McMaster Divinity College is delighted to announce that Rev. Dr. Clement Yung Wen will be joining our faculty as Assistant Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology.
Dr. Wen comes to MDC after having served five years at China Evangelical Seminary in Taiwan. He holds degrees from Wheaton College (BA, 2002), Regent College (MCS, 2011), and the University of Edinburgh (PhD, 2019). Along the way, he also undertook biblical and theological coursework at Gordon College (1997-1999), Jerusalem University College (Summer 1999), and the Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz (Summer 2017).
Dr. Wen’s current interest in the reconstruction and renewal of evangelical theology is inspired by the work of the late Robert E. Webber (1933-2007) and the late Stanley J. Grenz (1950-2005). However, the broader trajectory of his historical and systematic thought to date has been primarily influenced by his previous research on the Byzantine Father Maximus the Confessor (580-662), the Protestant Reformer John Calvin (1509-1564), the twentieth-century German Lutheran Wolfhart Pannenberg (1928-2014), and the contemporary move in recent decades towards Global and World Christianity. Dr. Wen’s first monograph, An ‘Open-Ended Distinctiveness’: The Contemporary Relevance of Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Participatory Ecclesiology and Ecumenism for World Christianity, was published in Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht’s Forschungen zur systematischen und ökumenischen Theologie series in 2021.
Dr. Wen was born and raised in the Washington, DC metropolitan area where he grew up and was baptized at the Chinese Bible Church of Maryland (CBCM) in Rockville, Maryland. He later returned to CBCM as a member of the pastoral staff (2010-2015) and was ordained by his home church in January 2014. While serving in university student ministry in Hualien, Taiwan (2003-2005), Clement met his wife, Tracy. Married for eighteen years and counting, Clement and Tracy have two boys, Ethan (13) and Micah (10). In their spare time, the Wen family enjoys road trips, international travel, good food, movies, musicals, and sporting events. Since Clement grew up in Maryland playing ice hockey, he looks forward to living in Canada and rekindling his childhood passion for the sport.
President of McMaster Divinity College, Dr. Stanley E. Porter, commented, “I am thrilled to extend a warm welcome to Rev. Dr. Clement Yung Wen as our newest faculty member. Clement’s diverse academic background and passion for theological education and research make him an excellent fit for the role and we eagerly anticipate the insights and contributions he will bring to the classroom and community of MDC.”
Dr. Clement Yung Wen will officially join the faculty at McMaster Divinity College this summer and will begin teaching in fall 2024 with Essentials in Theology and Grace and the Christian Life courses.