What we’re seeing w/ the “anti wokeness” policing and legislation coming from this evangelical and Reformed consensus is directly due to bad histories of modernity like Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.
These attempts at finding out how and why we are in this conundrum in the West downplays the role slavery, colonialism, empire, and racism had in building modernity. The modern mind is plagued with guilt over these sins by which the West became a dominant superpower.
The intentional misremembering of the past is how atrocities are committed in the present.
You cannot write a history of the sexual revolution and the modern self as it relates to technology without the political and social connections to the Civil Rights movement and the entire structure of consumer capitalism that was built of racialized disparity & wealth creation.
Modern technology and technique would not be possible a part from the imperialism of the West and its use of power for domination of resources and cheap labor.
It might be a nice study of a sliver of truth but in reality it’s overlooking the dominant theme of western “progress” which was tied to cheap labor and the extermination of “inferior” societies in order to take the coveted prize of being a world superpower.
Honestly, it’s a bigger blunder then when Trueman blasted Darryl Hart’s shoddy historical work on Presbyterianism when he confused the queens of Scotland and England.
These “histories” deny the embodied nature of historical change as much as they try to defend it. They do nothing but coddle the Christian community’s self image to vindicate it in the light of modernity’s atrocities…
rather than seeing modernity and Secularization as the fruit of the church’s violence and fractured, guilty conscience.
It ironically serves as a therapeutic denial of reality and is a simple attempt to whitewash the church’s continually bloody history.
On top of that, the complete misunderstanding of sexual desire really makes this book hopeless and pedantry of the worst kind. Again, any honest history of the church’s blundering when it comes to sex & sexuality in the West cannot but see how dishonest this one sided account is.
One cannot look honestly at the West’s sexual revolution and not see it as a direct reaction to the collective western church’s abuse of sexuality. What we’re seeing today is definitely an overreaction but a reaction TO abuses, nonetheless.
There is in the book no talk grappling with who we are and how the erotic phenomenon that is mankind is deeply tied to our spiritual nature. Sexuality and spirituality are deeply tied together. The church’s misunderstanding of these realities has directly led us to where we are.
There’s a great deal about how the church is affected by the anti-culture but very little about how we helped create it or how much repenting we need to do to have any moral credibility in our day.
This book did nothing but coddle the mind that wants a reason to feel justified in seeking to rise up against our current state. It many not be the intended motive but it surely will be the result.
Having been in these confessional Reformed circles for over a decade, this fundamentalist kind of posturing is not lost on us.
While it is probably one of the more academic works on the subject in these Christian circles, the use of sociology, philosophy and lit. comes from a 16th/17th century historian who doesn’t really understand what he’s talking about.
Such popular works will surely add to the problem of modernity that he tries to diagnose. Having been in these circles for so long, I shouldn’t be surprised by this posturing but again I am since it directly enforces the popular politics of selfishness over agapic self-sacrifice.
Knowing your audience and how they will interpret what is said is vital— since nothing is said in a vacuum. And the authoritarian spirit that dominates many Reformed, evangelical and conservative churches is not nothing and shouldn’t be taken lightly.
The reception of books like this vindicates the very culture that has demonized any cultural Other or pariah.
It’s really not lost when the author mocked race issues as a cultural fad that likely won’t be around very long. It is not lost when the inherent posture is a complete self-martyrdom complex instead of a repentant, self-sacrificial one of a Christian.
Again, the intentional misremembering of the past is how atrocities are committed in the present.
This is the cultural history that many would have us forget today of how we got here:
Another helpful review of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: "Trueman’s book then, while impressive in its endeavor, is ultimately not the kind of book needed for the times in which the church finds itself."
thelondonlyceum.com/book-review-th…
"It seems to me that there are some significant shortcomings preventing the book from accomplishing what it set out to do. First regards the type of argument it employs. Historical arguments, especially genealogical arguments, must be extremely careful...
"...about establishing claims of causation, something Trueman himself has maintained in his excellent book on historical methodology..."
"Yet, though he contends that the historical developments he traces are somehow connected to contemporary phenomena in sexual ethics, he neither clearly states their causal relationship nor provides sufficient evidence to prove them."
Later in the review: " Augustine also prioritized mental states in identifying a self—faculties like the will, memory and understanding. Would he be included as promoting a psychological self? Nothing in Trueman’s analysis would prevent that from being so...
"... but it would be strange to include Augustine in a narrative about the permissibility of sexual expression! Yet, there is no prima facie reason for not doing so, given the criteria on offer."
"The primary issues with modernity’s account of sexuality (from which assault is omitted) are its tendency to allow personal appropriations of sexual orientation and gender identities to dominate, but this would be an awkward and inaccurate account of sexual assault...
"It seems to be unable to fit within Trueman’s narrative, despite its ubiquity; therefore it is not included...
"The history [Trueman] tells, ultimately, seems selective to the phenomena that situate themselves into a particular set of assumptions regarding what is truly at issue with our culture, while excluding others."
"Trueman’s book then... is ultimately not the kind of book needed for the times in which the church finds itself."
thelondonlyceum.com/book-review-th…
This is a helpful review. Trueman's book does not ultimately help us love or serve our neighbors better today but gives a one-sided account that makes us feel comfortable through a white-washed accounting of the past.
Thought you guys would appreciate this review ^^
@AlsoACarpenter @tisaiahcho
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