A Preface to Theology

Christian Century, March 19, 1997 by John B. Cobb, Jr.

By Clark Gilpin. University of Chicago Press, 211 pp., $15.95 paperback.

The title of Clark Gilpin's book may mislead some. This is not a preface to systematic theology but a history of Protestant reflection on the relation of the church to the body politic and to higher education. Gilpin focuses on how the church prepares its future leaders.

The forces leading to change in ministerial preparation have been more cultural than theological. In 1720, the point at which Gilpin begins his survey, ministers were the intellectual leaders of their communities. Today oldline Protestant churches are only one of many institutional religious forces in a fragmented society in which institutionalized religion as a whole is marginalized. Even within individual denominations there is great diversity. Gilpin's reflection on theological seminaries takes account of this change.

Gilpin's first chapter covers the period from 1720 to 1830, providing a valuable account of how and why the churches established postgraduate institutions for the preparation of ministers. The apprenticeship approach had tended to be divisive within denominations, and the colleges had ceased to be oriented to divinity. The second chapter carries this history forward to 1880, showing the intersections between broader cultural developments and those within theological schools.

Although it is clear throughout Gilpin's account that the preparation of church professionals is the raison d'etre of most seminaries, after the second chapter he gives this function little attention. In keeping with his theological emphasis, he focuses on the thought of leading intellectuals about the role seminaries should play in society in general and in the university in particular. For example, for the period from 1930 to 1960, he provides an excellent account of the development of H. Richard Niebuhr's thought about the church. The chapter title, "Intellectual Center of the Church's Life," is Niebuhr's eventual formulation of the place of the seminary. But we learn little about how seminaries actually understood themselves during this period.

Gilpin is dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School. His bias toward university divinity schools is apparent in the book's slight attention to questions of how ministry was envisioned and how this affected seminaries. For example, despite Gilpin's extensive study of Niebuhr, he does not mention Niebuhr's idea of the minister as pastoral director.

The final chapter offers interesting comments on recent changes in the understanding of religion, but its title, "The Background of Possibilities," suggests a view of the theological task that bears little relation to recent reflection on the nature of ministry or theological education.

If people want a "preface to theology" that will help them either to think theologically about themselves or to understand the present academic discussion of systematic theology, this is not it. If they want help in thinking about what most seminaries should teach, the book will be of only indirect relevance. But if they want to understand the history of reflection about theological education in its relation to the church, the body politic and the university, this is a "must read."

Reviewed by John B. Cobb Jr., professor emeritus at the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California.