Carl Trueman Books to Reread Again

The Ascent and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution

Published by Crossway in 2020

The often-used analogy that "fish don't know they're in h2o" is a reminder that a worldview, or, in Charles Taylor's more nuanced phrase, a social imaginary (26), oftentimes becomes so taken for granted that we do not observe it anymore. Carl Trueman's latest book, The Ascent and Triumph of the Modern Self, reveals the water in which we are swimming. But, we could invoke another water metaphor to suggest that he has done more that. That is the one where the frog fails to react to slowly heating water until it is likewise tardily. When the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation unleashed ideas that elevated human autonomy as a key feature of modernity, few could have predicted where these ideas would lead. Retrospect and historians, however, assist us look dorsum to see how we got to a world where information technology makes sense to nearly of us when someone says, "I am a woman trapped in a man's torso" (19).

Trueman's primary discipline is church history, then he acknowledges in a recent Gospel Coalition podcast that his latest book takes him into new territory, 1 and he admits early in the book that his survey of the mod self is selective and brief, and therefore cannot exist exhaustive. However, Trueman's marvel as a widely-read historian and his pastoral sense of the influence of culture on the church make him well suited to his task in this book. Since he covers territory already traversed past Charles Taylor, Philip Rieff, and Alasdair MacIntyre, ane might exist tempted to dismiss Trueman's book as defective originality. Only that would be a mistake. Trueman'south contribution in this book is to mine important insights from these three authors, as well as many others, and make them attainable to current readers. Even more than helpful, however, is his ability to connect the dots in a way that helps readers understand the historical developments that have shaped our culture'southward sense of self, and more than specifically, how that understanding of the cocky has transformed our understanding of sexuality.

Trueman'due south overall project is to show how the modern concept of the cocky in the West has evolved from externally derived sources in which a person'south identity was defined by institutions such as church, family, and tribe. This transformation did non occur in a linear fashion, just with still recognizable phases. First the sense of self became "psychologized," turning in to focus on ane's feelings equally an administrative guide. Trueman quotes Rousseau's Confessions as an example: "The particular object of my confessions is to make known my inner self…. [A]ll I need practise… is to wait inside myself" (108). It does not have much imagination to run into how this thought is ubiquitous in today'due south 24/7 social media world. Next, the cocky became sexualized, a shift Trueman primarily attributes to Freud. Although Freud'south theories have been largely debunked today, the idea that sexuality is at the centre of our identity (what Mark Regnerus has at present depressingly called the "genital life" 2 ) has persisted to the betoken where we now view sexuality as something we are, rather than merely something nosotros do. Freud's focus on sexuality gave scientific legitimacy to heirs to Marxist thought who sought to politicize the psychologized and sexualized self. Trueman singles out some of the fundamental figures in the so-chosen Frankfurt School of critical theory, specially Herbert Marcuse and Wilhelm Reich. The Frankfurt School sought to extend Marxist analysis beyond economics by expanding its critique of capitalism to what it perceived to be the institutions that supported and legitimized capitalism, including matrimony and the family, and therefore also traditional ethics of sexuality. Equally Trueman puts it, "To transform lodge politically, then, 1 must transform society sexually and psychologically" (250). For Marcuse, Reich, and others in the Frankfurt School, the liberation of sexuality from the repressive norms associated with traditional marriage was essential in overcoming oppressive commercialism. Liberty from these societally imposed norms was necessary if persons were to be fully complimentary and authentic to their truthful selves.

Information technology is ane thing for philosophers and academics like Rousseau, Freud, Marx, and others to develop these ideas, only is that sufficient for these notions to capture and sway the pop imagination? Here Trueman helpfully surveys accompanying influences in popular culture that helped to spread these ideas. For example, he quotes William Blake's poem "The Garden of Love" as an expression of the thought that the church has repressed homo'southward true and authentic selves: "And priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, / And bounden with briars, my joys and desires" (156). Similarly, Trueman describes how the Surrealist movement of the early on twentieth century independent elements that explicitly sought to undermine Christian understandings of sexuality. Again, his treatment is not exhaustive, and no dubiety there are those who would competition or revise his examples. Nevertheless, his inclusion of the Romantics and the Surrealists is useful in identifying the power of popular culture to push what might otherwise be obscure ideas out of the ivory tower and into the public foursquare.

