The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades Our Humanity

by Carl R. Trueman

From intellectual historian Carl Trueman, an argument that a rejection of Christian anthropology drives the social ills of our time.

As church attendance falls, suicide rates climb, and birth rates plummet, Christian pundits have suggested disenchantment and the loss of tradition are to blame for our spiritual malaise. But what if the problem is both much simpler and much more serious?

In The Desecration of Man, Carl Trueman argues that modern man's crisis of meaning stems from a rejection of a simple fact—that he was made in the image of God. Unmoored from the basic moral fact that secures human dignity, we violently disrespect our own minds and bodies through abortion, pornography, casual sex, gender transitions, and more—and in this disrespect we blaspheme against God himself, with devastating practical and spiritual consequences.

With gentle pastoral wisdom, deep insight into church history, and an impressive command of philosophical genealogies, The Desecration of Man speaks to those troubled by the spiritual sickness of our time and points toward consecration to a God who is alive and loving as a solution. The Early Church triumphed over Rome because it offered life in place of death. It is time for modern Christians to offer the same kind of vision.

Genres: Theology, Christian, Philosophy, Christianity, Religion, History, Cultural

256 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 7, 2026

About the author

Carl R. Trueman (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is the Paul Woolley Professor of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary and pastor of Cornerstone Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Ambler, Pennsylvania. He was editor of Themelios for nine years, has authored or edited more than a dozen books, and has contributed to multiple publications including the Dictionary of Historical Theology and The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology.

Reviews

[Cindy Rollins · Rating 4 out of 5]

While no book about “desecration” is going to be jolly fun, this was still a worthwhile read adding to the conversation started by Carl in earlier books and added to by Paul’s Kingsnorth’s thoughts on the machine.

There are some excellent points tucked away here and there.

My takeaway: the liturgy isn’t important just because it is beautiful, but because it reflects truth.

[Tom LA · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most penetrating critiques of modern culture to appear in recent years.

Trueman argues that the modern West has moved beyond simple “secularization” and “lack of enchantment” with reality into something darker: the active and aggressive “desecration” of the human being itself. The body, sex, fertility, even death are no longer treated as realities possessing inherent meaning, but as raw material to be manipulated according to individual desire and technological capability.

Trueman writes that modernity increasingly sees the human body not as “a given to be honored but a problem to be solved.” That sentence alone captures much of the spiritual crisis of contemporary civilization.

Now, Trueman is a theologian, so obviously the book is especially compelling to me as a catholic because it defends truths central to christian moral theology and sacramental vision: the unity of body and soul, the sanctity of procreation, the limits of human autonomy, and the irreducible dignity of the person made in the image of God.

However, the book has nothing to do with apologetics, and everything with anthropology: Trueman’s critique of surrogacy, pornography, euthanasia and the technological fragmentation of parenthood is presented as an anthropological analysis with this question at its very center: “What is man?”.

And what do our times THINK man is?

At the same time, the book avoids reducing the crisis to politics or culture-war rhetoric, although the topic of transgenderism is addressed (as it needed to be) in such a work, being such a radical and perfect example of “desecration of man”.

Trueman sees the roots of the problem in a deeper philosophical and spiritual transformation: the replacement of a sacred understanding of man with the modern cult of the sovereign self. As he puts it, “When human identity is detached from any transcendent order, freedom becomes the power to remake ourselves without limit.”

It’s true that many people today seem to kneel at altar of “I want to be myself”, which means “whatever I imagine I’d like to be”, and that’s the idea of freedom they have: freedom to do and to be whatever they like.

For Trueman, and for christianity, this does not liberate humanity, it massively destabilizes it. It takes away freedom instead of giving more of it.

The problem with most people is, they don’t understand this core concept because their thinking is too shallow. “Relax!” “Not such a big deal!” are the signs on the road to catastrophe.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is its clarity. Unlike many academic works on similar themes, The Desecration of Man is concise, readable, and profound. Trueman writes with the sober tone of someone who believes that the stakes are genuinely civilizational … which they are.

I also loved the fact that, like other serious theologians, Trueman treats Richard Dawkins as the philosophical baboon that he is, bringing him up mainly to make examples of how to ridiculously misunderstand a point. I really hope that Dawkins will be handed over to the history of philosophy, if at all, as a misguided fool.

My only criticism of the book, which is not really a criticism but just a general thought, is that this is one of those books that is not gonna be picked up by anyone who is not already christian or christian-friendly, therefore it kind of preaches to the converted. Safe to say that Hollywood screenwriters won’t be reading it.

His answer to the problem of the desecration of man is essentially “consecration”: a return to Christian worship, doctrine, and moral formation, or what he calls creed, cult, and code.

Christians like me will agree with this diagnosis, as obvious as it is to us.

To me the main value of this book is that it articulates a diagnosis of modern western culture in an extreme lucid way, with examples and insights that I’ll keep going back to.

Still, this is an important and unsettling book. Trueman convincingly shows that the central question of our age is no longer merely whether God exists, but whether human nature itself possesses any sacred meaning that we are morally bound to respect.

His warning is that once man ceases to see himself as created in the image of God, he will inevitably begin to treat himself as manufactured and therefore more and more as a thing among others (see euthanasia).

[Greg Mathis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our culture has, in Nietzsche’s words, killed God. Yet this comes at a high price, for now we must create not only our own systems of morality but also our own meaning. Those who kill God must themselves become gods: a weight we were never made to carry. Hence the clamoring for significance via radical expressive individualism we see today. The result of all this means that the ascendant heresies of the moment are anthropological. No longer do people debate whether Christ was divine or how exactly the hypostatic union works. Adrift from transcendental moorings, they rather debate whether men can become women, all the while ironically claiming that both categories are mere constructions. The only hope is a return to the creed, cult, and codes of revealed Scripture. It really is the only way out.

