I am a graduate of Princeton, Old and New. I carry the legacy of Old Princeton with my time at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. And I enjoy the legacy of New Princeton on that venerable campus. And I have spent the last ten years in ministry integrating the best elements of both and trying to slough off the excesses.
To try and compare the two is like trying to compare Granny Smith and Macintosh apples. They are both apples, both Presbyterian, but with very distinct flavors. Perhaps the best way I can begin to draw them together is through two unique volumes produced during my time at each place.
In 1988, Westminster published a symposia, drawn from the faculty and edited by a campus favorite, Harvie Conn, concerning Inerrancy and Hermeneutic. The challenge is over the doctrine of Scripture under attack in modern American theological thinking. The subtitle lays it out well, "A Tradition, A Challenge, A Debate". This was the theological debate of the moment as I began my time there.
On the other hand, in 1997, Princeton published a volume with contributions from the faculty, edited by Choon-Leong Seow, entitled Homosexuality and the Christian Community in response to a vigorous debate going on at the Seminary during my attendance there. The challenge, I believe, is over the doctrine of sin and homosexuality, and how to bring the authority of the bible to bear on the relationship between the two.
I fear people from both sides would cringe at the notion that I would put these two side by side on my bookshelf. But each is part of the legacy the Lord has blessed me with, two schools of the Presbyterian tradition, of vigorous academic reputation, interested in spirited debate, and each willing to engage with the wider Christian community on key issues of the day.
I have been blessed.
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