Whatever else is true of the modern, Western world, this much is beyond dispute: It is not what it used to be. We have entered into a new world that is very different from the one that came before, a new world that in many ways feels so very strange. Many of us feel like immigrants who have inadvertently found ourselves in a new world and are learning to adapt to its new rules, its new norms, its new mores. Many of us are struggling to do so. Carl Trueman has made a deep study of the origins of these changes and has shared his findings in Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution. “For many people, the Western world in which we now live has a profoundly confusing, and often disturbing, quality to it,” he says. “Things once regarded as obvious and unassailable virtues have in recent years been subject to vigorous criticism and even in some cases come to be seen by many as more akin to vices. Indeed, it can seem as if things that almost everybody believed as unquestioned orthodoxy the day before yesterday—that marriage is to be between one man and one woman, for example—are now regarded as heresies advocated only by the dangerous, lunatic fringe.” If the problems were only “out there” it would be bad enough, but many are finding the problems are also impacting work, church, family, and every other part of life. “Welcome to this strange new world,” says … Continue reading Strange New World