Langdon Brown Gilkey
Encyclopedia
Langdon Brown Gilkey was an American
Protestant Ecumenical theologian.
's Rockefeller Chapel
, and his mother Geraldine Gunsaulus (Brown).
Gilkey attended the Laboratory School (part of the University of Chicago), and in 1936 he graduated from the Asheville School for Boys, in North Carolina
http://www.ashevilleschool.org. In 1939 he received a magna cum laude in philosophy from Harvard, he moved to China in 1940 to teach English at Yenching University
and was imprisoned by the Japanese in 1943 in the same internment camp as Eric Liddell.
in New York
, and became Reinhold Niebuhr
's teaching assistant. He went on to become a professor at Vassar
from 1951 to 1954, and at Vanderbilt Divinity School
from 1954 to 1963. In 1960 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship
to study in Munich
. In late 1963 he began teaching at the University of Chicago Divinity School
, where he eventually became the Shailer Mathews Professor of Theology until March 1989, when he retired. While on sabbatical in 1970, he taught at University of Utrecht, in the Netherlands
, and in 1975 he taught at Kyoto University
in Japan
, where his lecture series focused on the environmental perils of industrialization. He continued to teach at both the University of Virginia
, and Georgetown University
till 2001. During this last period of his teaching career, he had also been a visiting professor at the Theology Division (now Divinity School) of Chung Chi College
, the Chinese University of Hong Kong
for one year.
on November 19, 2004 at the University of Virginia
hospital in Charlottesville. He was 85.
Perhaps his most widely read book was the story of his own religious-theological journey. In Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure (1968), Gilkey narrates his departure from the liberal Protestant belief system during World War II when he was made a prisoner of war in the "Civilian Internment Center" near Weihsien for two-and-a-half years (1943–1945).
It was this experience that led to his subsequent rethinking of Christianity in the modern “time of trouble.” Acutely responsive to the need to reconsider such traditional symbols as sin and grace in the turbulent and so often “barbarous 20th century,” Gilkey renewed and revivified the classical Reformation insights—largely ignored by optimistic liberal theologians—into individual, societal and historical estrangement, self-delusion and sin.
Gilkey once responded to fellow theologian Edgar Brightman, who believed in God because man's history (to him) represented steady moral progress, saying "I believe in God, because to me, history precisely does not represent such a progress."
Gilkey was celebrated in academic circles for his work on Reinhold Niebuhr
and Paul Tillich
, prominent 20th-century Protestant theologians. Yet Gilkey was more popularly known for his writings on science and religion. He published at length on the topic, fighting on two fronts: against Christian fundamentalist attacks on science, and against secularist attacks on religious meaning and truth. In Creationism on Trial: Evolution and God at Little Rock (1985), he recounted his experience as an expert witness for the American Civil Liberties Union
as it challenged the constitutionality of an article passed by the Arkansas State Legislature mandating that creationist views be taught alongside evolutionary theory in high schools. There, in what was called a “modern day version of the Scopes Monkey Trial,” he argued against Christian fundamentalist claims that “creation-science” was a science, as being distinct from religion cloaked as science.
His early books and articles demonstrated the existential power of his experiences, from his early pacifist professions as a student at Harvard University, where his classmates included, among others, future President John F. Kennedy
and Cardinal Avery Dulles, to his teaching in China and his experiences as a POW.
His teachers, especially Niebuhr and Tillich, at Union Theological Seminary, helped him with methods and categories to formulate a powerful and creative theological vision of his own. In the 1970s and 1980s, Gilkey's theological vision was colored by the growth of Buddhism, and Sikhism as both religions began to influence religious life in America. He held the view most world religions enjoyed "rough parity".
Gilkey's new theology of history, based on a rethinking of the questions of free will and grace, providence and fate, and eschatology and secular history, is one of his most important strictly theological contributions.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Protestant Ecumenical theologian.
Early life and education
The grandson of Clarence Talmadge Brown, the first Protestant minister to gather a congregation in Salt Lake City, Gilkey grew up in Hyde Park Chicago, where his father Charles Whitney Gilkey was the first Dean of the University of ChicagoUniversity of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
's Rockefeller Chapel
Rockefeller Chapel
Rockefeller Chapel is, by order, the tallest building on the campus of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. It was meant by patron John D...
, and his mother Geraldine Gunsaulus (Brown).
Gilkey attended the Laboratory School (part of the University of Chicago), and in 1936 he graduated from the Asheville School for Boys, in North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
http://www.ashevilleschool.org. In 1939 he received a magna cum laude in philosophy from Harvard, he moved to China in 1940 to teach English at Yenching University
Yenching University
Yenching University was a university in Beijing, China. It integrated three Christian colleges in the city in 1919. Yenching is an alternative name of Beijing - derived from its status as capital of Yan state, one of the seven Warring States from 5th century BC to 3rd century BC.The university...
and was imprisoned by the Japanese in 1943 in the same internment camp as Eric Liddell.
Career
After the War, Gilkey obtained his Doctorate in Philosophy from Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, and became Reinhold Niebuhr
Reinhold Niebuhr
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr was an American theologian and commentator on public affairs. Starting as a leftist minister in the 1920s indebted to theological liberalism, he shifted to the new Neo-Orthodox theology in the 1930s, explaining how the sin of pride created evil in the world...
's teaching assistant. He went on to become a professor at Vassar
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...
from 1951 to 1954, and at Vanderbilt Divinity School
Vanderbilt Divinity School
The Vanderbilt Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion is an interdenominational divinity school at Vanderbilt University, a major research university located in Nashville, Tennessee...
from 1954 to 1963. In 1960 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
to study in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
. In late 1963 he began teaching at the University of Chicago Divinity School
University of Chicago Divinity School
The University of Chicago Divinity School is a graduate institution at the University of Chicago dedicated to the training of academics and clergy across religious boundaries...
