Theologian Carl Trueman was at ARC 2026 to share his thoughts on why things have gone wrong in the West and what can be done to turn things around. He speaks to Christian Today about the challenges and why neither cultural Christianity nor nationalism are the answer.
We heard a lot about the “deconstruction” of Western civilization during the conference and a lot of speakers gave various explanations as to how and why it happened. What would you personally pinpoint as the source of the deconstruction?
I think the crumbling of Western society is really predicated on the idea of human beings as self-creating and autonomous, and I would argue that we’re actually obliged and dependent. If we try to live as if we are independent, free, self-creating autonomous beings, then the traditional structures of society that developed in the pre-modern age will be challenged and eventually disintegrate. The autonomous self has been around for a long time; the difference now is that we have the technology to act on it – autonomy has become plausible because technology enables it.
Do you think AI is only going to make the challenges greater in this respect?
Yes and I think AI in some ways brings new challenges. For example, it’s going to challenge the very notion of human agency. What is it that makes us human? It’s the fact that we have agency. If AI takes away all the things that require human agency, then it will dehumanise us in a way we haven’t witnessed before.
Is there anything you heard from other speakers during the conference that challenged your thinking?
What Melanie Phillips said about the death of Western culture didn’t so much challenge my thinking as make me realise that the self-loathing developing among certain Western societies is greater than I imagined – and very significant in terms of what’s going on.
Do you think the Church has been part of the problem?
Yes. Taking the point I made in my own address about no-fault divorce, the Protestant Church was supine in the face of that. It didn’t make a noise about it or resist it, and it hasn’t addressed it in its own ranks. If the redefinition of marriage is primarily located with no-fault divorce, as I think it is, then one would have to say that many churches are being completely complicit in that redefinition.
Do you see any hope for Britain to turn things around or has the decline gone too far?
I’m here in the same week that Keir Starmer resigned as Prime Minister and my take on it is that the problems within the British economy and British culture run very deep. A mere change of personality at the top is not going to address those things. It has me wondering if the only way the issues will ever be properly addressed is if there is a major crisis of some kind. It may well be the same in the US, but the problem at this point in time is much greater and more immediate in the UK.
What differences do you see between the US and UK in terms of the challenges to civilization raised at this conference?
America has a more conservative executive administration and clearly the figure of Donald Trump makes American politics very interesting at the moment. But one of the clear differences is that in Britain, particularly Muslim immigration has proved a problem. That is not to say that all Muslim immigrants are a problem but that there are now very different cultures being juxtaposed in relatively restricted geographical spaces and that is always problematic – particularly if the host culture lacks the confidence that it apparently does in the United Kingdom. So I am absolutely not saying that all Muslim immigrants are a problem, but the accommodation of immigrants from Muslim countries is clearly the question that has to be answered in some way in Britain. And at the moment I think British politicians – particularly Labour politicians, because of the nature of the electoral map – are simply not willing to face up to that.
How do you think Britain can become more confident in the good it has contributed to civilization?
There needs to be a reinvigoration of our institutions. The problem in the West and Britain in particular is that we have now had several generations of higher education under the control of people who hate their own culture, and that has left us with generations of culturally bankrupt people. It’s impossible to have confidence in a culture that you have been taught is worthless. And the reinvigoration of institutions is key to turning that around but how we do that is difficult to answer. Perhaps we need to create alternative, parallel institutions.
What do you think about the move towards nationalism? In the UK there is an emerging Christian nationalism and a lot of Christians are finding it attractive.
One needs to be very careful. The tendency of the Left to conflate nationalism and patriotism is an unfortunate one because it pushes a lot of patriots into the nationalist camp. As an analogy: if a husband calls his wife the most beautiful woman in the world, he is not making a factual claim about whether every other woman in the world is less beautiful. Rather, it is simply a way of expressing his love for the special woman in his life. Patriotism should be like that. To have love for your country doesn’t necessarily mean that you regard every other country as inferior. Nationalism does. Nationalism is a way of expressing your own country’s superiority to every other country and that’s an important distinction that’s been lost in public discourse and which needs to be regained.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali suggested earlier in the conference that a lot of the West takes its civilization and liberties for granted. Do you think Christians fully appreciate the role Christianity has played in shaping Western civilization and all its benefits?
No, I don’t think they do. I think the West is probably characterized by a basic ignorance of history on a lot of fronts. Typically when most people think about the role of Christianity in history, they think about slavery and the worst aspects of imperialism. We need to get the message out that Christianity is actually a force for good on a lot of fronts. Bijan Omrani, in his book God is an Englishman, does a good job of not white-washing the Church’s faults while making the point that Christianity in England was instrumental in forging the best aspects of our society.
It seems like people on the Right are suddenly appreciating Christianity in a way that they weren’t before. What do you make of that?
For some, it’s a sophisticated metaphysical thing. For example, the transgender issue raises questions about the status of the body because if, in a highly technological age, one argues for some normative authority to the body, then one simply has to ask metaphysical questions. People like Mary Harrington or Ayaan Hirsi Ali have come to Christianity by asking metaphysical questions about how one justifies the good. I worry about those who simply grab hold of Christianity as a stick to beat the opposition with. Using Christianity in that way becomes just a point of identity and it fails to address the claims of Christ, the cross, and the empty tomb.
We see this in America with the Christian nationalism there. It will only remain Christian as long as Christianity gives it an audience. Once that ceases to be the case, it will just be nationalism. We must not confuse Christianity with a Nietzschean craving for power at any cost – that’s lethal to the faith.
When Kemi Badenoch addressed the conference she said she was a cultural Christian – and not for the first time. But is cultural Christianity enough to save the West?
I’d rather live in a culturally Christian society than a culturally anti-Christian society. For example, I don’t care why you believe that children should be protected; the fact that you believe this is a good thing. Having said that, I do think that in the long run we need a metaphysical coherence to justify these beliefs. So I pray that for somebody like Kemi Badenoch, cultural Christianity is a stepping stone to a robust supernatural Christianity. I don’t think in the long run that cultural Christianity will be strong enough to build on because it’s an expression of taste rather than an expression of truth and that’s the big problem with it.
The ARC conference spent a lot of time considering the “reconstruction” of Western civilization. What does that look like to you and what role should the Church play?
Firstly, we need to realise that the problems we face in Western society today started hundreds of years ago, so there’s no quick fix. We’ve got to build now like the builders of medieval cathedrals laying the foundation stones, so that people 200 years from now will thank us. In other words, we’ve got to think about the long game.
Secondly, for most of us we need to ask ourselves where we can have an influence. Social media tricks people into thinking they are important and that they can have a big influence around the world, but most people have the biggest influence over the people they meet day to day, in real time and real space – our families, our neighbourhoods, our communities, the workplace or the classroom.
Rebuilding has to begin with us modelling, at the local level, how to treat other human beings as human beings made in the image of God. That’s the way to grab the imagination and it’s how the early church did it and it worked. It’s a humble beginning but it could bear potent and powerful fruit in the long run, so we have to do it. We have to be kind, hospitable, respectful, and stand for the truth.