[Michael Philliber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes sir. This is a must-read for Christians. Social diagnosis that gets close to home and ends on a hopeful note. It will challenge you, stoke your thinking, and help you to see our current moment in a better light. Not dense or dry, but straightforward, readable, and useful. I highly recommend it.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poignant, powerful and persuasive. We are men and women made in the image of God. We are not objects to be used or manipulated. Our churches must be teaching these truths and her people must be living them out in a world that desecrates the image of God.

Consecration is the answer to the desecration of man.

“Anthropology is inseparable from theology…
We cannot believe the Apostles’ Creed, recite it in church on a Sunday, and then treat others with snarling contempt for the rest of the week.“

[Peter LeDuc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compelling, as usual and as expected. This is a wonderful culmination and summation of his former works, yet he does sharply elevate his assessment of secularism from mere disenchantment to something more sinister: desecration with "ecstatic enthusiasm." Providing a compelling diagnosis and remedy, he ultimately claims that there is no third way between ordinary Christianity and nihilism.

[eden · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded up.

This is a solid, if not terribly thorough, diagnostic of what has gone so wrong with modern Western culture. Trueman identifies the issue not so much as one of disenchantment, which has proven a popular scapegoat of late, but of desecration: we used to believe that humanity is created in the image of God but no longer, thus forfeiting the foundation of a morality that treats others as valuable subjects rather than useful objects. This has resulted not merely in a loss of beauty and mystery (disenchantment) but in actual reveling in the ugliness of defilement and transgression(desecration). Man has not in fact succeeded in rendering himself godlike but rather has made himself nothing, reducing himself to something worse than dirt. We see the evidence of this in the growing popularity of euthanasia; the transformation of abortion from regrettable but necessary evil (“safe, legal, rare”) to commendable, casual, positive good; the gnostic alienation of the mind/feelings from the physical body; and the widespread use and approval of such things as IVF and surrogacy.

The remedy for such desecration, the commodification and worse of humanity, cannot be mere re-enchantment; it must be reconsecration. And this has “a definite shape”; it can only be accomplished through a return to Christianity in its fullness of “creed, cult, and code”.

One of the most salient and helpful parts for me was how Trueman traced the development of ideas leading us to where we are today — discussing Nietsche, Kant, Freud, Descartes, Simone de Beauvoir, Marx, Luther, Rousseau, Jonathan Edwards, Dawkins, and Scruton, etc along the way. And the single most incisive point for me was his explanation of how today identity is anchored in one’s feelings and desires, whereas for most of history, it was anchored in one’s community and behavior. Look around and you can see the dismal result of this almost everywhere.

But while I’m nearly in complete agreement with Trueman’s argument and perspective, I do think the book itself is underdeveloped. I think he fails to make a positive case for things he takes for granted. I agree with him that how we die, how we express sexuality, and how we build families and have children are all central to what it means to be human and therefore “sacred”, but I wanted him to explain why and how this is the case. Or even to explain what it means for something to be sacred. As is, I think his audience is very narrow: people like Dawkins and Scruton who want to preserve the morality or trappings of Christianity without assenting to its truth claims, as well as “Christians” who embrace the truth claims and aesthetics but refuse to actually abide by Christian morality. Such readers as these will certainly find themselves challenged by Trueman’s charge that Christianity must be believed and lived in its fullness in order to pull us out of the muck we’ve made for ourselves.

*ARC provided by NetGalley*

[Gabe Herrmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily five stars. This book is simply astounding. It is a relief to hear the truth spoken. Trueman, in the core of this book, states that in rejecting God, modern man has not (as they think) liberated himself; they have instead desecrated themselves, and the only answer is not re-enchantment but reconsecration through the creed, worship, and moral life of the local church.

The root cause is simple: modern man's crisis of meaning stems from a rejection of the fact that he was made in the image of God. Unmoored from the imago Dei, human dignity loses its foundation, and what follows is not merely confusion but self-destruction.

Trueman traces this desecration through three specific areas. On the sexual revolution, he argues that it has [and inevitably will keep doing so] reduced people, especially women, to objects that exist solely for the use of others. Pornography is his clearest example: it takes the mysterious, creative sexual act and commodifies it for third-party consumption, stripping it of personhood entirely. On reproductive technology, children become commodities to be bought and sold rather than gifts received. On death and mortality, the culture of desecration has rapidly embraced assisted suicide and euthanasia, treating the end of life as simply another arena for autonomous self-determination.

His proposed solution is what he calls creed, cult, and code, the true beliefs, practices, and morality of historic Christianity, as found within the local church. Re-enchantment alone is insufficient. The modern crisis of anthropology must find its solution among religious communities worshiping in local contexts, for it is in worship that human beings are brought into the presence of the God in whose image they are made. The answer to desecration is consecration, a full return to the living God through the life of the church.

[Trevor Hoffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just superb. Better than ‘Rise and Triumph,’ equal parts clarifying, heart-breaking, and beautiful.

“My argument has been that modern man’s attempts at [self-deification] have led not to his deification but his desecration. In shattering the moral limits, the obligations, and the teleology that originally rested on an understanding of man as the divine image, we have paradoxically reduced ourselves…we have desecrated humanity.” (187)

The answer? Consecration through our creed (renewed commitment to Christian teaching on God and man), cult (individual and communal practices of embodied worship), and code (reimagine of our practices of life in modern world).

[Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is excellent.

Many in today’s culture desire to hold onto the values which are the result of Christendom, while attempting to eliminate or ignore this foundation. As if notions such as the inherent dignity of all persons, and the importance of honesty, compassion, and hospitality can be regarded as naturally self-evident, or can be somehow derived from the acceptance of secular humanism and expressive individualism. Instead, these values ultimately derive from the biblical idea that we are created in the image of God. They are the byproduct of a proper anthropology—being able to correctly answer the question, “What is Man?”

