Norman Pittenger (1905–1997) and Panentheism

Abstract

Norman Pittenger, whose birth-centenary fell in 2005, 'was above all a talker'. 2 He published more than 1,400 books, articles and reviews, over seventy years. David Edwards, who was Dean of King's College, Cambridge, when Pittenger retired there in 1966, has said that most of Pittenger's output was 'in the two fields . . . "God and Sex"'. 3 Pittenger is remembered in British theology for having helped to introduce process thought; and for being one of the earliest voices for the acceptance of homosexual relationships. His contributions to both areas have received attention, 4 but his work remains to be interpreted in terms of panentheism. This paper argues that Pittenger's work provides a particularly clear example of panentheism, and indeed that panentheism is the key to the two contributions for which he is remembered. It argues furthermore that his work illuminates the origins of modern panentheism, and also panentheism's promise for theology. PITTENGER'S LIFE 5William Norman Pittenger was born in New Jersey. His mother was Canadian, and his father was American, and a business consultant. Norman was the only one of three children to survive into adolescence, and after school in Princeton, in 1924, he became a newspaper reporter. Brought up in the Episcopal Church, he developed an interest in theology during eight years in journalism, in his spare time attending lectures at Princeton University, where his father worked, and at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he was given responsibility for public relations. He was also invited to join a theological discussion group at Princeton convened by Paul Elmer More (soon to edit his work on Anglicanism with Leslie Cross), and in 1931 and 1932 began his theological career with a flurry of journal articles. Within a decade, he had published a dozen in Theology. 6 Pittenger entered General Theological Seminary, New York, in 1933, after a summer's study-leave in England. Two years into his ordination training, the Dean of the seminary, Hughell Fosbroke, made him a tutor. Thus Pittenger began teaching at the seminary before he completed his baccalaureate in sacred theology and before he was ordained deacon, both in 1936. Priested the following year,