A Gathering Voices Post by Don McKim
A few weeks ago we lost a distinguished pastor, theologian, and leader of the Presbyterian Church (USA) with the death of Dr. Thomas W. Gillespie (November 5, 2011). Tom was a long-time pastor in California before becoming President of Princeton Theological Seminary where he served from 1983 until his retirement in 2004. At the time of his death, he was serving on the General Assembly Mission Council.
I did not attend Princeton Seminary, but knew Tom Gillespie for nearly thirty years. We met in the early 1980’s when he was a member of the General Assembly’s Task Force on Biblical Authority and Interpretation. The Task Force was considering the work Jack Rogers and I had done in our The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible: An Historical Approach (Harper and Row, 1979; rpt. Wipf and Stock, 1999; https://wipfandstock.com/store/The_Authority_and_Interpretation_of_the_Bible_An_Historical_Approach). For the Task Force, Tom Gillespie wrote a paper, “Biblical Authority and Interpretation: The Current Debate on Hermeneutics” which I included in my edited volume, A Guide to Contemporary Hermeneutics: Major Trends in Biblical Interpretation (Eerdmans, 1986; rpt. Wipf and Stock, 1999; https://wipfandstock.com/store/A_Guide_to_Contemporary_Hermeneutics_Major_Trends_in_Biblical_Interpretation). It was a fine piece and I was delighted to include it in the collection. I most recently worked with Tom when he wrote an excellent study of “The Lord’s Prayer” for our PC(USA) curriculum, Being Reformed: Faith Seeking Understanding.
Gillespie was a scholarly pastor and a pastor-scholar. In addition to scholarly work in the area of New Testament, in which he received his Ph.D., Gillespie’s sermons and addresses to Princeton Seminary audiences appeared regularly in the Princeton Seminary Bulletin. Fortunately, we now have an archive of these pieces (http://digital.library.ptsem.edu/default.xqy?action=qsearch&terms=author:%22Thomas%20W.%20Gillespie%22). They are models of scholarship in the service of preaching, oriented to the church and to those seminarians, professors, and pastors who serve the church.
The title above, “There Be Dragons,” comes from an illustration in Gillespie’s 2004 Commencement Address which also carried this title (The Princeton Seminary Bulletin Vol. 25 No. 2 [2004]; http://digital.library.ptsem.edu/default.xqy?id=dmd005&action=view-src&uri=/METS/PSB2004252.xml ). Gillespie wrote that “at the time Christopher Columbus sailed west in search of a new world, his flat earth maps showed the ocean fading off into an unknown infinity. And at the edge of the ocean’s frontier were written the words, ‘Beyond this point there will be dragons.’” Gillespie continued: “Indeed, beyond the walls of this great cathedral chapel there be dragons waiting for you if you undertake Christian ministry” (Gillespie, 130).
I have been thinking of this phrase recently in relation to the developments in the terrible difficulties at Penn State University. We certainly know “there be dragons” at the “edge of the world”—beyond the frontiers—in the world “out there” where all kinds of terrorism, wars, and violence take place. We know the dragons there, are many.
But what of the “dragons” that can be real in nicer, safer environs—like a college campus, a small community? There the dragons can be dressed as ordinary people, with jobs, with positions of leadership in sports or with a charity. “There be dragons” there, too. It goes back to the famous statement of Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Evil and sin are within us and among us, no matter how “unlikely” we appear—as “dragons.” Reinhold Niebuhr taught us about the dangers of putting trust in institutions, even when they are inhabited by unlikely-appearing, “dragons.” The Christian doctrine of “original sin” teaches we are all sinful. This sinfulness emerges, at times, even where all appears to be well, even in a “happy valley.”
The only remedy for all dragons is repentance, turning from sin, seeking forgiveness and justice for all the evils we perpetrate. When evil actions envelope the lives of others and ripple out in ever-widening rings, the repentance is harder, the quest for justice more difficult. But in the Christian context, it is our only hope. Repentance comes through the work of the Holy Spirit. Only because it does, can we have assurance that God forgives our sin.
None of this happens “automatically” or “lightly” or “casually.” Our repentance is a continuing process, as Calvin says. Our “restoration does not take place in one moment or one day or one year; but through continual and sometimes even slow advances,” Only God can wipe out our sin. Indeed, this warfare against sin “will end only at death” (Institutes 3.3.9).
“There be dragons,” far and near—too near—even within us and among us.
But Tom Gillespie left us with a word of hope. He drew on John of Patmos’ vision in Revelation 20:1-10. Gillespie acknowledged that “sometimes the dragon wins.” Yet he went on to say: “But remember, the dragon wins only sometimes, not always. And in the end, it is the dragon who is defeated—forever.” Jesus Christ is our only hope!