Nietzsche correctly understood that without God there is no basis for this set of values. He called it “slave morality.” He knew that after the death of God all that remains is the morality of power—to live as though we are our own gods. Today this manifests as expressive individualism and emotivism. Everyone should be able do whatever they want to and decide what they believe is right based on their feelings. Of course there is typically a caviat like “as long as you don’t hurt anyone else.” But why should this even be a limitation if we really are our own gods, and we can determine what is right and wrong? If there is no universal moral law? No perfect lawgiver?

Trueman shows that without a proper understanding of what people truly are, we become desacralized, our culture is desecrated, and our humanity degraded.

I give this book my highest recommendation.

Tom wrote a great review here


And now for the quote dump:

“All three types of desecration—the repudiation of human exceptionalism, the objectification of persons, and the move to self-creation—are an integral part of the modern project. All three have theological significance, in that they reject the notion that human beings are made in God's image. All three therefore involve desecration, for the repudiation of the divine image is a repudiation of the God whose image it is. And as we will see, that is exhilarating, as Nietzsche prophetically noted in the nineteenth century.”
[p 20]

“Expressive individualism is also iconoclastic because it involves an inherently critical position toward culture. It inclines us to suspect that society is always trying to squeeze us into its mold and make us inauthentic. In a culture where the expressive individual is the ideal, to be truly human is not first and foremost to conform oneself to the demands of society or one's obligations to others, something we often describe as involving self-control; rather it often manifests as the rejection of such duties. It sees traditional forms of external authority and social existence as intrinsically oppressive. Therefore, traditional religious institutions and teachings could be seen as less plausible, as hindering innovation, and as a negative, oppressive moral force.
“This provided fertile soil for the emergence of the notion of the transgressor as hero among artists and intellectuals in the nineteenth century. And given that the boundaries being transgressed were religious in origin, the path to seeing desecration as a moral imperative also emerged. Desecration of all that was once considered holy became a hallmark of that authenticity that expressive individualism craved.”
[p 54]

“What unites these disparate groups, at least in the minds of the Western radicals who marched in the streets of New York and London in 2023 and 2024, declaring the solidarity of people identifying as queer with Palestine? In the minds of Western radicals, what do Hamas, queer theory, transgender-ism, and other progressive ideas have in common? Simply this: the desire to overthrow what is and to demolish what previous generations considered authoritative, even sacred, whether it be the virtues of democracy, the right of Israel to exist, or the importance of biological sex.
“We should notice here that all this is consistent with the world of expressive individualism and technological flux, where the former sees the status quo as always potentially inhibiting, and the latter views it as a challenge or problem to be overcome. Critical theorists see the cultural status quo as oppressive. What they all therefore have in common is an impatience with, even a suspicion of, established objective categories. The expressive individual feels that these inhibit authenticity. The Tech Bro sees them as barriers to progress. The critical theorist sees them as a means of
d political control.”
[p 75]

“We might say that the sexual act gives men and women their most godlike, sacred power. The union of man and woman can lead to the conception of a new human being, something both mysterious and socially consequential. The bringing of new life into the world is never a matter of mere private concern to the couple involved. It expands the family structure, it places obligations on parents, siblings, grandparents. Sex has not always been regarded as important primarily for individual reasons, whether as a pleasurable recreation or a means of personal fulfillment. It is of far more significance than that: It is powerful in its outcomes, and communal in its consequences. This is one reason why the first licit sexual experience in cultures shaped by Christianity, for example, was typically preceded by a public, religious marriage ceremony. Sex and sexual relationships were not private matters, of concern only to the parties involved. The sacred and the communal combined to inaugurate the relationship within which sexual activity found its legitimate expression.”
[p 80]

“The turn to expressive individualism in Western culture set the inner space of feelings and desires in general at the core of personal identity. And in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, sexual desire came to dominate the understanding of that inner space. Technology then liberated us from the natural consequences of sex. The expressive individual thus became the sexually defined individual. The most important feelings that modern men and women consider themselves to have are sexual ones. What the Freudian move does is make sexual desire and sexual expression key to what it means to be a fulfilled-an authentic-human being. And that helps us to understand another central element of the sexual revolution: its political nature.”
[p 89]

“Figures such as Christine Emba, Mary Harrington, and Louise Perry have all written books decrying the gospel of free and uncommitted sex that others of the more liberal and radical varieties regarded —and still regard—as the hallmark of the liberated, powerful woman in charge of her own body and her own destiny. When feminists start advocating for things that would once have been regarded as the bygone values of an age of dinosaurs—chastity, commitment, even celibacy outside of stable relationships—something significant is happening. And what is happening is the realization that, in the realm of sexual relationships as well as elsewhere, the dilemma identified throughout this book is exacerbated by the gospel of sexual liberation. The free, liberated individual strives to be an agent with personal significance but ends up feeling like an object of no significance at all.
“When sex is about what we can get out of it, then the other person is instrumentalized. My partner is significant to me to the extent that she gives me the experience that I want. I am therefore treating the other person as an object.”
[p 96]

“Sexual behavior is still important, as it always has been in human society, but now for a different reason: It is a key idiom of self-expression and authenticity. Hence the pressure for society at large to recognize the predilections and practices of various sexual minorities who deviate from traditional heterosexual norms.
“Second, even as society has moved to evacuate sexual acts of intrinsic moral significance, it has still retained special status for sexual crimes, and as Francis Beckwith has argued, most if not all of us intuitively know that sexual assault—precisely because it is sexual—is more serious than other types, even those involving nonsexual penetration.
“Third, the modern philosophy underlying the sexual revolution, that sex is about personal satisfaction, encourages us to see the other as an object. My partner only has value to the extent that she gives me what I want. Pornography is the most extreme example of this, substituting (in Scruton's terminology) a particular face for any body, but extreme as it is, pornography is simply the inevitable consequence of the logic of the sexual revolution.
The problem, of course, is that the first and third points stand in practical opposition to each other. Here we run into the dilemma that lies at the heart of the sexual revolution: That which promises to liberate us as individual agents, able to express ourselves and thus achieve authenticity, ends up creating a world where we are doomed to experience life as objects.”
[p 113]

