Remembering Reverend Emeritus Professor Norman Young

Pilgrim Theological College was saddened to hear of the passing of the Reverend Emeritus Professor Norman Young on 19 May 2024. Norman was a gracious and gentle teacher who served on the faculty of the Methodist and then Uniting Church theological colleges for nearly 30 years, including being Professor of Systematic Theology in the Uniting Church Theological Hall from its inception in 1977 until his retirement in the mid-90s. As Sean Winter wrote in a festschrift celebrating Norman’s contribution to theological education*, he “consistently emphasized the need for the best and most rigorous forms of biblical interpretation, historical study and theological reflection combined with sensitivity to the concerns and constraints of the context in which theology is being done”. Norman was a key contributor to the formation of the Uniting Church and combined a “passionate ecumenical vision” with a “lightness of touch and ability to communicate with clarity and passion”.

Reflecting, in 2013, on his own life in theological education, Norman wrote, “I came to see that my work as a theologian committed me, among other things, to identify and, as far as possible, to offer ways of tackling problems associated with faith, but then to acknowledge, indeed to appropriate, the mystery that lies at the heart of it all, the mystery of God’s grace”. Pilgrim gives thanks for the life and witness of Norman Young, and for the legacy of grace he has left with us all.

*Sean Winter, ed. Immense, Unfathomed, Unconfined: The Grace of God in Creation, Church and Community (Melbourne: Uniting Academic Press, 2013)