COMMITTEE ON CHRISTIAN EDUCATION FEATURE

Since publishing The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self in 2020, Carl Trueman has become something of an authority on the plight of modern man. His latest book, To Change All Worlds: Critical Theory from Marx to Marcuse, only confirms this reputation. Here, Trueman provides “an introduction” to the hot topic of “critical theory” (4). Whether it involves Black Lives Matter riots, elementary school curriculum, or resolutions at the Southern Baptist Convention, critical theory has become both a lightning rod of controversy and a litmus test of orthodoxy.

Instead of simply taking sides (i.e., for it or against it), Trueman charts a more nuanced course. Although certainly critical of critical theory, he sees his primary “task as explaining it on its own terms” (4). This descriptive focus will disappoint readers looking for a polemic against critical theory (e.g., Voddie Baucham’s Fault Lines) or an appropriation of it (e.g., Christopher Watkin’s Biblical Critical Theory). That said, Trueman’s aim is not simply to describe. He also suggests a way forward. Whether his proposal constitutes an adequate Christian response will be addressed toward the end of this review.

At the very least, To Change All Worlds is a good read. Al Mohler perhaps overstates the case when he says it “reads like a novel and unfolds like a detective story,” but given its abstruse subject matter, the book is surprisingly readable and engaging. As the subtitle suggests, it traces a line of development from Hegel and Marx through Marx’s disciples Karl Korsch and Georg Lukács to the members of the Frankfurt School, whose Jewish identity in Nazi Germany played a significant role.

Among recurring themes (e.g., alienation, reification, dialectic, consciousness), what unifies this story is the revolutionary character of critical theory (3). Instead of merely describing society, critical theory seeks to transform it by unmasking and thus destabilizing the status quo (83). As Marx said, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it” (27). This revolutionary approach to economic class was applied by later theorists to gender, sexuality, and race (73) in ways that continue to influence debates over racial reparations, same-sex unions, and preferred pronouns. Although these discussions are often political in nature, Trueman argues that the root issue is metaphysical, specifically “anthropology, the understanding of what it means to be human” (2). Against an essentialist view of human nature, critical theorists argue that everything is culturally conditioned and socially constructed.

Of course, this perspective raises a self-defeating question: If everything is open to critique, does that include critical theory itself? The only consistent answer is “yes,” but to answer in the affirmative is to undercut the whole project. This internal contradiction is related to another problem—namely, “an inability to articulate a clear vision of what the future of human society should look like” (5). At the end of the day, critical theory (like Goethe’s Mephistopheles) is “the spirit that always negates” (13). It tears down but cannot build. It raises questions it cannot answer.

What then is the use of critical theory? Despite his descriptive focus, Trueman does offer a Christian response. Much of what he says is helpful. Against the 2019 Southern Baptist Convention resolution, he demurs from calling critical theory “a useful and constructive tool for cultural analysis” (224). Instead, he likens the value of critical theory to the study of Arianism. Like the ancient heresy, “critical theory does not so much provide Christians with a useful tool to think about the world as clarify a set of questions to which we have the answers already” (227). Truly, “we must offer something better, a vision of what it means to be human and a taste of the transcendent” (224).

That said, Trueman’s proposal is not above criticism. In several places, it appears uneven and incomplete. For example, in warning against the unqualified use of critical theory (especially by those on the political right), the book seems allergic to any kind of revolutionary (or counterrevolutionary) political action (222–223, 226). Indeed, one gets the impression that Christians should never seek to destabilize the status quo. That might be good advice in an orderly Protestant commonwealth, but when a secular revolution has occurred marked by anarcho-tyranny, conservative Christians find themselves in the position of counterrevolutionaries. In this situation, the shrewd use of political power against public enemies to disrupt the status quo is often warranted (cf. Jehoiada’s countercoup in 2 Kings 11). Indeed, American Presbyterians fought a revolutionary war under less dire circumstances. This is not the specter of the so-called “woke right” but the retrieval of historic Protestant political theory, including a theology of civil resistance. Humanly speaking, if we do not know what time it is, we are not going to make it.

Instead of equipping Christians to meet the diverse exigencies of the hour, Trueman reduces his proposal to the narrowly spiritual. This is related to his tendency to equate a Christian response with the activities of the institutional church (225)—a misleading move because the church is only one of three governments ordained by God, just as the spiritual realm is only one of two kingdoms under his rule. However important (even primary) her mission, the church does not exhaust a Christian response. According to their various vocations (e.g., civil magistrate), individual Christians may do all sorts of things in the name of Christ that would be forbidden to the church as the church, including the strategic use of political power and social influence. Trueman downplays (if not denies) this truth when he describes the Christian alternative in terms of dropping one’s “own claims to power” (226). Of course, the key to all this is making proper distinctions (e.g., public/private, political/personal, temporal/spiritual, earthly/heavenly).

Despite these shortcomings, To Change All Worlds remains a thoughtful introduction to a timely topic by a rigorous scholar, whose proposals—however open to critique—will certainly promote fruitful discussion.

The author is pastor of Heritage OPC in Wilmington, NC.

To Change All Worlds: Critical Theory from Marx to Marcuse, by Carl R. Trueman. B&H Academic, 2024. Hardcover, 256 pages, $34.99.