“We have not disenchanted what it means to be human; rather, we have desecrated humanity.
“The answer to desecration is consecration. And so the question now becomes: How do we reconsecrate our humanity? This is where those intellectuals looking toward religion are at least moving in the right direction. But the problem is not solved by living as if Christianity were true. That would be to indulge in Plato's "noble lie" and to retreat into that nihilism that [Nietzsche’s] Madman exposed so ruthlessly. It is solved by acknowledging that Christianity is true and living accordingly.”
[p 187]

“The code and the cult only really make sense when grounded in the creed. And then we can add a third category: those who claim adherence both to the creed and to the cult but who eschew the code. Certain groups within the broader church who connect Christianity to political positions that advocate racial segregation, for example, or the use of violence to achieve political ends, fall into this category. I noted in chapter 3 that the spirit that negates is alive and well, even among some who claim to be conservative Christians. They may honor creed and cult, at least in theory, but when they indulge in the same kinds of attitudes and behavior that characterize our culture of desecration—whether comparatively trivial online crudity directed at critics or, more seriously, a Nietzschean obsession with power—they deny the code. They dehumanize their opponents and thus desecrate the image of God that those others represent. They too therefore indulge in desecration and form part of the problem.”
[p 190]

“Today, the struggle is over anthropology. The creedal aspect of church life must therefore respond to this with a robust proclamation of what it means when the church declares men and women to be made in the image of God. That question, "What is man?," is the question of our time. And no teaching so stands in opposition to the modern myth of the autonomous, unencumbered self as the notion that we have an intrinsic nature connected to our status as creatures made in God's image. What responsibilities does that place upon us? What does it mean for our bodies? How should it shape the way we interact with others, both inside and outside the church? The major challenges of our day are ethical, and ethics rest upon that deeper question of what it means to be human. Nietzsche was right: To slay God is to slay human nature. Humanists are beginning to wake up to that fact, and they need to either take the Christian creed seriously in all of its fullness or rise up to the Nietzschean challenge of self-creation whose results they already look upon with horror. There is no "exclusive humanist" third way.
[p 193]

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trueman uses Nietzsche’s Madman to explore the vacuum at the heart of resurgent cultural Christianity.

Those who wish to retain the moral and ethical building blocks of the West without connection to a living faith are definitionally nihilists- they possess the courage to kill God but not the courage to achieve godhood through independently derived moral values.

One cannot act as if Christianity is true - one must believe that Christianity is true.

[Bennett Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

The central issue of our age is anthropology. The central question is: what is man? And there are essentially two - and only two - answers. Nietzsche’s Madman calls us to a life without limits, boundaries, and purpose - i.e. desecration. But it will cost us our humanity in the process. Christ, on the other hand, calls us to a life of faith (creed), worship (cult), and obedience (code) in community (church) - i.e. a life consecrated to God. There is no third option - all else is nihilism.

This is an excellent follow-up to Strange New World, and though it covers some familiar territory (e.g. expressive individualism), it is more prescriptive and less historically focused than its predecessor.

[Alex McEwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know the last time I finished a book in a single week. Between Ivan and Alyosha consuming what felt like the entirety of my intellectual bandwidth for all of Lent (and into the first few weeks of Eastertide) and keeping Lochie alive required whatever ten brain cells I had left. Lately, I haven’t read nearly as much as I usually do. I’ve gone from finishing one or two books a week to struggling through one or two books a month. It seems Dostoevsky and parenthood have formed an unholy alliance against my Goodreads goal and I am very much not on track to hit my numbers.

“The Desecration of Man” felt urgent. It demanded immediate attention. It needed to be read in as few sittings as possible. Not because the material is enjoyable, in fact it was grotesque and made me want to turn away many times. But because the issues it addresses are so pressing.

In the way we’ve come to expect from Trueman, he identifies cultural realities many of us can sense but struggle to put into words. Then he names them with remarkable clarity and tackles them head on. He never minces words when confronting massive cultural problems. And he speaks with academic clarity and pastoral care.

Before going any further, two acknowledgements are necessary. First, shoutout to the Colson Center for giving away free copies of this book. Without that, this book probably would have sat on my reading list for a few more months.

Second, shoutout to Spotify for carrying the audiobook, narrated by Trueman himself. Parenting Lochie has forced me into far more audiobook supplementation than I would normally admit. But this message felt pressing enough for me to set aside my literary snobbery for a moment. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Trueman’s central argument is simple. Our society has desecrated what it means to be human. Many of the circles I inhabit diagnose our cultural moment with words like “disillusionment”, “disembodiment”, and “disenfranchisement”. Those words describe something real. People feel detached from institutions, communities, and even their own bodies in our postmodern, postliberal world. I mean my own philosophy of ministry document says that “I aim to reenchant the faith for a disillusioned people.” But Trueman argues those words don’t go far enough! So he offers a better one “desecration.”

Modern society hasn’t merely drifted into disenchantment. It has actively desecrated the Image of God. We no longer treat humanity as sacred, given, and dignified by divine design. Instead, we treat the self as endlessly malleable raw material that we can reconstruct according to personal desire. Trueman argues that we have turned the self into a commodity to be bought, sold, and traded.

And so Truman sets society against two men. One is Jesus Christ and the other is Nietzsche's Mad Man. And this is where Trueman shines. He shows that our debates over sexuality, abortion, pornography, gender ideology, and transhumanist dreams do not exist in isolation. They all flow downstream from a deeper question. What is a human being? Is it the image bearer of the a loving divine, or is it a commodity to be traded on the market?

And if humanity amounts to nothing more than biological matter animated by preference and protected by consensus, then of course we turn our bodies into tools. Of course we self author our identities. Of course we treat limits as things to be beat into submission. And of course we treat inconveniences as death itself.

