Carl Trueman
Carl R. Trueman (born 1967) is a British-born historian and theologian who serves as professor of biblical and religious studies at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. He previously taught for nearly two decades at Westminster Theological Seminary, including as Paul Woolley Professor of Church History, and is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Trueman is best known for his cultural-historical analysis of modern selfhood and identity. His book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self traces the philosophical genealogy from Rousseau through the Romantics to today's expressive individualism and gender ideology, and has become one of the most widely cited evangelical books of the 2020s. His earlier work covers Reformation history, theology, and confessional Reformed identity.
Frequently Asked Questions about Carl Trueman
What denomination is Carl Trueman?
Trueman is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), a conservative confessional Presbyterian denomination. He is British-born and taught for nearly two decades at Westminster Theological Seminary before joining Grove City College in 2018.
What is Carl Trueman known for?
Trueman is best known for The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self (2020), which traces how Western culture came to define identity by inner psychological feelings, particularly around sexuality and gender. Its shorter companion, Strange New World, has made the argument accessible to lay readers and become standard reading in evangelical circles.
Where does Carl Trueman teach?
Trueman is professor of biblical and religious studies at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. For the 2025-26 academic year he is serving as the Busch Family Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Notre Dame's Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government.
Is Carl Trueman a historian or a theologian?
Both, though his training is as a church historian. He earned his PhD at Aberdeen, specialized in Reformation and post-Reformation studies (including work on John Owen), and applies that historical method to contemporary cultural analysis. He also writes regularly for First Things and World Opinions.