8-SESSION WEEKLY ONLINE READING GROUP
Mondays, March 18 – May 6, 2024
Led by Dr. Dennis Greeson.
Group Details
8 Weekly Sessions.
Mondays, March 18 – May 6, 2024
- 13:00pm ET
- 18:00pm GMT
FEE $49.99
Reading Group Description
We live in a disorienting world. What many took for granted just a few decades ago as clear right and wrong is now reviled and rejected as harmful and repressive.
How did we get to this place in which sexual identity rules everything, our desires reveal our truest reality, and saying anything against this gets you shouted down, canceled, or fired?
Carl Trueman’s book Strange New World helps us connect the dots. Why do we so often feel like we are strangers in a strange land, even if we feel like we’ve never left the world we formerly knew and trusted?
Join me in an 8 week book club in which we explore the story Trueman tells of how we got here and what to do about it.
Cultural Analysis from a Christian Perspective
Access Strange New World ebook on ActivEreader app.
Access author study guide and chapter videos
Supplementary notes and commentary from Dr. Greeson.
Sessions Recorded for streaming or download.
Reading Group Weekly Plan
Monday, March 18. 1:00pm ET
Welcome to this Strange New World.
In this session we’ll cover:
- Expressive individualism
- Concept of authenticity
- The sexual revolution and its effects on society
- How thinkers influence wider society
- Concept of the “social imaginary” and how we are effected by it
Monday, March 25. 1:00pm ET
Romantic Roots
In this session we’ll cover:
- The role of Descartes in developing the modern self
- Rousseau’s contribution to the idea of authenticity and society’s influence on the individual
- Romanticism’s influence on the modern world
Monday, April 1. 1:00pm ET
Prometheus Unbound
In this session we’ll cover:
- Hegel’s view of self-consciousness
- The philosophy of Karl Marx and Feuerbach
- Nietzsche’s perspective on religion, and the idea of the “superman” in his thought
Monday, April 8. 1:00pm ET
Sexualizing Psychology, Politicizing Sex
In the session we’ll cover:
- Key ideas of Freud
- Relationship between expressing sexual desire and cultivating a stable society
- Relationship between politics and sexualization
- Contribution of Reich to sexualizing society
Monday, April 15. 1:00pm ET
The Revolt of the Masses
In this session we’ll cover:
- Fixed vs Plastic world
- Role of technology in a plastic world and how it shapes the social imaginary
- Role of the institution and the collapse of traditional authority
- How the internet has contibuted to the sexual revolution
Monday, April 22. 1:00pm ET
Plastic People, Liquid World
In this session we’ll cover:
- Personhood
- Social imaginary
- Nation-state
- Codes of recognition
- Changed in the the Western world
- Competing narratives
- Is there a deeper narrative that can offer unity?
Monday, April 29. 1:00pm ET
The Sexual Revolution of the LGBTQ+
In this session we’ll cover:
- Gay-Lesbian coalition
- Importance of Simone de Beauvoirs thought for the trans movement
- Trans ideology
- Yogyakarta Principles
- Impact of LGBTQ+ movement
Monday, May 6. 1:00pm ET
In this session we’ll cover:
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
- Expressive individualism’s impact on life and death
- Cultural and legal climate of gay marriage
- Equality and Tolerance
- Marcuse’ view of free speech
Strangers in This Strange New World
- Our complicity in expressive individualism
- Teaching the whole council of God
Over the course of 8 video sessions, we will read and discuss each chapter of Trueman’s book.
When you sign up, you receive access to an online version of the book available only from BibleMesh on our ActivEreader platform.
With the book, you get videos from Trueman, discussion questions and learning guides, you can take quizzes and memorize key terms and ideas to help you really grasp the confusing world of cultural Marxism and gender theory that Trueman walks us through.
We’ll then meet together on a video call to talk through each chapter. I’ll help explain what Trueman is up to each step of the way and help us figure out how to apply this to our own lives.
Sign-up and join me on an 8-week journey to understanding our cultural moment.