A world that no longer sees people as sacred eventually starts treating people as disposable. That thought should chill us! We learn the world is fallen two pages into the Bible. And anyone who has ever turned on the news for 5 seconds instinctively knows this. When my dad died, someone had to identify his body. Someone had to look at his dead corpse and say this is the man who was in life known as Enzo McEwen. And too often we think of the problems of the secular world as something that is far off. My Christian community doesn’t struggle with this, how can it affect me? But Trueman makes us look at the corpse. He forces us to look at a problem we have refused to acknowledge for far too long. This is a dead society which in life was hurting but at least governed by basic ideals of Christendom.

What I appreciated most about this book, however, is that Trueman refuses to end in cultural despair. He doesn’t sit in nostalgia for a world that never existed, like so many conservative commentators are tempted to do. And he doesn’t call Christians to become angry culture warriors yelling into the internet void, which is refreshing because the internet already has plenty of those and none of them seem particularly happy. Instead, he calls the church to consecration.

The answer to a desecrated world is a church that takes worship seriously. A church that forms people through liturgy, sacrament, doctrine, discipline, and ordinary embodied faithfulness. Christians won’t defeat modern fragmentation by posting better takes online. We resist by becoming people shaped by Word, sacrament, prayer, and community. By becoming holy.

That may disappoint people searching for a grand political strategy. But Scripture has always favored ordinary means. Bread, wine, water, preaching, and prayer. God seems remarkably unbothered by our desire for flashier solutions.

And if I’m honest, I see the need for that reminder everywhere around me. I see young men drifting between nihilism and outrage, discipled more by podcasts than pastors. I see marriages buckling under the weight of expressive individualism. I see parents terrified that faithfulness alone won’t be enough to prepare their children for the world they’re inheriting. I see churches tempted to mirror the culture’s panic rather than offer a distinctly Christian peace.

And if I’m really honest, I can see traces of the same impulses in my own heart. The temptation to confuse cynicism with discernment. The temptation to believe one more article, one more podcast episode, or one more perfectly crafted argument will somehow steady a world that feels unstable. It won’t. Christ will.

Christ still builds His church. Christ still saves sinners. Christ still sanctifies ordinary saints through ordinary means. And Christ still reigns over a world that often looks like it has forgotten Him. The world may mock, distort, and desecrate the image of God in man, but it cannot erase it. And the same Christ who restores all things is still restoring people.

And as we wait for the King to make all things new, may we remember that our bootstraps cannot save us. Our political strategies can not save our fallen world. A million hours of Johnathan Haidt’s content cannot lift us out of despair. Only our sovereign God can. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Amen.

[Jake Little · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found this one randomly on Spotify and did not realize I would be needing a submarine for the depths we would be going to in Desecration Of Man. This critique of modernity is insightful as it is impactful. When we remove God from the social imaginary, we don’t find liberation, we find desecration.

[Mitchell Shadwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably my favorite of the Trueman books I’ve gotten to read.

He hits the nail on the head when he says that society’s rejection of God cannot be explained simply by a disenchantment with the supernatural (as the failure of re-enchantment efforts clearly show) but is better explained by desecration: the ecstatic transgression of that which has historically been sacred. Man is thrilled by the idea of stepping into the God-vacuum in a world where God seems less and less plausible. However, as Trueman demonstrates with alarming examples from the casual desecration of the once-sacred realms of sex, reproduction, and even death, this approach fails to elevate man into godhood and ironically reduces persons to objects.

In his proposed solution, I found it very refreshing to see an academic turn not to arguments to win over the intelligentsia, but instead to more incremental day-to-day changes to transform the intuitions of the matches. It’s not just that this approach reads better. It’s the one that will actually work.

Much of the book is a best-of with Trueman, be it his expositions of expressive individualism or his importance of the church’s creed, code, and cult to a proper anthropology, but what I enjoy most is how he shows how empty the code and the cult are if not upheld by the creed. If man is not made in the image of God, then we have no given nature, limits, obligations, or ends, and we’re left with a void of meaning we cannot fill. However, if man is made in the image of God, we have an incredible dignity and responsibility that fills life with joy and purpose.

“Christianity does not claim to be true because it justifies our cultural preferences and delivers the results we desire. It claims to be true because Christ, God incarnate, is risen from the grave.”

[David Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is man? What does it mean to be human? If we’ve killed God and find ourselves dancing on his grave, we’re profaning what was once considered sacred and, with the vacuum that’s been created, self-creatively making deities of ourselves. But what if, as the wise man said, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end of that way is death”?

And what if we’re not objects? What if we’re subjects afforded dignity by being created in the image of God? What if God is not dead, and the only shot we’ve got at the pursuit of truth and beauty and goodness is God-glorification for our joy as taught in the historic, orthodox Christian faith?

How can we rediscover what it means to be men and women of whom God is mindful, who dwells among us and crowns us, “in Christ” with glory and honor?

Trueman reveals to creatures that there is a Person more significant than ourselves — the Creator that made us.

What if we can move from desecration to consecration?

Through Creed, and Cult, and Code, Trueman argues that slowly, as a culture, we can find our way back to exclaiming, “O Lord our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth!”

[Philip Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply excellent. I will return.

[Brad Peters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really really good! This volume serves as a conclusion of sorts (though Trueman likely and hopefully has more to say) of the themes of a couple of his recent books, namely, Strange New World and Crisis of Confidence. Here he lays out an argument for how and why the West has desecrated mankind and he sets it up with a concise yet brilliant contrast of Nietzsche’s Madman and the New Testament’s Christ.

If God is dead as the Madman claimed, then the Apostle Paul is right: Christians are to be most pitied. But if Christ is risen then His claims to be The Truth must cause us to bow and believe … and act accordingly to His way.

Powerful read!

