‘You Are Not Your Own’, by Mary Eberstadt

In his excellent recent book, Strange New World, Carl Trueman cautions Christians against naïve optimism in our “chaotic, uncharted, and dark era.” It’s a judicious point. There is plenty in today’s culture to shock anyone into sobriety, religious believers most of all. At the same time, there’s a case to be made for “informed optimism,” or rational grounds for believing that Christianity will receive a more serious hearing in the West in years to come.

For over sixty years, after all, we have lived under the tyranny of a collective declaration that I am my own, and no one else’s – that I decide matters of life, and the giving, taking, or preventing of life; that I, and no one else, have the right to do with my body whatever I see fit.

And this repudiation of the truth that we are not our own can now be judged by its fruits, which are everywhere around us. The declaration that I am my own, the fundamental battle cry of the sexual revolution, has rendered life radically different, and in several respects, worse for us than for any other human beings in history. …

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