{"id":29338,"date":"2022-11-01T20:08:18","date_gmt":"2022-11-02T03:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29338"},"modified":"2022-11-01T20:08:18","modified_gmt":"2022-11-02T03:08:18","slug":"less-to-do-with-sex-everything-to-do-with-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/less-to-do-with-sex-everything-to-do-with-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"Less To Do With Sex &amp; Everything To Do With Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cMen have forgotten God; that\u2019s why all this has happened.\u201d Author Rod Dreher introduces <em>The Rise of Triumph of the Modern Self <\/em>by connecting to the famous words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He then says,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Ordinary Christians need \u2013 desperately need \u2013 a more profound and holistic grasp of the modern and postmodern condition\u2026 <em>The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self <\/em>is an indispensable guide to how and why men have forgotten God.<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A solid forward that sets the tone for the rest of the book. Carl R. Trueman, the author of this immense work, is a Christian theologian and ecclesiastical historian currently serving as a Professor of Biblical &amp; Religious Studies at Grove City College. <em>The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self <\/em>is comprised of four parts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><u>Part 1<\/u> provides some basic concepts to explore the historical narrative that has unfolded over the decades.<\/li>\n<li><u>Part 2<\/u> zeroes in on the 18<sup>th<\/sup> and 19<sup>th<\/sup> centuries to discuss the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, and Charles Darwin and what Trueman calls the psychologizing of the self.<\/li>\n<li><u>Part 3<\/u> unfolds the sexualizing of psychology and the politicizing of sex.<\/li>\n<li><u>Part 4<\/u> deals with contemporaries to demonstrate how vast the West has been influenced and transformed by Parts 2 and 3.<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Just as swift as Dreher was to introduce the book, one is not left wondering what Trueman believes and the position he is advocating for throughout the text. He says,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>At the heart of this book likes a basic conviction: the so-called sexual revolution of the last sixty years, culminating in its latest triumph \u2013 the normalization of transgenderism \u2013 cannot be properly understood until it is set within the context of a much broader transformation in how society understands the nature of human selfhood.<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Before we can understand the complexity of the sexual revolution, which he refers to as \u201cthe radical and ongoing transformation of sexual attitudes and behaviors that has occurred in the West since the early 1960s,\u201d we need to understand the broader historical context. <a href=\"#_ftn4\" name=\"_ftnref4\">[4]<\/a> The distinctiveness of this particular topic is that it has normalized such things as transgenderism and other sexual phenomena over the years. He writes,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Many Christians were amazed at how swiftly society moved from a position where in the early 2000s a majority of people were broadly opposed to gay marriage to one where, by 2020, transgenderism is well on its way to becoming more or less normalized.<a href=\"#_ftn5\" name=\"_ftnref5\">[5]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Given the density of this book and the sensitivity of his topic, I will highlight a few concepts introduced in the book and provide a short commentary.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Trueman suggests that the problem is with how we view sin. <\/strong><strong>He writes,<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>For Augustine, the moral flow is ultimately intrinsic to him. He is by nature wicked, a sinner\u2026 For Rousseau, by way of contrast, his natural humanity is fundamentally sound, and the sinful act comes from social pressures and conditioning. He becomes depraved by the pressures society places on him.<a href=\"#_ftn6\" name=\"_ftnref6\">[6]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>It is my opinion that this is an important distinction. How we understand and define \u201csin\u201d indicates where we fall on the spectrum regarding theological differences.<\/em><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Plastic people, wow! <\/strong><strong>Trueman states that the psychological man is nothing more than a <em>plastic person, <\/em>meaning that <\/strong>\u201che can (or at least he thinks he can) make and remake personal identity at will.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn7\" name=\"_ftnref7\">[7]<\/a> In other words, it is the \u201cidea that we can be who or whatever we want to be is commonplace today.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn8\" name=\"_ftnref8\">[8]<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>This is a loaded statement. Yet, I believe he is on to something. Looking back to the introduction, the book&#8217;s origin focused on how this statement has come to be accepted, <\/em>\u201cI am a woman trapped in a man\u2019s body.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn9\" name=\"_ftnref9\">[9]<\/a> <em>As followers of Jesus, believing in a holy and divine God with a deep conviction that the Bible is His spoken word, it is my opinion that to make such a statement is to question the very creation account of Genesis 1-3.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Freud and the sexual influence and degression. <\/strong><strong>With insufficient space to write, I will be succinct:<\/strong> it is all about SEX for Freud, even the sexualization of children, for \u201cthe taxonomy of all life\u2019s stages is sexual.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn10\" name=\"_ftnref10\">[10]<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>8 is a solid read on Playboy and porn.<\/strong> The impact of porn, Hugh Hefner, Playboy, and the normalization of sex was huge. In sum, SEX SELLS.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lastly, while<\/strong> reflecting on my time with the Lord through a study of Colossians, I couldn\u2019t help but think about this book and Trueman suggesting that we are witnessing a furthering of the 1960s sexual revolution. The baseline of this revolution has less to do with sex and everything to do with identity (or the loss of it). Here is what I wrote in my journal:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Regarding concluding thoughts on Colossians 2:9-10, commentator Max Anders writes:<\/p>\n<p>#<strong>1) Jesus is fully God.<\/strong> Nothing needs to be added to Him. And,<\/p>\n<p>#<strong>2) You have fullness in Him.<\/strong> Nothing needs to be added to you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Simple, yet profoundly true. We find our sense of \u201cself\u201d solely in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a game-changer for us on so many fronts. As I am reading about our current sexual revolution (i.e., LGBTQ+), it has everything to do with our identity. This was an interesting read, though also challenging to engage as it was academically heavy. However, I believe there is a lot of truth to Trueman\u2019s conviction that ultimately what we are witnessing is an identity crisis.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> Carl R. Trueman, <em>The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution<\/em> (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2020), 11\u201312.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> Ibid., 27\u201328.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a> Ibid., 20.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a> Ibid., 21.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref5\" name=\"_ftn5\">[5]<\/a> Ibid., 25.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref6\" name=\"_ftn6\">[6]<\/a> Ibid., 111.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref7\" name=\"_ftn7\">[7]<\/a> Ibid., 164.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref8\" name=\"_ftn8\">[8]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref9\" name=\"_ftn9\">[9]<\/a> Ibid., 19.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref10\" name=\"_ftn10\">[10]<\/a> Ibid., 209.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cMen have forgotten God; that\u2019s why all this has happened.\u201d Author Rod Dreher introduces The Rise of Triumph of the Modern Self by connecting to the famous words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He then says, Ordinary Christians need \u2013 desperately need \u2013 a more profound and holistic grasp of the modern and postmodern condition\u2026 The Rise [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2427],"class_list":["post-29338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-trueman","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29339,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29338\/revisions\/29339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}