, where he eventually became the Shailer Mathews Professor of Theology until March 1989, when he retired. While on sabbatical in 1970, he taught at University of Utrecht, in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, and in 1975 he taught at Kyoto University
Kyoto University
, or is a national university located in Kyoto, Japan. It is the second oldest Japanese university, and formerly one of Japan's Imperial Universities.- History :...
in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, where his lecture series focused on the environmental perils of industrialization. He continued to teach at both the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
, and Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
till 2001. During this last period of his teaching career, he had also been a visiting professor at the Theology Division (now Divinity School) of Chung Chi College
Chung Chi College
The Chung Chi College is one of the constituent colleges of The Chinese University of Hong Kong , and one of the three original colleges that joined to form the CUHK in 1963...
, the Chinese University of Hong Kong
Chinese University of Hong Kong
The Chinese University of Hong Kong is a research-led university in Hong Kong.CUHK is the only tertiary education institution in Hong Kong with Nobel Prize winners on its faculty, including Chen Ning Yang, James Mirrlees, Robert Alexander Mundell and Charles K. Kao...
for one year.
Death
He died of meningitisMeningitis
Meningitis is inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges. The inflammation may be caused by infection with viruses, bacteria, or other microorganisms, and less commonly by certain drugs...
on November 19, 2004 at the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
hospital in Charlottesville. He was 85.
Theological work
Gilkey was a prolific author, with 15 books and over 100 articles to his credit.Perhaps his most widely read book was the story of his own religious-theological journey. In Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure (1968), Gilkey narrates his departure from the liberal Protestant belief system during World War II when he was made a prisoner of war in the "Civilian Internment Center" near Weihsien for two-and-a-half years (1943–1945).
It was this experience that led to his subsequent rethinking of Christianity in the modern “time of trouble.” Acutely responsive to the need to reconsider such traditional symbols as sin and grace in the turbulent and so often “barbarous 20th century,” Gilkey renewed and revivified the classical Reformation insights—largely ignored by optimistic liberal theologians—into individual, societal and historical estrangement, self-delusion and sin.
Gilkey once responded to fellow theologian Edgar Brightman, who believed in God because man's history (to him) represented steady moral progress, saying "I believe in God, because to me, history precisely does not represent such a progress."
Gilkey was celebrated in academic circles for his work on Reinhold Niebuhr
Reinhold Niebuhr
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr was an American theologian and commentator on public affairs. Starting as a leftist minister in the 1920s indebted to theological liberalism, he shifted to the new Neo-Orthodox theology in the 1930s, explaining how the sin of pride created evil in the world...
and Paul Tillich
Paul Tillich
Paul Johannes Tillich was a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. Tillich was one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the 20th century...
, prominent 20th-century Protestant theologians. Yet Gilkey was more popularly known for his writings on science and religion. He published at length on the topic, fighting on two fronts: against Christian fundamentalist attacks on science, and against secularist attacks on religious meaning and truth. In Creationism on Trial: Evolution and God at Little Rock (1985), he recounted his experience as an expert witness for the American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
as it challenged the constitutionality of an article passed by the Arkansas State Legislature mandating that creationist views be taught alongside evolutionary theory in high schools. There, in what was called a “modern day version of the Scopes Monkey Trial,” he argued against Christian fundamentalist claims that “creation-science” was a science, as being distinct from religion cloaked as science.
His early books and articles demonstrated the existential power of his experiences, from his early pacifist professions as a student at Harvard University, where his classmates included, among others, future President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
and Cardinal Avery Dulles, to his teaching in China and his experiences as a POW.
His teachers, especially Niebuhr and Tillich, at Union Theological Seminary, helped him with methods and categories to formulate a powerful and creative theological vision of his own. In the 1970s and 1980s, Gilkey's theological vision was colored by the growth of Buddhism, and Sikhism as both religions began to influence religious life in America. He held the view most world religions enjoyed "rough parity".
Gilkey's new theology of history, based on a rethinking of the questions of free will and grace, providence and fate, and eschatology and secular history, is one of his most important strictly theological contributions.
Books
- Maker of Heaven and Earth: The Christian Doctrine of Creation in the Light of Modern Knowledge 1959
- Shantung Compound 1966
- Naming the Whirlwind A Renewal of God Language 1970
- Catholicism Confronts Modernity: A Protestant View 1975
- Reaping the Whirlwind: A Christian Interpretation of History 1976
- Message and Existence: An Introduction to Christian Theology 1979
- Through the Tempest: Theological Voyages in a Pluralistic Culture
- Nature, Reality, and the Sacred: The Nexus of Science and Religion
- Creationism on Trial: Evolution and God at Little Rock
- Religion and the Scientific Future: Reflections on Myth, Science, and Theology
- Contemporary Explosion of Theology: Ecumenical Studies in Theology
- Society and the Sacred: Toward a Theology of Culture in Decline
- Gilkey on Tillich 1990
- Blue Twilight: Nature, Creationism, and American Religion
- On Niebuhr: A Theological Study 2001
Further reading
- The Theology of Langdon Gilkey: Systematic and Critical Studies, Kyle Pasewark and Jeff Pool, editors, Merer University
- Whirlwind in Culture: Frontiers in Theology—in Honor of Langdon Gilkey, D. W. Musser and J. L. Price, editors
- "Plurality and Its Theological Implications" in The Myth of Christian Uniqueness, John Hick and Paul Knitter, editors
- Religious Language in a Secular Culture: A Study in the Thought of Langdon Gilkey, J Shea
- Langdon Gilkey: Theologian for a Culture in Decline, B. Walsh.