[Joe Koehler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoughtful assessment of modern culture and the historical ideas and movements that lead to it. Trueman is an excellent "cultural expositor." In this book, he identifies and evaluates how Western culture currently understands anthropology - that is: what is humanity? What is its purpose? What or who gives it significance? This was a pretty insightful and helpful read overall, but it does require slow reading (at least, for me!), since the author is very intelligent and makes extensive use of the english dictionary!

[Marcas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr Carl Trueman is perhaps the sharpest and most cogent historian and social critic since Christopher Lasch. And The Desecration of Man is a profound prognosis of the ill health of many nations in the global north in the 21st century.

Throughout The Desecration of Man, Trueman asks an array of fundamental questions about life, death, transhumanism, the sexual revolution, bioethics, and more.
The big picture of the book presents desecration and consecration as an alternative to the Weberian image of a move from enchantment to disenchantment.
Carl argues, like William Cavanuagh in The Migration of the Holy, that this is illusory. The world was never fundamentally disenchanted.
The world became enchanted with the state and the market, with slick politicians and party promises, with Amazon packages, Starbucks, and smart phones.

Furthermore, if we accept the dubious hypothesis of a disenchanted world, Christians will often proffer re-enchantment as an alternative. This has been the approach of lesser Christian writers such as Rod Dreher.
Au contraire, Dr Trueman says the common notion of 'enchantment' is too vague and Carl lays out a helpful Christian schema of creed, code, and cult in its stead. These are all part of the consecration of the world. It is quite a simple little trifecta of course, but it is remarkable just how few Christians are involved with all three. The result is disintegration within the church, a real weakening of the body, and makes us vulnerable to the major cultural ailment of desecration.

Trueman looks at nominal Christians who may have the 'cult' element nailed down to some degree, enjoying the aesthetics of the Christian faith, the beauty of her arts, and so on but who do not really believe it. They do not believe that this peculiar near-eastern man, Yeshua from the little town of Nazareth is who He says He is - the God of the universe, who created the earth, the moon, the stars, black holes, and all sorts.

While an admirer in many ways, Carl refers to Roger Scruton as an example of this focus on cult. From my conversations with Dr Mark Dooley, a friend of Roger's and author of several books about him, this may not be accurate about the great English philosopher.
Whether or not it is true about Roger in particular, Carl's major point stands and there are some out there who do meet this description unfortunately.

Others may appreciate the 'code' of the Christian way, its basic moral worldview, and call themselves 'cultural Christians', especially in opposition to Islam and Islamism, but lack that distinct Christian creedal imperative and the beauty of the liturgical life. We see this even in the new atheists' Richard Dawkins.

The 'cult' here refers to the Christian community - think, culture and what binds us together in worship, rather than a small group of fundamentalists with tin foil hats.

Many others then call themselves Christians and claim to believe it in a creedal manner, but if they are not living the code and their cultural liturgies are primarily secularist, as James K.A. Smith would have it, then these prepositional claims are shallow and misleading. They are kidding us and themselves.
Dr Trueman gives the example of racists in the church, who clearly do not really believe the Christian faith in practice. Ours is demonstrably a universal faith, open to all ethnic groups and cultures. Our unity is a pentecostal balance of unity and diversity. God condemns partiality many times in His revealed word so group can be chauvinistic about their ethnic identity. That is a form of idolatry and ignores God's revelation that there is neither 'Jew nor Greek...' in that divisive manner.

The portions of the book on death and bioethics were especially unsettling and raise profound questions for any serious Christian, or human person, to wrestle with. The developments in gene editing, and so on, unveil the underlying nihilism of much modern life and should stop us in our tracks.
We must prayerfully consider: What is a human person and why are they ultimately valuable, if at all? How do we discern between enhancing human life and transcending our humanity itself, in a manner that undermines the goodness of our identity as embodied souls created in God's image and likeness?
Moreover, who is going to decide what humans should and should not be born? Is there a danger of a new eugenics today - even if those involved portend to be scientific and have 'good intentions'?

This brought Ivan Illich to my mind once again and his prophetic idea of 'the corruption of the best is the worst'. He wrote about modern medicine with this very much in mind. As part of this problem, we need to think and pray deeply about the fruits of our actions and our systems. Simple intentions are not enough and the road to hell is truly paved with good intentions.
We must be cautious of the 'cobra effect' and about setting perverse incentives, especially when we are dealing with human life and death.

Dr Trueman points out some of the major limitations in secularist responses to these big questions, alongside aforementioned Christian foibles. The shallow new atheist types are rightly chastised and Carl shows that Nietzsche's reading of modernity is more precise. But he goes beyond Neech and does not leave us with a mere lament or an Ubermensch.

Trueman commends a more integrated liturgical Christian life, where we are formed and informed in a properly sacred tradition. Although a reformed Christian, he takes inspiration from the conscientious approach of Roman Catholics to the premier moral issues of our time and pleads with all Christians not to drift thoughtlessly with the cultural tide. Nor are we to succumb to the reductionism of secularist materialist culture and the language it uses. We are to play our part and add to the great body of uniquely Christian moral reflection and action.

Later in the book, Carl commends Christian marriage and speaks to its importance as an analogue of Christ and the Church. I would go a step further and use language that we are participating in that kingdom life here and now in some unique manner in our marital relationships. So, marriage is symbolic of that cosmic vision and promise, yes. But I think it also participates within it in a special way - partially now and fully in the new heaven and the new earth.
There probably needs to be a book written on that, taking the better parts of the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox views of marriage (Dr Vigen Guroian, John Meyendorff, John Abdalah and Nicholas G. Mamey) and juxtaposing it with a more positive view of Eros and human sexuality.
I trust this will play a key part in any Christian renewal in secularist nations. In his book Sexual Desire and Love, Dr Eric Fuchs has shown me how much of a blind spot this has been in Christian history. I do not ultimately agree with Nietzsche that the Christian way has 'poisoned the well of eros', but I do think most Christians have got this wrong so far in the tradition. However, I think there is good news to break through on that front and perhaps that will be one of the silver linings of the sexual revolution. it brings questions of human sexuality to the fore. My friend, Dr Michael Martin seems to be ahead of the curve on this.

