Consecrating culture: Faith & Reason with Dr. Carl Trueman

Patrick Henry College welcomed Dr. Carl Trueman as the Spring 2026 Faith & Reason speaker. Professor of Biblical and Religious Studies at Grove City College, Trueman is the author and editor of more than a dozen books, including his most recent The Desecration of Man. His visit gave the PHC community an opportunity to consider a question: What happens when modern technology begins to shape not only how we live, but how we understand what it means to be human?

Faith & Reason: Tradition

Faith & Reason is a long-standing PHC tradition, but its purpose extends beyond bringing a distinguished speaker to campus. It gives students and faculty time to step back from their ordinary coursework and wrestle together with questions that reach beyond a single class or discipline. This semester, Trueman's discussion of technology, human nature, and Christian hospitality gave the PHC community another opportunity to consider how Christians can faithfully understand and engage the culture around them.

A few traditions leading up to the event include the email revealing who the speaker will be that semester, each brother/sister wing coordinating business formal by theme and color, and President Jack Haye leading the attendees in the opening hymn, "All Creatures of Our God and King."

Faith & Reason: Trueman

Trueman's lecture drew from themes in The Desecration of Man, examining the transition from what he described as disenchantment to desecration in modern culture through technology. “Technology makes us feel unlimited and self-creating to the deepest point,” Trueman said.

The concern, Trueman explained, is not simply that technology is changing the way people work or communicate. When technological power begins to influence how people understand themselves, it can also begin to change how they understand human nature and human dignity.

“Mankind enjoys the capacity to desecrate, which has risen significantly in modernity,” Trueman said. “If the problem is desecration, then Christianity offers the answer of consecration.”

Trueman pointed students toward hospitality as one practical expression of that Christian response. Rather than allowing technology and modern culture to determine the meaning of human relationships, Christians are called to consecrate culture through the way they welcome and care for one another, opening their hearts and homes and giving as Christ gives to us.

The lecture was only the beginning of the conversation. Afterward, students were released to enjoy lunch and attend discussion groups, where a professor facilitated each group and helped students formulate questions for Trueman during the Q&A session.

Dean of Academic Affairs Dr. Mark Mitchell led the final segment of Faith & Reason. A faculty panel sat with Trueman to respond to his lecture and ask further questions. The panel included Theology professors Dr. Graedon Zorzi and Dr. Travis Wright, as well as Professor of Government Dr. Roberta Bayer. Dr. Mitchell also brought questions from the student discussion groups into the conversation.

The format gave students an opportunity to do more than simply hear from a visiting scholar. They could take the ideas presented in the lecture, discuss them with their professors and peers, test their own understanding, and then bring their questions directly to Trueman.

The event closed with a standing ovation for Trueman. Students poured out of the room to enjoy the rest of their day, further discussing the lecture, studying, or reading a newly purchased copy of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, signed by Trueman.

Patrick Henry College exists to glorify God by challenging the status quo in higher education, lifting high both faith and reason within a rigorous academic environment; thereby preserving for posterity the ideals behind the "noble experiment in ordered liberty" that is the foundation of America.