and Nancy 
Warlick of Zimbabwe for their mission work in Zaire and southern Africa. 
 
Bill Lancaster 

------------
For more information contact Presbyterian News Service
  phone 502-569-5504             fax 502-569-8073  
  E-mail PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org   Web page: http://www.pcusa.org 

--