Makers of the Modern Revolution

Order of Service

• Sermon
• Scripture Reading — 2 Timothy 3:1-9
• Closing Prayer

---

Sermon Title: Makers of the Modern Revolution

Scripture: 2 Timothy 3:1-9

I. Overview: Four Marks of the Modern World

A. Expressive Individualism — the idea that the authentic self is defined by inner feelings expressed outwardly, not by conformity to external social norms

1. Roots traced to Rousseau, Freud, Nietzsche, and Oscar Wilde
2. Authenticity and spontaneity are prized cultural virtues

B. Psychological Happiness — happiness redefined as an inward sense of psychological satisfaction

1. Running theme from Rousseau onward
2. Connected to Marx's concept of alienation

C. The Collapse of Transcendence into Imminence — the appeal to a sacred order beyond the secular world has become culturally implausible

1. The Romantics attempted to preserve transcendence through nature
2. Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Wilhelm Reich are radical materialists — this world is all there is
3. Even many Christians functionally live within an immanent frame

D. The Sexual Revolution — sexual codes are no longer merely modified but overthrown

1. Sexual morality recast as oppressive to expressive individualism and psychological happiness
2. Wilhelm Reich formulated an explicit politics around dismantling sexual codes

II. Expressive Individualism in Law

A. Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)

1. "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life"
2. Liberty is redefined as radical self-determination; meaning is located in the individual
3. Kennedy did not invent this idea — he intuited it because the culture had already been shaped by the thinkers traced in this course

B. Subsequent rulings built on the same foundation

1. Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) — predicated on the individual's right to happiness and the state's obligation to affirm it
2. Bostock ruling (2020) — separates biological sex from gender identity; internal psychological conviction trumps external biological reality

III. Expressive Individualism in Ethics: Peter Singer

A. Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University; known for logical consistency in applying his philosophical premises

B. Rejection of human exceptionalism

1. The belief that humans are exceptional is typically grounded in transcendence — e.g., being made in the image of God
2. Darwinian evolution relativizes human beings by placing them on a continuum with other animals
3. If humans are not exceptional, the moral distinction between killing an infant and killing an animal of similar self-consciousness collapses

C. Psychological happiness as the ethical criterion for infanticide

1. The wrongness of killing a disabled infant is measured not by the infant's intrinsic rights but by the effect on parental happiness
2. A healthy newborn has "no sense of the future" and therefore is not a person — but killing it is still wrong because it could be a source of happiness for potential adoptive parents
3. The child's moral worth is entirely instrumental — derived from its effect on others' happiness, not from any inherent dignity

D. Singer as a symptom, not a cause

1. Singer builds on cultural pathologies already well established
2. His conclusions — shocking even to many pro-abortion people — reveal the logical endpoint of a worldview without objective transcendent morality
3. The internal moral revulsion most people feel when reading Singer reflects God's moral law written on the heart (Romans 2)

IV. Expressive Individualism and the Suppression of Free Speech

A. The shift on college campuses from open debate to cancel culture and speech codes

B. Herbert Marcuse's essay Repressive Tolerance provides the theoretical framework

1. Tolerance that preserves a "repressive society" is itself repression
2. Censorship — even pre-censorship — of words and images that form "false consciousness" is justified
3. In a world where psychological happiness is the supreme good, speech that causes harm to one's inner sense of self becomes a vice, not a virtue

C. The danger of suppressing speech

1. Open debate in the public square exposes bad ideas to scrutiny; suppression drives them underground
2. The persecuted church demonstrates that ideas spread person-to-person even when banned from the public square

V. Christian Response

A. Understanding our times rather than merely lamenting them

1. Romans 1–3 and 2 Timothy 3:1-9 make clear that none of these developments should surprise the Christian
2. The task is to understand the culture in order to respond effectively

B. Engaging the immanent person with the gospel

1. Paul's model in Acts 17 — begin with the genuine pursuit already present in the person as an image-bearer, then redirect it to Christ
2. The transcendent God has become immanent in the person of Jesus Christ — the incarnation speaks directly to the longing these thinkers distort
3. Every counterfeit gospel is a twisted version of a true pursuit; Scripture gives people what they are actually searching for

C. The church must hold to transcendence

1. Charles Taylor's argument: immanence will eventually collapse under its own weight; people will hunger for transcendence
2. The church must maintain its distinct identity — rooted in Scripture, covenant community, and historic Christian tradition — so it remains a refuge when immanence fails
3. Modern evangelicalism has itself absorbed expressive individualism through an overly individualistic, testimony-driven faith; the communal identity of the body of Christ must be recovered