Dr. Marc Clauson: A Tribute

05 Apr 2025

One of our own Bereans, Dr. Marc Clauson, entered the presence of God this week. Memories have been flooding my mind and acting as a balm to my heart as we enter the grief of losing a good man. In a culture where it is hard to find good men, Dr. Clauson’s life is a testament to the virtues of intellectual honesty, humility, and friendship. He was a fundamentally good scholar (of both the texts of Western Civilization and especially of the Word of God), a good friend to many (including his students), a good father, and a good follower of Christ.

My first day as a young 17-year-old college student, I was guided to an office in the basement of Collins Hall to discuss my class schedule. I entered a dark, narrow room through a small path lined by stacks of books from floor to ceiling, took a seat, and waited for my advisor to arrive. After a few minutes, a stack of books three feet high on the desk in front of me moved—to my surprise a professorial head poked out from behind them! It was the first meeting with a man who would be present at so many special moments in my life.

Dr. Clauson was the advisor who helped guide me as an overwhelmed undergraduate student to choose classes that interested me, not just the ones I needed to get a piece of paper. He was the teacher who taught every class I had most wanted to take when first perusing Cedarville’s course catalog in high school. I still have the class readings he compiled for his History of Political Thought classes, binders that are a foot thick of printed papers covering all the major political thinkers and most of the minor ones too. One cannot just throw out the work that it takes to gather those ideas. As a teacher, he was a master at inclusion of every strand of thought, the first to introduce me to the perils of bureaucracy and the intrigue of libertarianism. As a colleague, I saw inside of department meetings his heart for truly biblical and Christian education. He was fearless in standing up for orthodox Christian beliefs; faithful in putting those beliefs to work in his own life and in worshiping our Lord. As an ordained minister in the Presbyterian church, he officiated my wedding and set David and I on course for a joyful life together.

My heart weeps with all who will miss Dr. Clauson’s presence in their own lives, and especially for his wife Jennifer, his daughters, sons-in-law, and grandchildren. I am so thankful for Marc’s example of a good life and know that so many more have been impacted for the Word of God through his ministry on earth. Praise God we will meet again one day—hopefully, too, surrounded by books.

If you’d like to read some of Dr. Clauson’s prolific writing and excellent thinking, I have linked here a few of his Bereans Posts:

To Scrutinize or Not to Scrutinize

An Entirely Too Long Post on Religious Liberty and Conscience

The Limits of Politics and Virtue

Christian Integration and Worldview: An Overview, Part I

Christian Integration of Faith and Worldview, Part 2

Christian Integration of Faith and Worldview, Part 3

The Christian and Cultural Engagement

Conservatism and Religion: The Inseparable Tie Broken

Are People Finally Getting Wise About Education?

Speech: Its Value and Limits

The Examined Life—With Some Help