The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution by Carl R. Trueman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was an astonishingly excellent book. A must-read for every pastor, professor, and Christian who can follow his writing.

Trueman writes with a fairly academic tone, which won’t reach the uninterested masses. But the deliberate Christian with a high school, or some college, education can learn a TON here, if they work at it.

The basic thesis is that we have come to think of ourselves as defined by our feelings. We are expressive individualists. As Justice Anthony Kennedy famously put it in an awful SCOTUS ruling, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”

Trueman dissects where this crazy idea came from, how it has gotten us to transgenderism and other nightmares, and where it may take us. Hint: twitter mobs, woke-ism, and cancel culture are all the result of this.

Only GOD defines our “concept of existence,” since He made us. Our elites now consciously reject this. But Trueman deals deftly, not just ranting against our elites, but diagnosing how each of us think and feel this way, as a result of absorbing this nonsense from our culture (TV, movies, etc.). Many Christians in otherwise conservative churches, see their own feelings and sensitivities as the center of the moral universe. If I am offended, that is the end and focus of the matter. Never mind that my feelings may be askew, and need moderating or correcting.

Please, please, please, pick up this book and study it. It is a marvelous blend of history applied to where we are culturally now. Historical perspective is important for any question, and Carl Trueman delivers in spades, here!

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