# “The second­-century world is, in a sense, our world” by Carl Trueman

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2020/11/05/the-second-century-world-is-in-a-sense-our-world-by-carl-trueman/
- Published: 2020-11-05T12:00:12-06:00
- Author: tollelege

“It is appropriate that Christians who acknowledge that they have a religion that
is both rooted in historical events and transmitted through history via the church
ask whether there is an age that provides precedent for the one in which we live.

Nostalgic Roman Catholics might point to the high medieval period, when the papacy
was powerful and Thomas Aqui­nas’s thought offered a comprehensive synthesis of 
Christian doctrine. Protestants might look back to the Reformation, when the Scripture
principle galvanized reform of the church.

But neither period is truly a plausible model for the present. The pope is not about
to become the unquestioned head of some united world church to whom secular princes
all look for spiritual authority; Thomism is not about to unify the field of knowledge;
and the Reformation unleashed religious choice on the world in a manner that meant
the Reformation itself could never again occur in such a form.

If there is a precedent, it is earlier: the second century.

In the second century, the church was a marginal sect within a domi­nant, pluralist
society. She was under suspicion not because her central dogmas were supernatural
but rather because she appeared subversive in claiming Jesus as King and was viewed
as immoral in her talk of eating and drinking human flesh and blood and expressing
incestuous­ sounding love between brothers and sisters.

This is where we are today. The story told in parts 2 through 4 of this book indicates
how a pluralist society has slowly but surely adop­ted beliefs, particularly beliefs
about sexuality and identity, that render Christianity immoral and inimical to the
civic stability of society as now understood.

The second­-century world is, in a sense, our world, where Christianity is a choice—
and a choice likely at some point to run afoul of the authorities.

It was that second­-century world, of course, that laid down the foun­dations for
the later successes of the third and fourth centuries. And she did it by what means?

By existing as a close­-knit, doctrinally-bounded community that required her members
to act consistently with their faith and to be good citizens of the earthly city
as far as good citizenship was compatible with faithfulness to Christ.

How we do that today and where the limits are—these are the pressing questions of
this present moment and beyond the scope of this volume. But it is a discussion 
to which I hope the narratives and analyses I have offered here might form a helpful
prolegomenon.”

–Carl R. Trueman, [_The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1433556332?tag=toletaupanre-20)(
Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 406-407.

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