Strange New World, Chapters 7-9

Guests: Tim Matthews and Jonathan Teague

 

Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution

By Carl R. Trueman

 

Strange New World is an abbreviated edition of Dr. Trueman’s longer book titled The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution

 

In this book, Dr. Trueman is going to examine how a person became a self, the self became sexualized, and sex became politicized.

 

SUMMARY: how the feelings of an individual have triumphed over the societal institutions (law, church, family, community), how objective truth has been eliminated, and how have we disassociated gender from biology.

Chapter 7 The Sexual Revolution of the LGBTQ+

 

Of more immediate significance to our current situation, however, is the thought of Simone de Beauvoir, the French philosopher whose 1949 book, The Second Sex, is a foundational text for modern feminist theory. She opens the second part of that work with a dramatic and far-reaching statement:

One is not born, but rather becomes, woman. No biological, psychic, or economic destiny defines the figure that the human female takes on in society; it is civilization as a whole that elaborates this intermediary product between the male and the eunuch that is called feminine.

 

DeBeauvoir makes a distinction between biology and what we now call gender. The whole idea of what it is to be a woman is a social construct, something that is not intrinsic to the female body. To use the language of a later gender theorist, Judith Butler, gender is a performance, a set of behaviors that society has come to expect from those who possess a certain kind of body. 

 

The preamble of The Yogyakara Principles:

Understanding “sexual orientation” to refer to each person’s capacity for profound emotional, affectional and sexual aggraction to, and intimate and sexual relations with, individuals of a different gender or the same gender or more than one gender; 

Understanding “gender identity” to refer to each person’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth, including the personal sense of the body (which may involved, if freely chosen, modification of bodily appearance or function by medical, surgical or other means) and other expressions of gender, including dress, speech and mannerisms.

 

Principle 3

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law. Persons of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities shall enjoy legal capacity in all aspects of life. Each person’s self-defined sexual orientation and gender identity is integral ot their personality and is one of the most basic aspects of self-determination, dignity and freedom

 

In plain terms, this calls for societies to recognize–that is, affirm, support, and protect–whatever subjective sexual identity any individual cares to affirm for themselves.

 

Chapter 8 Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

 

While the speed of the sexual revolution has been shocking to many, perhaps the strangest and most disturbing developments over recent years have been the ways in which freedoms once considered to be self-evident goods - of speech and of religion - are now under pressure in many Western democracies. This is something both unexpected and sinister.

 

United States v Windsor (2013) - challenge of DOMA - the court saw the objections to gay marriage as being grounded in what is technically termed constitutional animus or, to put the same idea in more colloquial terms, irrational bigotry.

 

Windsor provided the immediate legal background to Obergefell v Hodges (2015) - legalization of same-sex marriage…

 

Casey (1992) decision from Justice Kennedy: At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.

 

For example, when the Christian objects of homosexuality, he may well think he is objecting to a set of sexual desires or sexual practices. But the gay man sees those desires as part of who he is in his very essence.

 

What Marcuse is calling for here is the censoring of speech as a means of moving society toward a more just and equitable state.

 

Chapter 9 Strangers in This Strange New World

 

The era when Christians could disagree with the broader convictions of the secular world and yet still find themselves respected as decent members of society at large is coming to an end.

 

First, we need to examine ourselves, individually and corporately, to see in what ways we have compromised the gospel with the spirit of this age. Then, we need to repent, call out to the Lord for grace, and seek to reform our beliefs, attitudes, intuitions, and practices accordingly. 

 

Second, an awareness of our complicity should cultivate a level of humility in how we engage with those with whom we disagree on these matters.

 

Third, to be aware of our complicity at least allows us to engage in the future in appropriate self-criticism and self-policing on such issues.

 

Justin Martyr - did not spend time denouncing the evils of the emperor - rather, they argued positively that Christians make the best citizens, the best parents, the best servants, the best neighbors, the best employees…

 

Augustine - The City of God - Christians could and should be good citizens to the extent that their higher commitment to God allowed them to do so.

 

In short, we can stand strong in this cultural moment and address the specific challenges we face only if our foundations in God’s truth are broad and deep.

 

This means that the chaotic nature of our times is no excuse for abandoning the church’s task of teaching her people the whole counsel of God.

 

The church also needs to recover natural law and a theology of the body.