Trueman also argues for the existence of an explicitly anti-Christian animus behind these developments. For case, the Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and William Blake are representative of ideas that were gaining traction in the early nineteenth century which viewed Christian sexual mores equally repressive and immoral constraints on the man capacity for liberty and authenticity. Similarly, Trueman notes that the aim of many of the figures he identifies—whether Marx, Freud, Reich, Marcuse, or others—was not simply to expand the boundaries of sexual identity and expression, but to eliminate any such boundaries at all. The very idea of boundaries assumes an external authority, specifically God, which is seen equally an barb to the mod self who alone should be freed to decide ane'south choices based but on inner desires.

Trueman seeks charity and residuum in his treatment of the ideas of those he surveys. He does then by presenting their arguments using their own language and often including quotations from original sources. These choices were intentional, for while those he critiques "might demur to [his] conclusions," Trueman hopes they will, "at to the lowest degree recognize themselves in [his] account of their thought" (31). For the nigh part he succeeds, although I wonder whether his use of labels such as "the New Left" (252-3) or "elites" (91) might not be perceived equally recognizable by those who he includes in such groups.

Lest Christians are tempted to use Trueman's analysis every bit ammunition for fighting culture wars, or wring our hands at the loss of the "expert one-time days," Trueman repeatedly makes clear that he intends his work to be neither a lament nor a polemic. This is a caution worth repeating; nosotros may be tempted to separate our culture into "usa" and "them," and to dismiss or criticize "them" for how "they" have accustomed culture's definitions of the cocky and have acquiesced to expressive individualism. Not so fast, warns Trueman. As he rightly notes, Christians cannot divide ourselves from our civilization and signal fingers at others. "We are all expressive individualists now," (386) he observes, and as a pointed instance he notes the widespread tendency for Christians to prioritize their own choices in denominations, churches, worship styles, and more.

The modern understanding of the self is not all bad, of course. Trueman does acknowledge that some of these developments have been unmistakably benign. For case, he highlights the very notion of human rights, the enhanced freedom from oppressive systems, and the recognition of the need to protect private dignity, especially for those who are marginalized. Nevertheless, Christian readers would exercise well to have seriously Trueman'due south business relationship every bit a warning: "…the framework for identity in wider society is deep rooted, powerful, and fundamentally antithetical to the kind of identity promoted as bones in the Bible" (393).

Just having now been fabricated enlightened of the deep roots of the sexual revolution, what would Trueman take us do? By "us" Trueman states that his primary audition is Christians in the West, and—wearing his hat equally a pastor—he intends his book not only for academics or historians, but for the person in the pew who needs to understand our times. Cautiously, he offers some terminal thoughts which are most valuable equally resources to help Christians increase their critical discernment and awareness of the waters in which we are swimming. But, to keep from being boiled alive, we are going to take to do more than just heighten our awareness. Here Trueman offers a somewhat bleak appraisal, noting that, "at that place is no compromise that can actually be reached" (401) betwixt those defending religious liberty and those advocating for ever greater expansion of sexual identity rights. This observation echoes the insights recently fabricated by Steven D. Smith, whose comparison of Christianity in the current era versus the heathen era of the Roman Empire led him to observe that, "the Christian view of sexuality was not simply radically alien; it was close to incomprehensible." 3 Trueman argues that a Christian social imaginary and sexual ethic are most plausible when the church lives out its convictions in communities where biblical sexual ethics are taught. Such teaching is near effective, of course, when it is accompanied by activity; that is, when the church gives witness to the truth that man flourishing comes non from inventing our ain rules, but when we accolade God'due south laws every bit the guide for what is best for u.s.. Trueman'southward phone call to recover Christian community is reminiscent of what James Davison Hunter urged more than a decade ago: 4 to change the world nosotros must focus on beingness faithfully present where nosotros are. Although Trueman'due south volume may not offer details on how to exercise that, its most useful contribution is to provide in one volume a clearer understanding of why it is important.

Cite this article

James R. Vanderwoerd, "Volume Review: The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Cocky: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution", Christian Scholar's Review, 51:2 , 256-259

Footnotes

  1. Collin Hansen & Carl Trueman, "The Gospel Coalition Podcast." Last modified November 17, 2020. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/podcasts/gospelbound/the-rising-and-triumph-of-the-modern-cocky/
  2. Marker Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Matrimony, and Monogamy (New York, NY: Oxford Academy Press, 2017), chapter 6.
  3. Steven D. Smith, Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018), 122.
  4. James Davison Hunter, To Alter the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity Today (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010).

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