Consecrating humanity

Christian thinkers and critics of modernity often talk about rising secularization in terms of the world’s “disenchantment,” suggesting the need for efforts of “­reenchantment” whether religious or aesthetic to combat the feeling of meaninglessness that has crept into Western society. Carl Trueman, however, thinks this thesis of disenchantment is inadequate to explain our modern situation.

Trueman is a professor of biblical and theological studies at Grove City College and a WORLD Opinions contributor who has written extensively about the crisis of modernity and its relationship to the church. His new book, The Desecration of Man (Sentinel, 256 pp.), explains that modernity’s problem isn’t a loss of wonder but a conscious rejection of biblical truth.

Trueman says the central question of our time is “What is man?” Without an answer to this question, it’s impossible to speak about morality. Darwinians believe we’re accidentally conscious beings. This purposelessness of humanity’s origins undermines any attempt to speak about how we ought to behave. Christianity, on the other hand, teaches mankind is made in the image of God, but has the church consistently explicated a robust theology explaining this doctrine?

In light of this lack of direction, Trueman says our world has answered this central question by saying man is “the one who transgresses what was formerly considered sacred and thereby demonstrates his own godlike status.”

Throwing off our natural restrictions might make us feel godlike, but Trueman argues that it actually desecrates our status as image bearers of the one true God. He notes three broad ­categories of desecration at work in modernity: the denial of human exceptionalism, the objectification of persons, and the move to self-creation. The exploitation of technology to overcome the limits of human nature has consequences for the entirety of human life from beginnings—questions of birth control and IVF—to the ends—questions of assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Much of the book wrestles with the damage wrought by the sexual revolution. The advent of the pill unhinged sex from procreation. Trueman says the sex act’s potential to create new life is one of the clearest manifestations of our status as image bearers of God. But birth control takes the purpose of sex and redirects it from procreation to recreation. Sex becomes an outlet for self-fulfillment and self-expression. Making sex about one’s self leads to unbiblical attitudes about promiscuity, homosexuality, and abortion, as well as encouraging individuals to see each other as objects for self-­gratification rather than fellow image bearers. Other writers have made similar critiques of the sexual revolution, but Trueman adds another dimension as he examines our current cultural climate. Society wants to see sex as both recreational and exceptional. It’s an unstable position. Many people view sex as central to their identities, but they’re “doomed to experience life as objects” in this morally untethered world we’ve created. Making sex into a commodity turns the self into a commodity.

Trueman suggests the modern ideal is founded upon the pursuit of authenticity, and the quickest way to demonstrate one’s authenticity is to reject society’s traditional restraints. Once humans have felt the godlike exhilaration of throwing off sexual standards, the obvious next step is to reject the reality of our sexed bodies. We move from rejecting natural law to rejecting nature itself. There’s a depressing sameness to this supposed authenticity that spurns the biblical understanding of humanity.

Combating this onslaught of nihilism will require something sturdier than a program of “reenchantment.” Trueman finds the notion that we can create meaning through openness to the supernatural too anemic. He ends his book arguing that the church must engage in robust worship and promote proper morality. But most importantly, these two things must be rooted in the truth of biblical doctrine. We can only truly answer the question “What is man?” if we know how to answer the question “Who is God?”