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RENEW Review of Carl Trueman’s ‘The Desecration of Man’ · Real Life Theology Podcast

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  Welcome back everyone to the Real Life Theology podcast.
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  Today's Renew Review features Chad Ragsdale giving a
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  review on Carl Truman's new book, The Desecration of
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  Man. Here's the episode.
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  You know those inflatable bouncy houses that some people rent for their kids' birthday
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  parties? Um, I want you to imagine this scenario with me real quick. Pretend pretend
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  that all inflatables somehow become sentient.
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  In fact, imagine an entire planet that's populated by
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  sentient inflatables of every size and
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  every shape. After hundreds and maybe even thousands
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  of years of inflatable civilization,
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  imagine a number of overly philosophical bouncy houses
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  come along and they begin to suggest that the belief in air pumps
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  the belief in air pumps is merely the mythical remnant
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  of some bygone era, um, less enlightened,
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  less scientific. They insist, they insist that modern inflatables know
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  better. Modern inflatables know that air pumps, they, they don't really exist.
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  Air pumps have never existed. Air pumps, or at least
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  the belief in air pumps, is dead.
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  It's gone. Now initially, this might be received as liberating news.
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  Oh, we no longer have to believe in, in these antiquated beliefs. We no longer
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  have to believe in air pumps. We're free. We're liberated. This pronouncement,
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  however, has left inflatable civilization in a bit of a
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  predicament, because how is it that they are to remain inflated
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  without the existence of air pumps? Now,
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  some clever inflatables will no doubt come along and claim that we've really been
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  the source of our own inflation all
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  along. They may even produce content that teaches
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  young inflatables to believe that despite what they have— may have
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  been heard or what they've been taught in the past, real power
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  only comes from within. And this
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  might sound mildly inspiring at first, this idea of being the source
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  of your own inflation, but when you really start to think about it,
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  the idea of an inflatable being the source of their own inflation just starts to
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  sound kind of absurd. Eventually, this population of sentient
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  inflatables comes to a sobering realization. In a world
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  without air pumps, in a world where air pumps are dead, the only
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  future is deflation,
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  ending in a flat, lifeless existence.
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  Now, this scenario, as admittedly silly
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  as it is, closely approximates
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  the message of Carl Truman's new book called The Desecration of Man.
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  For anyone interested in tracing how culture is the manifestation
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  of certain philosophies and ideas, Truman really is your guy
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  for that. And this is one of the reasons why I love Carl Truman.
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  It's one of the reasons why I enjoy recommending his books, because for Truman,
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  philosophy is much more than just some abstract academic curiosity.
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  For Carl Truman, philosophy is sort of like the blueprint that
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  builds a civilization, the blueprint that builds a culture.
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  His earlier book called The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self is
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  among my most highly recommended books. I really enjoyed that book.
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  And in that book, he explains how this idea that's called expressive
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  individualism— he explains where this idea came from.
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  It seemed to just pop up overnight, but really
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  it is the byproduct of hundreds of years' worth of philosophical ideas
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  that have finally reached their maturity.
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  Now, readers of Truman will recognize that this book,
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  Desecration, is like an expansion
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  on some of the ideas that he introduced in Rise and Triumph. But I also
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  want to make clear that this particular book works pretty well as a standalone
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  book as well. So you don't have to read his earlier books in order to
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  really benefit from this book. Truman's thesis
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  in, in his newest book is
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  that the death of God in modernity has led to the
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  desecration of man. The death of God in modernity
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  has led to the desecration of man. Now, by desecration,
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  he means the intentional abuse or destruction of something
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  holy, something of more than ordinary significance.
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  At the center of the argument is Friedrich Nietzsche's
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  famous prophecy regarding the death of God.
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  To Nietzsche, the death of God was not really something, uh,
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  to be celebrated as much as it was something to be reckoned with.
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  Like the inflatables in our imaginary world who announced the death
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  of air pumps, the death of God has placed civilization
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  in a sobering predicament. Without God,
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  what does it even mean to be human? Without God, is anything
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  at all sacred or holy.
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  We've attempted to fool ourselves into believing that we possess the capacity
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  to maintain the sacred in the absence of the divine. Those who
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  have killed God have put themselves in the place of the divine.
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  It turns out that theocide, the killing of
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  a god, is really nothing more than an act of self-deification.
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  The problem, of course, is that self-deification leads only
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  to desecration. Put another way, one doesn't
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  attempt to replace God without destroying
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  himself in the process. In killing
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  God, we have emptied the world, including humanity
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  itself, of the sacred.
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  Without God, we are left as flat,
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  lifeless objects in an uncaring world,
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  incapable of supplying ourselves with those things
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  that are necessary for the sacred.
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  Like the prophets, Nietzsche— this is Truman's
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  argument— Nietzsche was ahead of his time.
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  There's a time lag between announcing the death of
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  God and dealing with the consequences of that death.
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  Truman argues persuasively that we're now living in the era
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  of Nietzsche's famous madman, and this explains
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  the desecration that we witness virtually everywhere that we look.
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  Nothing is sacred, including and especially human beings,
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  because we have killed God.
