{"id":11977,"date":"2017-02-23T15:59:43","date_gmt":"2017-02-23T23:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=11977"},"modified":"2017-02-23T15:59:43","modified_gmt":"2017-02-23T23:59:43","slug":"fractures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/fractures\/","title":{"rendered":"Fractures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles Taylor\u2019s book A Secular Age,<\/em> could easily serve as a textbook for a college course on \u201cWestern Civilization,\u201d tracing\u00a0history along the thread of secularization: the difficult journey during which there has been a shift in the modern age from a social imaginary wherein unbelief was unimaginable to a time when belief is unthinkable. Through time religious belief with its assumption of the transcendent \u201cprogressed\u201d through deism which, offered religion with no need for transcendent revelation, to a period of \u201cimmanence\u201d with transcendence being\u00a0discarded.<\/p>\n

Secularism is an appropriate thread to follow because the presence or absence of religious faith (and engagement with the transcendent) is\u00a0one of the most important themes or aspects of civilization. Few dynamics affect society as much as the development of philosophical thought and the affect of living out religious faith.<\/p>\n

James Smith summarizes this way: \u201cPart 1 of A Secular Age.<\/em>..considered the late medieval and early modern reform movements that began to shift the plausibility conditions of the West, making exclusive humanism a possibility (especially via disenchantment and the newly buffered self)… Part 2…considered the positive shift that really made exclusive humanism a \u2018live option\u2019: a theological shift that gave us the impersonal god of deism…Taylor has now brought us to a secular-3 age – an age in which the plausibility structures have changed…..and theistic belief is not only displaced from being the default, it is positively contested.\u201d [1]<\/p>\n

This book (and the accompanying How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor<\/em> by James Smith) presents many fascinating concepts and issues.<\/p>\n

Social Imaginary<\/p>\n

Taylor and Smith speak of \u201cSocial Imaginary.\u201d The understanding of this term offered is \u201c…the ways in which [people] imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others…the expectations which are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images which underlie these expectations.\u201d [2] \u201c…the social imaginary is that common understanding which makes possible common practices…It incorporates a sense of the normal expectations that we have of each other; the kind of common understanding which enables us to carry out the collective practices which make up our social life.\u201d [3]<\/p>\n

Social imaginary is how we conceptualize our society: what we understand to be normal in our realm of existence. If not the same as culture, social imaginary is at the least a cousin to culture.<\/p>\n

While reading I begin to wonder, \u201cWhat is the \u2018Social Imaginary\u2019 of the Kingdom of God?\u201d This is key to the focal point of my dissertation, as we try to create a new \u201cspace\u201d found at the nexus of American, Other Nation, and Kingdom-of-God Social Imaginaries. Students from each culture will bring to Cornerstone School of Ministry certain expectations of how students relate to students, how students relate to instructors, and what the expectations are for an academic community. Since every social imaginary has some values that are consistent with the Kingdom of God and others that are contrary, we must study the cultures of those with whom we work in order to create a more authentic Kingdom Social Imaginary.<\/p>\n

From Medieval to Post-Modern<\/p>\n

Why was it impossible not to believe in 1500 and unthinkable to believe in 2000 (a haunting question)? This change dealt with what Taylor calls \u201cBulwarks of Belief.\u201d [4] These societal bulwarks supported some beliefs and prevented others. Following the Middle Ages a number of \u201cbarriers\u201d had to be removed in order to allow in new ways of thinking. A significant factor was the relationship of the individual to the community. This factor was a surprise because today we live in an individualistic culture and what I have taken for granted in my social imaginary has not always been the case in Western society. But Taylor writes of the time when there was a much stronger sense of \u201cteam\u201d and that there was societal pressure to go along with the community. (This \u201ccommunal\u201d nature of society is still prevalent in many cultures, as in Asian cultures, such as Chinese.) As individualism grew (throughout, Taylor refers to the \u201cbuffered self\u201d) space was created for individual beliefs that differed from the predominant social imaginary.<\/p>\n

Taylor repeatedly refers to the date of 1500. A quick internet search reveals some of the most influential historical figures whose lives straddle that date: da Vinci; 1452-1519, Copernicus (who presented the concept of a heliocentric solar system, circa 1508); 1473-1543, Luther; 1483-1546, and Columbus, who\u2019s famous voyage is assumed to be in 1492, and who died in 1506. Born slightly later, but still in this pivotal period are Calvin; 1509-1564 and Galileo; 1564-1642. It can be little wonder that medieval naivete radically changed with the contributions of these people.<\/p>\n

Exclusive humanism<\/p>\n

While doing a little extra-curricular research on some of Taylor\u2019s vocabulary I discovered a blog written by two American Buddhist Priests: \u201cJiryu Mark\u201d and \u201cHondo Dave.\u201d Regarding A Secular Age<\/em> they write, \u201cOn Taylor\u2019s telling, what\u2019s arisen, for the first time in human history, is what he calls an \u2018exclusive humanism,\u2019 a way of being in the world that locates the deepest sources of meaning with reference only to human life, rather than with reference to some reality outside of or beyond human life.\u201d [6]<\/p>\n

The Fractures of Modernity<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fractured culture of the nova…becomes generalized to whole societies… And along with this, and integral to it, there arises in Western societies a generalized culture of \u2018authenticity\u2019, or expressive individualism, in which people are encouraged to find their own way, discover their own fulfillment, \u2018do their own thing\u2019.\u201d [7]<\/p>\n

If we were to apply a Biblical commentary on this trend we could recall a time in Israel\u2019s history, captured in Judges 17:6; \u201cIn those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.\u201d Although secularism wasn\u2019t the overt problem in those days, a functional individualism is common to the Modern age Taylor addresses. It is this student\u2019s opinion that with modern secularism America has arrived at the place of ancient Israel.<\/p>\n

Smith says, \u201cFar from being a monolithic space or \u2018experience,\u2019 our secular age is marked by tensions and fractures. While exclusive humanism becomes a live option, it doesn\u2019t immediately capture everyone\u2019s imagination. Indeed, the backlash begins almost immediately.\u201d [8]<\/p>\n

This leads me to think that the current cultural and political fracture we are experiencing in America isn\u2019t just about Republican vs Democrat, or Trump vs World. It may be that a deeper, more profound, longer developing fracture is now coming to full bloom.<\/p>\n

1. James K. A. Smith, How (Not) to be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), Kindle Loc 1393.
\n2. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), 171.
\n3. Ibid., 172.
\n4. Ibid., Chapter 1, p 25ff.
\n5. \u201cEnlightenment,\u201d accessed February 21, 2017, https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/enlightenment\/ accessed February 21, 2017.
\n6. \u201cNo Zen in the West.\u201d Accessed Feb 20, 2017,
\nCharles Taylor, exclusive humanism, and the Dharma<\/a>
\n7. Taylor, 299.
\n8. Smith, Loc 1405.<\/p>\n