Fr. Alexander Men once said, when asked about the early church, 'perhaps we are the early church.' This gives me hope that the good news of the gospel is becoming more clear in ways we might not have heard before. The Gospel has not fundamentally changed, but our ears were closed to different frequencies in the past.

The earlier centuries of church history had their major Christological challenges, Carl suggests, and we have our anthropological ones today.
Let us consider: What does it mean to be truly human? What does Christ reveal?

So, we must rise to the challenge of incarnation humanism and pray for the triumph of orthodoxy once more in our day. This consecration of the world marries nicely with Dr David Fagerberg's work and the impetus placed on liturgical mission by Winfield Bevins. I think it is possibly very fruitful as it moves us away from the individualistic framing of many issues by Christians today and can bring together the different Christian denominations towards a common focus, without flattening all distinctions.
Trueman rightly notes that major cultural change will take time, but we rest assured that the gates of hell will not prevail over the church of a real man, Yeshua of Nazareth.

[Wesley Hawkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five star rating because this is such an important cultural commentary. The premise is that if we don’t believe in God, we become our own God’s. Trueman leads us through numerous examples of how society has adopted the Madman approach which I think are important to carefully consider.

This book was better than my enjoyment of it. There were a lot of words I had to look up and a lot of long, hard to understand sentences. I’m sure a second reading would reveal even more insights.

[Stephanie Carruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to the audio version of this, but I probably should have read a paper copy...slowly, with time to process more. I'll be adding this to my "read again" list, but next time with a friend so I have someone to discuss it with. I always appreciate the things Trueman has to say and this was no different.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book, however I'm not convinced that the answer to consecration/re-enchantment is as simple as "liturgy"

[Amos Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

While repeating some ideas from previous books, Trueman nonetheless accurately diagnoses the problem of desecration in our age, before prescribing the correct medicine for this moral malaise — consecration.

“…one cannot transform the social imaginary by fiat. One can only do it by starting with the consecration of ordinary people doing ordinary things in their local communities. That's where the code-especially the code of hospitality — and the cult-worship that enacts the gospel and grips the imagination — are so important.
And coincidentally, that is exactly how the early church turned the world upside down.”

[Johnny Lamey · Rating 4 out of 5]

“What is man?”

This fundamental question marks one of the sharpest dividing lines in modern Western culture. To the Christian, man is uniquely made in the image of God, possessing inherent value and meaning. To those who reject God, that value and meaning is lost, leading down the road that Carl Trueman describes as desecration, with disastrous consequences for all of us.

Citing the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, Trueman offers an explanation for the moral chaos rampant in modern society. Nietzsche had criticized the atheists of his day for largely embracing Christian morality, despite having rejected the God upon whom that morality was built. True atheism, in Nietzsche’s view, must commit to killing God by taking His place, by rejecting His values and creating our own. This, Trueman argues, explains the perverse delight many in our day seem to find in transgressing every bound of Christian morality. By desecrating God, humanity seeks to make itself equal with Him; the problem, as argued in this book, is that desecrating God inevitably leads to the desecration of man.

Trueman examines three focal points of this desecration in modern society- sex, reproduction, and death. In each of these key areas, he applies Nietzsche’s challenge for the atheist to become godlike, and demonstrates how woefully short of godhood our path has fallen. We seek fulfillment and value in sex while treating others as objects; we seek freedom and power in controlling reproduction while treating others as commodities; and we seek distraction from death while treating others as burdens. In every case, the godhood of one man comes at the expense of others, and all that can result is desecration. In his very quest to create his own meaning and value, man destroys the meaning and value he already possessed.

Trueman’s cultural critique is thoughtful, precise, and clear, challenging atheists to reckon with what consistency in their beliefs would require. However, I found his proposed solution lacking in the same clarity. In answer to the prevalence of desecration, he proposes a reconsecration of humanity by three primary means: what he calls the creed, cult, and code of Christianity. These three respectively describe the beliefs, worship practices, and moral habits of the Christian faith. Though these are undeniably essential, the path towards them that Trueman proposes is out of order.

In his conclusion, Trueman gives the following statement: “Only a renovation of the heart, redirecting it toward God, is able to do that [consecrate us]. And that only takes place in the context of the church, where humanity by creed, cult, and code can once again realize what being made in the image of God truly means.” (emphasis mine). Trueman’s final chapter directs us primarily to the context of the church rather than to the truth of Scripture. I’m sure he would affirm the importance of God’s Word, but his emphasis appears to be primarily on the traditions, practices, and teachings of the church, not the authoritative Word of God that guides it. To direct people to the practices of the church begs the question of which churches practice rightly (a question I believe Trueman fumbles by including Catholicism in his examples). The solution for the desecrated man is not primarily creed, cult, and code; it is Christ. Just as the desecration of man began with rejecting God, so our reconsecration can only come by accepting Him. The only hope for the desecrated man is in the One Who bore that desecration on the cross and promises new, consecrated life to all who believe in His resurrection.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” John 5:24

[Phil Cotnoir · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a significant book. Trueman has earned a reputation as one of our culture's most insightful commentators, and this latest book shows why. It is a continuation of his work from 'The Rise & Triumph of the Modern Self', and it had the same effect on me: bringing clarity and understanding to the cultural chaos of our age.

Trueman excels at the tracing of intellectual developments through time. In this book, he shows how the role of the creative and the artist moved from being a preserver of culture to what we have mostly had for a century now: the creatives and artists as transgressors and desecrators of the sacred.

"The key thing here—and the key thing with Rousseau, Edwards, and the Romantics—is that the intrinsic moral structure of human nature is independent of, and prior to, the specific cultures in which individual human beings exist. That is why Nietzsche’s Madman came too early. The idea that human beings had a moral shape was still assumed by the cultural elites and still part of the social imaginary. But what happens when that idea fades and then disappears? When the technological liquefaction of the world and the inward move to find the authentic self combine to fatally undermine that idea? That is when the hour of the Madman truly arrives."

