Earlier this year, Wilkesboro Baptist Church gave me a sabbatical for rest, reading, and writing. During that season, I was able to complete three books that intersect in seriously important ways: To Change All Worlds by Carl Trueman, The Devil Reads Nietzsche by Michael McEwen, and Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth.

I’ve read several books by Trueman over the years. His work, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self addressed how it was possible for the LGBTQA+ revolution to shape contemporary practices regarding gender and identity. Trueman’s books are well-researched and insightful. In To Change All Worlds, Trueman explains the origins of “critical theories” that have shaped the “revolutionary” changes and trajectories of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

In The Devil Reads Nietzsche, Michael McEwen addresses how Nietzsche’s theories have influenced and shaped the critical process of contemporary thought. Nietzsche is famous for his observation, “God is dead, and we have killed him.” Nietzsche rejected the Christian worldview and its answers, suggesting as an alternative a world devoid of God. Nietzsche rejected much of the traditional Enlightenment ideologies as well as Christianity. Nietzsche suggested that we (he) had torn down the world and rebuilt it with a “will to power” and an “ubermensh” or “superman.” In his own mind and ideology, Nietzsche was that superman who had torn down traditional ideologies.

I discovered Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity by happenstance on my local library app for kindle. Kingsnorth began his adult life as left-leaning environmentalist but now has reconnected with Christianity. The primary claim of his book is that the unmaking of humanity is caused by the “machine” (technology) viewpoint dominating progressive Western culture. For Kingsnorth, the tearing down of humanity by critical and revolutionary theories came from the progress of technological dominance. He connects the AI revolution we are witnessing today with the remaking of the world and the unmaking of humanity.

Broadly speaking, these three books intersect in important ways regarding critical theory and remaking the world. More to the point, these books have helped me think concertedly about the world we are living in today and how we as Christians should perceive, evaluate, and respond.

Critical theories in general were not primarily about offering alternative perspectives but rather about tearing down traditional perspectives. Trueman explains how Willhelm Reich (critical theory author ofThe Sexual Revolution) attempted to reshape ideas of marriage and sexuality:

For Reich, the very institutions of marriage and the family, both their social reality and the ideological rationale which they embody, cultivate, and perpetuate, need to be dismantled wholesale. As with later iterations of critical theory–whether of gender or race–the goal is not the reform of the system but the replacement of the system with something wholly different, for the current system only really exists for the purpose of maintaining specific forms of injustice.
– Trueman, To Change All Worlds, 165.

The revolutionary trajectories of critical theorists, Nietzsche in particular, were aimed at destroying traditional theories. Observing Nietzsche in particular, Michael McEwan writes:

The spirit of Nietzsche is alive and well within Western culture. More importantly the Geist of Nietzsche has enlivened Western culture with its efforts to liberate itself form “static” essences, natures, and laws to pursue freely the innumerable horizons of possibility–especially the boundless possibilities of human identity, sexuality, and technology. If God is dead, so is the imago Dei. If the imago Dei is dead, then the human being is not a human being (in any Christian sense) but an endless possibility of human becomings.
– McEwan, The Devil Reads Nietzsche, 75.

In tearing down traditional (Christian) ideology and philosophy, critical theories leave open “boundless possibilities” for anything different. This is why so many different ideological trajectories are visible in culture today. This is also why so many of those ideologies make little sense when contrasted with traditional views.

Paul Kingsnorth observed similar tendencies as he connected them to the technological advancement that built upon the critical theories of the Enlightenment:

The new values are predicated on the pursuit of liberation: a one-word descriptor of the essence of the Western programme since 1789. Our aim, stated or unstated, is to liberate ourselves from nature in all regards, so that we may conquer the stars, conquer death, and become as gods, knowing good and evil.
– Paul Kingsnorth, Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity.

Since at least the 1960s our empty taboos have been crumbling away, and in just the last few years the last remaining monuments have been—often literally—torn down. Christendom expired over centuries for a complex set of reasons, but it was not killed off by an external enemy. No hostile army swept into Europe and forcibly converted us to a rival faith. Instead, we dismantled our story from within. What replaced it was not a new sacred order, but a denial that such a thing existed at all.
― Paul Kingsnorth, Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity

Kingsnorth contends that denial of what existed rose from our dependence on technology. As I see it, the greatest problem with critical theories especially as they interact with the pace of technological advance is their inability to propose something helpful for society. Trueman observed that critical theory can tell us “ . . . what is wrong with society – pretty much everything – but it lacks the ability to articulate in clear terms what should replace it. It ultimately offers no vision of what it means to be human, whether because (as with the Hegelian Marxists) human nature has yet to be realized or, with the more postmodern critical theorists, it is ultimately a meaningless question.” (Trueman, To Change All Worlds, 14).

The world we find ourselves in today is a world in ideological revolution. The critical theories proposed in the Enlightenment Era and throughout Modernism formed the foundation for a world in chaos. Nietzsche and other critical theorists argued for tearing down and destroying the framing perspectives of their age. For Nietzsche in particular, this meant the destruction of Christianity. The challenge of critical theories is that they don’t supply what should arise in place of the system they destroyed. These critical theories leave a vacuum.

Today, the vacuum is filled with all sorts of claims regarding gender and sexuality, political discord, and upside down morality. Instead of stabilizing views, technological advancements have been rewiring our very brains through screens and smartphones and social media (see Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Anxious Generation). Now, our technological progress is being shaped by the AI revolution. Whatever one thinks of the benefits or detriments that AI will bring, we simply don’t know how far it will go or how much of our lives will be disrupted. What we ought to properly fear is that so many of the AI developers have worldviews framed by critical theories. The AI revolution is advancing because it can, with little consideration about whether it should. Developers and theorists have not adequately counted the cost the AI revolution will bring.

What do we do?

I’m not suggesting that we need to become Luddites or leave society at large. But in each of the books, a common theme stood out. Whether critical theories or AI, the propositions advanced by secular, progressive, and technological proponents cannot solve the human dilemma. Humans will always need truth, community, and meaning. When at its best as organized by God, the church of Jesus Christ is the wellspring of truth, community, and meaning. I believe the best and most effective response to critical theories, ideological deficiencies, technological shortfalls, and cultural rot is the Bible-believing church of Jesus Christ.

• The church is to declare the gospel that invites us into a relationship with the God who transcends all things, but came to earth to be known by his creation.
• The church is the body of Christ with members who together invest in genuine community with one another.
• The church is the harbinger of meaning and blessing for those who gather for worship and community.

When the church speaks prophetically with a voice of truth and the gospel, she will confront the broken, false, and problematic worldviews that permeate society. When the church worships humbly, she provides meaning and connection to the transcendent God that humans were made for. When the church creates a community of love and truth, she becomes a place of belonging and hope to the many who have been broken and devastated by false worldviews and their unfulfilled promises.

If you want to understand more about critical theories, these books are helpful. If you want to be a part of the solution to the flaws and worldview gaps made by these theories, then join a Bible-believing church, build community with others, and worship the transcendent God of the universe who makes truth known.