Carl Trueman’s new book, The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades Our Humanity, will likely make my list of Favorite Reads of the Year. Immensely readable for the thoughtful observer of our current cultural climate, it’s also penetrating in its analysis and insight. Trueman brings into view something outside the frame of his Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self—he shows how technology, not merely philosophy, has sped our cultural devolution in recent years.
Because of the scope of topics he covers, no one will escape feeling a level of discomfort in his trenchant diagnoses. Some Christian conservatives will nod along while reading the chapter on sexuality, only to be challenged when they turn the page to see how reproductive technologies such as IVF also fall under his banner of desecration.
Some nonreligious conservatives will breeze through the book, only to be surprised that they—like Roger Scruton—might fit in the same box as Richard Dawkins, because Trueman believes the desire for Christianity only for its benefits is, in fact, another form of nihilism.
Those on the political right will “Amen” the many examples of desecration on the secular left, only to discover there’s no partisan escape, for Trueman also points out the desecrating impulse of those who associate themselves with the right.
Problem With Re-Enchantment
What I found most provocative in Trueman’s thesis is that the recent talk about disenchantment and the malaise of our modern world isn’t enough to explain our cultural battles and anxieties. “We have not disenchanted what it means to be human,” he writes. “Rather, we have desecrated humanity.”
Trueman finds “desecration” a far better way of describing a culture that revels in the destruction of things once viewed as sacred. In this, we hear echoes of Philip Rieff: “Culture and sacred order are inseparable. . . . No culture has ever preserved itself where there is not a registration of sacred order.”
Why does the difference in diagnosis matter? Because if disenchantment isn’t the deepest problem, then a “re-enchantment” that merely opens us up to something beyond the immanent frame cannot be the solution. That impulse will only take us so far—perhaps into acknowledging that nature is mysterious, or that there’s something unfathomable beyond our consumerist way of life. That might be a start, but it isn’t a destination. Trueman writes,
The modern notion of man—free and autonomous as demonstrated by his ability to transgress boundaries once considered sacred—has paradoxically reduced him to nothing. In desecrating God, man has ironically desecrated himself. The answer therefore is not merely some nebulous re-enchantment of the world. . . . Rather, the answer is consecration.
Consecration, Trueman argues, is more than a feeling or sentiment. It has “a distinct, dogmatic, cultic, and moral shape, with all three elements standing in nonnegotiable connection to each other.” He makes this memorable with three C’s: creed, cult, and code.
Some who share our concerns about the malaise of the modern world may agree on two out of three—but all three remain necessary. Consider the renowned neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist, who acknowledges himself as a Christian in some sense, moved by worship (what Trueman calls “the cult”) yet believing that traditional insistence on the creed is misguided. McGilchrist may be an ally in the re-enchantment conversation, as a scientist willing to press beyond reductionist materialism, but those who remain on his plane will lack what’s necessary to see a genuine Christian renewal of society take place. Two out of three isn’t enough.
What This Means for the Church
Trueman’s analysis is provocative and, in the main, right. And it has ramifications for how we think about discipleship and evangelism.
Understanding that the biggest problem is desecration—not merely disenchantment—goes a long way in helping Christians think through the reasons why many in our culture express hostility toward Christian doctrine and especially Christian ethics. It opens a window into the why of desecration: the exhilaration many feel as they tear down the holy. It helps Christians brace for cultural conflict while maintaining a laser focus on local church ministry—reinforcing what we believe and why (the creed), the necessity and formative influence of worship in Word and sacrament (the cult), and the nonnegotiable elements of Christian conduct (the code). A renewal of the culture cannot happen apart from a renewal of the church.
But one could read Trueman’s work and assume the only response is to hunker down and maintain what we have as Christians, preserving the church as an enclave against the storms of desecration. There’s an illuminating moment in a recent conversation between Trueman and Albert Mohler where Mohler acknowledges that many of his tactical or strategic disagreements with other believers boil down to a question of distance: How far is the gap between faithful Christians and the surrounding culture?
If the distance runs along the disenchantment-to-re-enchantment spectrum, there are all kinds of openings to pursue and areas of common ground to cultivate for evangelistic conversation. If the distance is measured by desecration and consecration, the gulf between Christians and the secular left (and right) is far wider.
Two Cheers for Disenchantment
So here’s where I’d like to give at least one or two cheers for the disenchantment thesis (though with some important caveats I’ve pointed out before). Desecration may mark our culture as a whole, but the intense passion around tearing down the holy is only characteristic of some within it. Most people aren’t involved in active desecration. Yes, they live in Nietzsche’s world of ressentiment and breathe that polluted air, but they don’t necessarily feel his passion. They sense the madness of our current cultural moment, but they aren’t excited by Nietzsche’s madman.
So even if Trueman’s desecration/consecration axis is sharper than the disenchantment/enchantment axis, plenty of individuals experience the latter in a more profound way than the former—and are thus ripe for evangelistic conversations that can open the door to the challenging of deeper assumptions and presuppositions.
On the flip side, Trueman’s analysis will challenge anyone who thinks the desecration/consecration axis lines up neatly along partisan political lines in the United States. There will be no political solution to our current malaise. Trueman points out the transhumanist movement of the tech bros and the war-lording of Christian nationalist fantasists online.
Listen to some people speak of the differences between Republicans and Democrats, and you’d think the distinctions are between total darkness and brilliant light—when in reality we’re all experiencing the various stages of a twilight that now engulfs all the West.
Although we may acknowledge that the transgressive ethos has been more evident on the left than on the right, so that claiming a moral symmetry between the parties would be inaccurate (from a platform perspective, there’s at least something for secular “reality respecters” on the Republican side), nothing that even closely resembles Trueman’s consecrated vision is to be found in American politics today. Only in the church, and even there we have work to do.
Church’s Calling in a Desecrated Age
My takeaway from this book is soberness and hope—an increased passion to see a church unflinching in its assessment of our cultural moment and rededicated to shoring up its beliefs, its worship, and its Christlikeness as indispensable elements for a renewal of mission in the days ahead. Not a church that retreats but one that reaches out with kindness and conviction, offering something that will meet the next generation’s hunger for stability and meaningful moral formation.
Consecration shouldn’t result in a purely defensive posture. We’re consecrated for mission. The church that knows what it believes, why it worships, and how it’s called to live is the same church that can go out—not to preserve or bring back a previous era but to serve as a living reminder to a world that has forgotten what it means to be human.
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