Carl R. Trueman

Fellow

Carl R. Trueman is a fellow in EPPC’s Evangelicals in Civic Life Program, where his work focuses on helping civic leaders and policy makers better understand the deep roots of our current cultural malaise. In addition to his scholarship on the intellectual foundations of expressive individualism and the sexual revolution, Trueman is also interested in the origins, rise, and current use of critical theory by progressives. He serves as a professor at Grove City College.

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Carl R. Trueman is a fellow in EPPC’s Evangelicals in Civic Life Program, where his work focuses on helping civic leaders and policy makers better understand the deep roots of our current cultural malaise. In addition to his scholarship on the intellectual foundations of expressive individualism and the sexual revolution, Trueman is also interested in the origins, rise, and current use of critical theory by progressives. He serves as a professor at Grove City College. 

Trueman is the author of the best-selling, award-winning 2020 book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to the Sexual Revolution. Born and raised in England, Trueman is a graduate of the Universities of Cambridge (M.A.) and Aberdeen (Ph.D), and has taught on the faculties of the Universities of Nottingham and Aberdeen before moving to the United States in 2001 to teach at Westminster Theological Seminary (PA). In 2017-18 he was the William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in Religion and Public Life in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. Since 2018, he has served as a professor at Grove City College in the Calderwood School of Arts and Humanities. 

Trueman’s earlier academic work focused on Reformation and post-Reformation Protestantism, particularly the reception of Martin Luther’s thought in the English context and also the use of late medieval philosophy by seventeenth century Reformed thinkers. More recently, he has studied the rise of modern therapeutic culture, specifically as it shapes popular attitudes to sexual morality, gender identity, and freedom of speech and religion. 

Trueman’s latest book, the best-selling The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, explores the nature of the sexual revolution against the background of the development of expressive individualism. It has been described by Rod Dreher, writing in the Wall Street Journal as “one of the most important religious books of the decade” and by Ben Shapiro as “the most important book of our moment.” A concise version of his argument, Strange New World, is due to be published in February 2022, with a foreword authored by EPPC President Ryan T. Anderson. 

Trueman has published widely, with scholarly articles in books from Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Brill. His commentaries on contemporary issues appear regularly in First Things, where he is a contributing editor, and he has also published in Public Discourse, Deseret News, and Catholic World Report. Trueman has had a longstanding interest in Marxist theory and he is currently working on a book examining the origins of critical theory in the western Marxist tradition of the early twentieth century. 

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Nihilism—In Nazi Germany and Today

Carl R. Trueman

When abortion is seen as a basic human right and euthanasia is gaining ground across the West, “What is man?” becomes a matter of personal taste, not social consensus.

Articles

First Things / March 7, 2024

Church creeds trump political creeds

Carl R. Trueman

Christians should look to the great confessions of the past to keep our priorities straight in the present

Articles

WORLD Opinions / February 29, 2024

Desecration at St. Patrick’s Cathedral

Carl R. Trueman

One obvious question is why an atheist man convinced that he is a woman and committed to a life of prostitution would wish to have a funeral in a church.

Articles

First Things / February 22, 2024

Love endures—even more than it emotes

Carl R. Trueman

On Valentine’s Day, it’s important to remember that real love is clearest in times of suffering.

Articles

WORLD Opinions / February 14, 2024

The real MAGA campaign begins

Carl R. Trueman

Death sells in today’s America, and the president is pinning his reelection hopes on it.

Articles

World Opinions / January 31, 2024

Can Christians Attend Gay Weddings?

Carl R. Trueman

The sexual revolution has revolutionized everything, to the point where questions that once had simple answers have become complicated.

Articles

First Things / January 25, 2024

Lessons From The Lutheran Tradition For 2024

Carl R. Trueman

The Lutheran tradition, properly understood, offers a way of understanding both the importance of the role of the civil magistrate but also his limited significance for the things that really matter, those things that pertain to eternity.

Articles

First Things / January 12, 2024

Is there a backstop to the moral revolution?

Carl R. Trueman

Events from Iowa to Virginia suggest hard choices ahead for the rising generation of Christians.

Articles

WORLD Opinions / January 5, 2024

The Pope, Same-Sex Blessings, and Protestants

Carl R. Trueman

Most immediately, Fiducia Supplicans will affect the pope’s own clergy, who will now come under huge pressure to bless same-sex couples even if their own consciences are troubled or compromised by doing so.

Articles

First Things / December 28, 2023

The tragic reality that cries for attention

Carl R. Trueman

A recent report by the CDC indicates that the number of suicides in the United States increased by 2.6 percent between 2021 and 2022. That means that nearly 50,000 Americans died by their own hand last year, a record number.

Articles

WORLD Opinions / December 15, 2023

Has Hitler Won on the Left?

Carl R. Trueman

When members of the LGBTQ lobby express support for Hamas, it is another reminder that many progressives have lost any sense of a moral compass.

Articles

First Things / December 14, 2023

Why Ayaan Hirsi Ali Became a Christian

Carl R. Trueman

Liberal Protestantism is dying, however, with mainline denominations fracturing and disintegrating at a striking rate.

Articles

First Things / November 30, 2023