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  The primary way that we experience this desecration,
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  according to Truman, is in the rejection of
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  limits. The sacred, if you think about
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  it, the sacred requires boundaries and limits. A good example of this,
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  I think, is found in the Jerusalem Temple.
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  At the heart of the temple was what was called the Most Holy Place,
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  with its clearly defined boundaries and limits.
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  Without the veil that separated the Most Holy Place from the Holy Place,
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  without that veil, there was no
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  identification of the sacred. To transgress
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  past the veil was to desecrate what was holy.
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  To a culture then that has killed God, the transgression
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  against the holy becomes an imperative.
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  It is perhaps the only imperative left. Limits and
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  boundaries are the enemy of our self-deification
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  project. We must ransack
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  the throne room of God if we are to become his replacement.
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  So Truman asks a provocative question in this book.
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  He says, in the minds of Western radicals, what do Hamas,
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  queer theory, transgenderism, and other progressive ideas have
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  in common? If you're anything like me, you've been confused by
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  this strange alliance that's developed between Western progressives
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  and regressive terrorists who subject—
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  who subjugate and abuse women and homosexuals. So how
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  does this work? Why is there an alliance forming there? It doesn't seem to make
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  any sense. But Truman actually in the book explains exactly why this alliance
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  does make sense. Simply the, uh, simply this is what he says: the
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  desire to overthrow what is and to demolish what previous generations
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  considered authoritative, even sacred, whether it be the virtues of
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  democracy, the right of Israel to exist, or the importance of biological sex.
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  In other words, it is all part of the same project of desecration.
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  In a godless age, the good person is the person
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  who is transgressive towards all traditions, all limits,
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  all boundaries, and all values. The sacred must be torn
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  down. Um, he puts it well at the very beginning of
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  the book. He says transgression of that once considered sacred has
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  become their primary task. And transgression of
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  the sacred is exhilarating precisely because it makes us feel like gods,
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  the creators of our own meanings and our own selves. All we need to do
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  is cross lines previously enforced by the idea of God, and we thereby assume the
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  role of being gods. This transgression,
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  um, has wreaked devastating consequences on our culture.
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  It turns out that climbing up to into the throne of God doesn't
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  actually make you God. It turns you instead into
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  a mere object stripped of anything sacred.
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  And Truman gives a lot of examples in the book of what this looks like
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  in practice, but probably his strongest chapter, in my opinion, is a
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  chapter dedicated to sex. The way we
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  talk about sex is incoherent.
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  It doesn't make any sense. Sex in our culture is not simply something that we
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  do. It's actually a mark of our very identity. We identify ourselves according
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  to our sexual impulses and urges. We have placed
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  sexual pleasure, in other words, at the very center of our self-understanding.
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  I understand myself and I understand those around me in
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  terms of their sexual identity. Um, but we've also
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  come to believe that there's nothing sacred about sex.
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  So there are no limits, there are no boundaries to sex. We are free
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  to indulge as we see fit.
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  Even sex work, previously derided as a
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  scandal against the sacred, even sex work now is just a
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  career choice. Nothing more, nothing less. The horrible irony,
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  of course, is that by stripping sex of its sacredness,
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  we've also at the same time turned ourselves into mere objects.
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  We are objects either in the pursuit of sexual pleasure or objects
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  to be used for sexual pleasure. Pleasure. In destroying
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  God, we have come to desecrate ourselves.
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  So we've taken something— sex— stripped it of
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  its sacredness, and then we've placed that thing at the very center
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  of our being. And we wonder why we feel
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  so empty. We wonder why we feel a
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  real lack of purpose or meaning. Now,
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  like a lot of these types of books, more time in this
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  book is spent on diagnosing the problem of culture than prescribing any
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  sort of solution. I don't really say this as a criticism.
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  There's much value in reading books like this one, which can help us to see
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  clearly what is happening in the world around us. Truman does offer,
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  however, some hope towards the end of the book.
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  The only remedy for desecration, he says, is found in
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  consecration. When a sacred space has been desecrated,
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  it's left to the faithful to reclaim and to purify that
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  which has been destroyed. With wonderful and straightforward
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  simplicity, Truman calls us to reclaim a robust Christian
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  faith in belief, in worship, and in practice.
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  It is either Nietzsche or Christianity. There is no
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  third option. Much like Rise and Triumph,
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  I gladly give this book my highest recommendation. Truman is able to
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  talk about philosophical ideas in a very accessible and readable way.
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  If you're like me and have looked at the landscape of our culture with confusion
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  and concern, you will find help for understanding
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  our times in this book. Uh,
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  you'll also very likely be inspired to examine your own life and
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  to examine those ways where you can begin to replace desecration
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  with consecration in your own life, in your own family, in your own
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  communities. Again, strongly recommend this book.
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  It's well worth your time. Thank you guys for
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  listening to this episode on the Real Life Theology podcast. On this podcast,
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  we get to feature some great content from Renew.org,
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  both from past events, interviews, and more.
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  Thank you guys for sticking with us this season. We've got some great things
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  in the lineup down the road, and we'll see you guys on the
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  next episode.