The Desecration of Man Quotes

“Further, the various media of pop culture preached an increasingly dominant message of sexual self-expression as both harmless recreation and necessary self-expression. Technology and entertainment turned sex from a matter of communal and sacred significance into one of personal, pleasurable recreation. Sexual desire and sexual behavior became the most prominent forms of expressive individualism in the wider culture.”
― Carl R. Trueman, The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades Our Humanity

“Then suddenly in the last fifty years, there has been not simply a dramatic collapse in this morality but in many cases an intentional inversion of it. Sex outside of marriage is regarded as normal and even advisable as a way of establishing compatibility between partners. Adultery has lost almost all social stigma. Divorce is routine. Homosexuality has moved from being legalized to being something that must be affirmed by anyone who wants to be considered a reasonable member of society.”
― Carl R. Trueman, The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades Our Humanity

“One of the most striking things about the desecration of man is the speed and the enthusiasm with which it has been accomplished. In a little over a century, many countries in Western Europe have moved from being nations where Christian values and symbols were potent and where churches were important cultural institutions to places where Christianity is not merely marginalized but openly despised.”
― Carl R. Trueman, The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades Our Humanity

“Authenticity emerges as the key personal virtue and that presses us toward sloughing off external demands and expectations. And the worst offender for imposing such restrictions in the West is, of course, traditional Christianity and the God it worships. The anthropology of modern Western culture is therefore naturally hostile toward traditional religion, especially Christianity, and requires either its dramatic revision to accommodate our autonomy or its wholesale rejection.”
― Carl R. Trueman, The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades Our Humanity

“Even in our secular age, we talk of human dignity and human rights, language that intuitively reflects this. We are even increasingly inclined as societies to treat other species as subjects rather than objects. And ironically these very acts of anthropomorphism reflect our exceptionalism: No other creature thinks in terms of rights, let alone extends that concept to cover other species.”
― Carl R. Trueman, The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades Our Humanity