wfn.org | Thomas Gillespie Speaks at Genevans Breakfast

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

19-June-1997 
GA97083 
 
               Thomas Gillespie Speaks at Genevans Breakfast 
 
                        by Dee Wade 
 
 
SYRACUSE-- "Experience matters," said Tom Gillespie, president of Princeton 
Theological Seminary and guest speaker at the Genevans Breakfast at the 
209th General Assembly.  He quickly added, "But experience is meaningless 
until it is interpreted." 
 
      Stating that experience within the Christian tradition is an 
encounter with grace, the source of which lies outside of human experience, 
Gillespie offered  theology as the primary discipline which teaches the 
mind how to interpret human experience. "Doctrine matters too," he said. 
 
     Gillespie began his remarks before the large gathering of well-fed 
listeners by promising to be both "passionate" and "non-controversial." 
After a thoughtful pause, he said, smiling, "Perhaps that's what the church 
needs these days -- a non-controversial form of passion." 
 
     Gillespie's theme was the importance of theological education.  He 
spoke of earlier days when one scholar's mind could contain most, if not 
all, of the available knowledge in a particular field of study.  Those days 
are gone, he told his audience.  He noted that the great expansion of 
knowledge over the past century had necessarily led to the "fragmentation" 
of knowledge, creating ever more limited specialties of thought and 
instruction. 
 
      Still, theology poses the question which moves beyond knowledge, no 
matter how wide or narrow its scope.  "That is," he said, " can one know 
the Truth, with a capital 'T' and in the singular?"  Answering his own 
question, he said,  "I do not know all the truth, but I do know One who is 
the Truth, with both singularity and with a capital 'T'." 
 
      Gillespie hailed the movement of theology from the merely cerebral, 
intellectual sphere, into the practical and personal.  "Theology is a 
life-forming task, creating character," he said.  "There should be no 
difference between theological formation and spiritual formation."  Thus 
the linkage of experience and doctrine. 
 
     "Without the 'by your leave' of anyone else, the church may once again 
learn to speak of God," Gillespie said.  Returning to a statement he had 
made earlier in his remarks, he continued, "But we may speak of God only 
because God has spoken to us.  Knowledge of God is given from God."  Since 
that is the case, Gillespie called his audience to re-join the "risk of 
speaking a word of truth to the world_ taking seriously the life of the 
mind." 
 
     Ending his speech, Gillespie declared himself "Hopeful for the future, 
passionate about theological education,"  and asking forgiveness if he had 
"said anything too controversial."  

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