The transition from secular hope to existential despair requires only the instant in which the bubble bursts and all is nothingness. Just now, a secular optimism is the mood of the American mind and the key-note of contemporary theology. The call is to clear away the defeatism of old and new orthodoxies and to venture with the secularists in the building of the new metropolis, the city of man. Let the church nail up its escape hatch to heaven, renounce its heritage of accomplished salvation, and become a partner with Christ, establishing in history the new mankind, which is the essential manhood of all men.
Yet this mood does not dispel more reflective and more somber expressions of despair. Sub-Christian hope will always disintegrate into despair and sub-Christian despair will always generate illusory hope.
The glory of the Christian hope has another center than the economy of abundance or the new mankind. God is the hope of Israel, the promised portion of his people. “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord…I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope…Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption” (Psalm 130:1, 5, 7).
—Edmund P. Clowney
From his Inaugural Address as the First President of Westminster Seminary Philadelphia, 1966.
President 1966-1984 (1917-1984)
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