wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Former SFTS president Ted Gill dies at 85

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ECUNET.ORG>]

Note #8762 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05308
June 10, 2005

Former SFTS president Ted Gill dies at 85

Teacher, author and pastor was lifelong servant of PC(USA)

by the Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE - The Rev. Theodore Alexander Gill Sr., a former president of San
Francisco Theological Seminary and provost of John Jay College in the City
University of New York (CUNY), died on June 10 in Princeton, NJ, at age 85.

	Gill, a native of Eveleth, MN, was educated at the University of
Wisconsin, Princeton Theological Seminary, Union Seminary in New York City,
and the University of Zurich, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation on
"Recent Protestant Political Theory." His teachers included Emil Brunner,
Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich. 

	He was awarded six honorary doctorates during his career, and was a
founding president of the Graduate Theological Union of Berkeley, CA.

	After serving Presbyterian parishes in New Rochelle, NY, and New York
City, he became a professor of religion and dean of chapel at Lindenwood
College in St. Charles, MO. He later became managing editor of The Christian
Century magazine in Chicago and editor of its sister publication, The Pulpit.
He was president of San Francisco Theological Seminary from 1958 to 1966,
then worked on the higher education desk of the World Council of Churches in
Geneva, Switzerland. He was on the faculty of John Jay College of Criminal
Justice-CUNY from 1971 through 1989. In retirement he served as
theologian-in-residence at Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton, NJ.

	Gill's passion was for the connection between theology and the arts.
At San Francisco Theological Seminary, he sponsored a cutting-edge theater
program. He also was a leader of Art, Religion and Contemporary Culture - an
organization founded by Tillich - and of American Summer Institutes, a series
of annual seminars on religion and the arts in locations including Rome,
Berlin, Budapest, and St. Andrews, Scotland. 

	He served on the national committee that produced The Worshipbook of
1970 and commissioned the current seal or logo of the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.). He also was a longtime member of the permanent judicial commissions
of New York City presbytery and the Synod of the Northeast.

	From the early days of the U.S. civil rights struggle, Gill supported
equal rights and opposed segregation. In 1963 and 1964, he was regional chair
of California's "No on Proposition 14" campaign against discriminatory
housing legislation, and in 1965 he marched with Martin Luther King from
Selma to Montgomery, AL, in support of voting rights. In later years, he
voiced support for the full participation of gays and lesbians in church and
society.

	He was the author or editor of numerous books, journals, and
articles, among them: The Sermons of John Donne (1958), Memo for a Movie: A
Short Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1971), and, with Robert Bellah and Krister
Stendahl, Religion and the Academic Scene (1975). He was noted for editorial
columns and sermons featured in church magazines and on radio's "The
Protestant Hour." 

	After suffering a blockage of his carotid artery in May 1994, Gill
began a gradual decline in health and lost the capacity for speech. His wife
of 57 years, Katherine Yonker Gill, died in July 2002. He is survived by a
daughter, Laurie Melissa Keeran of Brewster, MA; a son, the Rev. Theodore
Gill Jr., of Geneva, Switzerland; a granddaughter, Elizabeth Katherine Gill,
of Durham, NC; and longtime caregiver Ben Mensah of New York City.

	A memorial service will be held at Nassau Presbyterian Church in
Princeton, NJ, on a date to be determined.

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