Lowe grew up in Singapore and Malaysia, where his parents were missionaries. Lowe worked as a researcher with fishery projects in Corpus Christi, Texas and Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania. Lowe graduated from Wheaton College as an environmental studies major. While there, he helped organize a national Climate Change Summit. After graduating, Lowe served as the outreach director for A Rocha USA, an international Christian conservationorganization.Lowe was a contributing writer on former Wheaton Professor Lindy Scott's 2008 book Christians, the Care of Creation, and Global Climate Change.

In 2009, Lowe authored the book Green Revolution: Coming Together to Care for Creation, with a foreword by Christian social activist Shane Claiborne. The book, published by InterVarsity Press, "extensively explores the larger kingdom issues inseparably connected to environmental problems," according to author Jonathan Merritt. Lowe was quoted on Good Morning America as saying that "The environment would be one of those areas where you could say we've almost had generally speaking a blind spot in the evangelical church."

In May 2010, Lowe and a friend were stopped by Cicero, Illinois police and frisked. Lowe accused the police officers, one of whom was Hispanic, of engaging in racial profiling, stating that he and his friend were stopped because they looked Hispanic. Lowe is half-Chinese and half-white. The car was stopped for speeding according to Cicero spokesman Ray Hanania, who also said "This very much sounds to me like an obscure candidate for public office, trying to give himself some publicity by attacking the Town of Cicero...”. The driver was issued a ticket for failure to wear a seat belt.

On November 2, 2009, Lowe filed the petitions necessary to be a candidate in the Democratic primary for the 6th U.S. Congressional District of Illinois. Ben Lowe is considered to be only a minor challenger. Lowe was unopposed in the Democratic primary, winning 17,294 votes in DuPage County and 6,147 in Cook County, a total of 23,441 votes. He will face incumbent Peter Roskam in the 2010 midterm elections.