The Desecration of Man: Deicide Is Homicide

Carl Trueman's latest book demonstrates the post-Christian West's desperate plight: that in rejecting God we have killed ourselves, and the only solution is a return to faithful Christianity.

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

By Carl R. Trueman, Sentinel, 2026 • 236 pages

The verdict: Essential reading, this book explains our age’s moral confusion: if human beings, made in God’s image, deny their creator, they end as objects rather than persons, “paradoxically reduced to nothing.”

WHY THIS BOOK MATTERS

The Desecration of Man lays bare the disastrous consequences of the West’s rejection of God and its Judeo-Christian heritage. To deny God entails desecration of what is good and true—that in asserting our independence, we delight in transgressing “the moral codes that religion has imposed upon us.” We become our own gods, and build a false morality based on the repudiation of the “limits, obligations and ends” defining our very humanity. The result is active self-destruction.

THE ARGUMENT

Trueman argues that desecration, “intentional abuse or destruction of [that which is] holy,” is “key to…modern culture and [its] anthropological confusion.” Man, now the creator of his own meaning, denies human nature and moral truth in his quest for liberation from religion’s shackles. This denial lies behind phenomena such as the sexual revolution, pervasive pornography, eugenics, abortion, euthanasia and transgenderism. The “convulsive change” of continuously developing technology distorts our understanding of nature, our bodies and ourselves. The “expressive individual,” subject to nothing but his own feelings, becomes our ideal. A “return to…Christian belief and practice” offers the only way out of this quandary.

"[The] modern world…is not one where God has simply died. It is one where we have taken delight in dancing on his grave."

WHAT WORKS

The book aptly locates the essence of our troubles in the refusal to accept our “limits, obligations, and ends” as image-bearers of God. In everything, Trueman stresses the importance of the “social imaginary” as elaborated by the philosopher Charles Taylor: “how we intuitively imagine ourselves and the world around us.” This “cannot be reduced to matters of argument or logic, but …is the result of a much broader set of cultural considerations.” Therefore, a durable answer to the desecration of man will not be found in a merely aesthetic or pragmatic appreciation of Christianity’s benefits. Only “deep roots in the dogmatic truths, the liturgical forms, and the practical code of Christianity” can reshape our imaginations in a way that restores our full humanity as God’s image-bearers.

WHAT DOESN’T

Trueman compellingly claims that the rejection of God corrupts everything, leading eventually to the disappearance of the “idea that human beings [have] a moral shape.” Though he illustrates this corruption effectively, he limits his examples largely to the area of sexuality. But as Saint Paul writes in Romans 1, the effects are far more comprehensive: “…just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God….They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice…they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.” More illustration of the all-encompassing nature of the corruption threatening a godless West would have further strengthened this book.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Civilizational conservatives should note how Trueman hammers home the point that the primary purpose of Christianity is not to restore civilization—it is to love, honor and delight in God. “[Man’s} chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever,” he concludes, drawing from Q&A 1 of the Presbyterian church’s Westminster Shorter Catechism. Nevertheless, the revival of the “creed, cult and code” of everyday Christianity, as exemplified especially by hospitality and love of neighbor, will be at the heart of any cultural renewal. This reality means Christians who desire to restore the West should reach out to and cooperate with non-Christians wherever possible—including, I believe, in the cultural battle to restore the West.

THE BOTTOM LINE

This book’s great strength is presupposing God’s existence. In basing powerful arguments on the presumption of God as our Creator, Trueman demonstrates that the truth about good and evil, and thus of God’s existence, is somehow written on the human heart. Christian or not, readers of this profound analysis of what ails the West will find themselves moved to give assent—and perhaps to act accordingly.