"This provided fertile soil for the emergence of the notion of the transgressor as hero among artists and intellectuals in the nineteenth century. And given that the boundaries being transgressed were religious in origin, the path to seeing desecration as a moral imperative also emerged. Desecration of all that was once considered holy became a hallmark of that authenticity that expressive individualism craved."

"The traditional role of art was expressing and transmitting communal values. The emergence in modernity of this Wildean artist as transgressor is therefore both consonant with the kind of expressive individualism that characterizes modern man and destructive of those stable, traditional values built upon a sacred order. To put it more bluntly, the artist by his transgressive ideals produces work that destroys the cultural residue of the God who has died."

"Indeed, transgression and revolution—the active negation of what is—become the very means of self-realization. In theological terms, the spirit that negates—from the spirit of the modern expressive individual in the street to that of the various critical theorists who populate college lecture halls—is the spirit of desecration, pronouncing a decisive “no” to anything ever deemed sacred, while not necessarily offering anything constructive as a replacement."

"When transgression and negation become the great values of a society, then permanent revolution becomes the default cultural setting. Or to use theological language, when desecration is virtue, the profanation of all that is holy is not a moment or a phase. It is the ongoing norm."

***

Helpful stuff.

This account certainly helps explains the modern phenomenon of subversive art. Thankfully, there are still many 'rebel' artists who use their God-given gifts in non-transgressive ways.

[Stephen Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's the third Carl S. Trueman book I have read and if you were to ask me "which one is the best?" I would respond with "it's a toss up between "The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self" and this book...but both are tossed into orbit."

What I mean is; both books are a hit out of the park!!!

For this book, the understanding of modern culture and how it has been influenced is every bit as rich as "The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self," and it tackles a topic as weighty as "the modern self." In many ways, it just carried on the torch in a seamless "handoff" from that book to this one.

And although it feels every bit as scholarly, it also feels incredibly practical.

Trueman serves as a guide through modern culture and the clear consequences of removing God from His rightful place of authority. He explains why the "death of God" results in the responsibility of God being placed onto those who killed Him, and he walks a path of logic to explain how the desecration of God results in the desecration of man. He covers topics of creed, culture, and code (3 things needed to inspire and preserve man's ethic for living...and how modern society fails at creed and culture, but insisting on code). He expounds on why man being made in God's image protects the sacred (and also on why mankind insists on desecrating what's sacred). He even talks about man's obligations and meaning and how they are challenged in modern culture.

I wish I had a mind as analytical and logical as he does, but the next best thing is to read his content.

It's an easy read, incredibly enlightening, and personally convicting.

I'm looking forward to his next one already.

[Daniel Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Only when we realize that will we also realize what it means to be truly human here and now." (Pg. 210) Truman laid out a well-argued thesis that the reason the world is the way it is results from the desecration of God, man, and all that is holy and good. I really benefited from his insight into many relevant cultural topics. It allows the reader to better understand how we got here in the first place, but also how to fix it. Truman says, "If desecration is the pervasive problem of our day, then nothing less than consecration is the answer." (Pg. 209) This consecration happens in the context of the church, where creed, cult, and code are essential to consecrate image bearers. I highly enjoyed this book, even though it was a little harder to read. My only critique (although understanding his own objective was to explain the problem and not solve it) was that he did not really present a practical application for believers on how to enact this consecration. Creed, cult, and code were mentioned in the end, and although encouraging, it was not the most helpful for me. Despite this, I would highly recommend the book to anyone who wishes to better understand the world and culture around us today.

[Christopher Humphrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a yawning gap between the culture and the church. The answer to the question, what is man, is central to this divide. In. “The Desecration of Man” Carl Truman explores the nature of and the reasons for this gap, which is led to the very desecration of man, who was created in the image of God.

Some Christians may pick up this book thinking that they will get an insight into the terrible culture around them. However, what they may find is that they are one of the desecrator’s that is being described. Our current cultural moment does not exist in a vacuum; rather, it results from over a century of philosophy, that, and essence, attempts to kill God, and replace God with something conceived by man. Truman traces this back to the philosophy of Nietzsche.

Truman deftly conducts a postmortem of the culture that is the result of this philosophical thread. The problem, as described by Truman, is the fact that the culture has essentially killed God and tried to replace God with self, but that self evidently has only worked to desecrate man.

So, what is the solution? Consecration. Truman explores the importance of Creed, cultus, and code. This is Ware. The book may have the sharpest edge for the church in the United States of America. There’s much to glean from Truman‘s argument. Reading Truman, here is reminiscent of Rod Dreher. It is my hope that this book begins a more fervent focus for the church on anthropology. It is also my Hope that Truman‘s Clarion call to the church is heeded. Happy reading!

[David Bunce · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We were once creatures defined by what we made. Now we are creatures defined by the entertainment we consume.” (Pg. 161).

In this book, Trueman identifies many such examples of how people, particularly those in western societies, have changed for the worse.
This is a wonderful follow-up to Trueman’s incisive The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, this book proves to be a thought-provoking, sobering, sometimes sorrowful, and always engaging read.

The cultural commentary combined with philosophical analysis and theological studies makes this a treasure for understanding the world in which we live, what has brought us to this moment and where to go from here.

I mostly disagreed with Trueman’s criticism of “celebrations of life” taking the place of funerals. I think there is a place in Christian mourning to remind ourselves and others that while the sting of death is real, it doesn’t have the final word. Christ’s hope meets the tears of grief in sorrow-filled joy.

Still, his analysis is tremendously beneficial concerning sexuality, technology, and death. There is a way to escape the madness of a nihilistic teleology, but it won’t happen without a reordered worldview and reconsecration of what has and is being desecrated.