A Tribute to Dr. Ed Clowney and "The Politics of the Kingdom"

For good or for ill, the single most influential article on my thinking regarding the question of where a Christian is to stand in relationship to the political arena, would have to be "The Politics of the Kingdom" written by Edmund P. Clowney in the "Westminster Theological Journal" in the Spring of 1979.

Dr. Clowney was my spiritual grandfather, not in that I knew him personally but in that he trained a number of my seminary professors. Dr. Clowney passed away in March of 2005 at the age of eighty-seven. My seminary professor Richard Pratt made the comment publicly that Dr. Clowney was one of the two most influential professors on a generation of Westminster-trained students (if you are interested, Cornelius Van Til was the other). In 1929, Westminster seminary formed in response to the compromising of evangelical standards in the mainline Presbyterian church's flagship seminary, Princeton. A number of my professors, along with Ben Loos' (we attended the same seminary separated by about ten years), trained under Dr. Clowney.

Perhaps the greatest contribution Dr. Clowney made to all of us was his skill in what we now refer to as "redemptive preaching." If you have been to Grace Chapel for any length of time, there is an underlying principle to all of our sermons and that principle is that "God is always the hero-redeemer of the story." So for example, if you ever leave Grace Chapel saying, "look at how courageous Joshua was . . . be like Joshua," then shame on the pastoral staff. In the OT, Joshua was meant to point us to someone greater who would come and achieve for us an eternal conquest and place of eternal rest (Heb. 4:8). Or if you ever leave Grace Chapel lifting up Moses as a hero, then shame on us for so misleading you! The point of the New Testament is that Jesus is a better Moses than Moses (Heb. 3:3)! We mean for you to leave Grace Chapel every week holding the hand of Jesus Christ . . . and no one else- that is redemptive preaching. Thank you Dr. Clowney for teaching us how to preach in such an intensely Cross/Christ-centered manner.

I had the joy of meeting Dr. Clowney once back in 1995. Primarily, I remember how kind he was. Dr. Clowney asked not only my name but about my name, how to pronounce it in Mandarin. And I remember Dr. Clowney mulling over the pronunciation for what seemed like an eternity. I think he wanted to get my name not just as "shoe" but with the proper pronunciation in its native tongue. I was struck with how interested Dr. Clowney seemed to be in this lowly first-year twenty-four year old seminary student.

Regarding Dr. Clowney's 1979 article, while it was never designed to be a thorough treatment on political theory from a Christian perspective, one cannot help but leave the article feeling a sense of awe regarding the high task of Jesus' Church to bear witness in the world and to do so in a way that represents the distinctive nature of Her ideals as members of an other-worldly Kingdom. Dr. Clowney insisted that we must be responsible citizens in this world but do so in a way that would not accommodate too readily to the power structures of the world.

If there is one sentence in the 1979 article that summarizes his thesis, it would be this:

"To the politics of human power the cross is foolishness."

. . . I guess we are two months away from election day and the DNC is going strong currently. Christians should be engaged in the political process as responsible citizens of this country. Yet, we must put a significant amount of restraint in the hopes we place in the political process for our hope is not in the power structures of this world. I leave you with more of Dr. Clowney's article:

"The church is organized for these ends: the worship of God, the nurture and growth of God's people, and the bearing of witness to the world. For each of these ministries the church is endued with gifts of the Spirit by the exalted Christ. First, the Word of God must be ministered to these ends: Christ enables every Christian to confess his name before men and exhort his bretheren in the truth. So, too, Christ grants gifts of order to discipline the church in love. The pilgrim church must also minister mercy, caring for the poor and the distressed among the brethren, and as God grants opportunity, to all men.

Christ has not promised to make us wise in world politics, skillful in technology, or talented in the arts. Love of the Lord brings fruitful living in all his creation. But Christians live as stewards, respecting the priorities of the kingdom. The Christian labors, not to amass wealth but to have to give to the needy; the man who has everything lives only to give it to the Lord in faithful stewardship. He lives as possessing nothing. The man who has nothing is a child of the King, possessing everything. Christ's redemption does not improve our efficiency in worldly living. It is the purchase of the King who claims us for himself and his program. . . ."

A tribute to Dr. Edmund P. Clowney and his article are available in my list of "related links."