\u201cWhat I offer here is essentially a prolegomenon to many discussions that Christians and others need to have about the most pressing issues of our day, particularly as they manifest themselves in the variety of ways in which the sexual revolution affects us,\u201d argues Carl R. Trueman.<\/p>\n
In The Rise and Triumph of the Modern <\/em>Self, Trueman attempts to paint an image of the last several hundred years of history and philosophy that brings us to where we are today in his view of a culture where sex pervades everything. The biblical and religious studies professor focuses on several key factors:<\/p>\n The book is broken up into four key parts, building his historical and philosophical argument to arrive at critique of our modern world. He can even note the primary sources of the West\u2019s decline into \u201cthird worldism,\u201d namely any great thinker, mathematician, psychologist, scientist, poet, or artist of the last two hundred years that challenged the power and assumptions of the dominant church.<\/p>\n I get it. Individualism has been elevated over collectivism in the West. I\u2019ve actually written an entire chapter on this in my book for this doctoral program. However, if you want to strike hard at the concept of individualism, you can\u2019t attack all the perceived aspect of culture that you do not believe in without actually reflecting on your own privilege as a white man whose education, career, and platform were built on the fact that this culture determined that his genitalia dictated his place and role within it. If you are going to give an honest and fair historical and philosophical assessment of individualism, male white dominance can\u2019t be left out of the equation.<\/p>\n The first sign that this book would push my patience and try my ability to be opened minded to an alternative worldview was after a quick Google search only to find that Tim Keller\u2019s Gospel Coalition gave the resource rave reviews. Mind you, when I\u2019m looking to challenge my beliefs, I tend to use this platform as a polar opposite sounding board. Nothing embraces my contrary theological worldview than the all-male council of the organization that centers on the gospel of Jesus Christ, just not the one that finds Jesus hanging out with so-called sinners and marginalized and pushing against the self-righteous religious elite. White Evangelicalism has supplanted the Jesus of the Gospels with the fiery prophets of the Hebrew scriptures. Let\u2019s check with Jonah to see how that ego-centric approach turned out.<\/p>\n Instead of taking time to understand what the people of our culture are trying to express about themselves, the church, and how God is at work in their lives, the Conservative Evangelical world continues to take potshots from the sidelines, playing the victim card. Last time I checked in church history, this kind of approach never really turned out well; ask the White church of the American South from the pre-Civil War to the Jim Crow era, the German Lutheran Church\u2019s embrace of old Adolph and his Third Reich, those fun-loving church people that burned the supposed witches at the stake in Salem, who can forget the Anabaptists fiery moment of \u201cheretical\u201d glory, the scorched and scattered post-mortem remains of Wycliffe or the early church people who loved the idea of genital mutilation as a prerequisite of full inclusion.<\/p>\n Within this condemnation of expressive individualism, Trueman fails to recognize that the shifts and changes within the Western culture over the last 100 years have elevated the rights and equity of women, persons of color, and non-white-centric countries. The author attempts to tip his cap to this notion when he wrote, \u201cNone of this is to argue that we should simply lament the situation, for expressive individualism is not an unmitigated evil. In some ways, it marks a significant improvement on what which is replaced.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/p>\n The reality is that people are not more hedonistic and sinful today than they were 300 years ago. Recent studies have found that people are more spiritual today than ever before.[8]<\/a> What people are rejecting is the human construct of the religious institution. Even the Barna group recognized that the issues revolve around the church\u2019s response to the exclusionary nature, repression of sexuality, scientific development, rejection of people\u2019s wrestling and doubts, and lack of authenticity.[9]<\/a> At the end of the day, what people reject today is the Western construct of the institutional church, not Jesus.<\/p>\n Therefore, a little empathy and listening skills might go a long way for the dying construct of the Western expression of the church. If the self-righteous, judgmental church can be more like Jesus, aligning themselves with the so-called sinners, eating meals with them, sharing stories with them, and living life beside them, maybe they just might be saved from the construct of Christianity made in their image rather than the guy from Nazareth.<\/p>\n The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self <\/em>is another attempt by a white Christian man whose career, power, and desire for control were built on a sense of privilege that they have yet to recognize.<\/a><\/p>\n [1] Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self<\/em>, (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020) 37.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Ibid, 46.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n [3] Ibid, 75.<\/a><\/p>\n [4] Ibid, 52.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n [5] Ibid, 78.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n [6] Ibid, 21.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self<\/em>, 386.<\/p>\n\n