{"id":11983,"date":"2017-02-23T18:24:17","date_gmt":"2017-02-24T02:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=11983"},"modified":"2017-02-23T18:24:17","modified_gmt":"2017-02-24T02:24:17","slug":"secular-to-sacred-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/secular-to-sacred-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Secular to Sacred \u2013 Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

My Part I was concerned about the sacred becoming secular.\u00a0 But greater was finding the \u201cmap\u201d to navigate the secular back to sacred.\u00a0 Taylor then challenged me again with semantics.\u00a0 I had heard years ago if you want to change the culture, change the language; Taylor proved that to be true.<\/p>\n

Taylor states that, \u201cOne obvious fruit of this sense of innate innocence has been the transfer of so many issues used to be considered moral into a therapeutic register.\u00a0 What was formally sin is often now seen as sickness.\u00a0 This is the \u2018triumph of the therapeutic\u2019, which has paradoxical results.\u00a0 It seems to involve an enhancement of human dignity, but can actually end up abasing it.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

The secular mind believes that it can rehabilitate or find therapy that will heal the broken condition that is easier to refer to as a \u201csickness\u201d.\u00a0 Smith answers with, \u201cOur problem is not some penumbra of illness pressing in on our \u2018good\u2019 normal; our problem is our \u2018normal\u2019.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Taylor\u2019s epic work, The Secular Age, <\/em>is divided into five major subgroups:\u00a0 The Work of Reform, The Turning Point, The Nova Effect, Narratives of Secularization, and Conditions of Belief.\u00a0 His book emerges from Taylor\u2019s \u201cGifford Lectures at Edinburgh in the spring of 1999, entitled \u2018Living in a Secular Age\u2019.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

I found some great insight in Part IV, Narratives of Secularization and Taylor\u2019s three-part assessment of history from 1500 \u2013 the present.\u00a0 Smith synthesizes Taylor and claims, \u201cThe goal is to track the move from some elite unbelief in the eighteenth century to mass secularization in the twenty-first century.\u00a0 He does do by introducing what he calls, \u2018Weber-style ideal types\u2019 of religious forms at different stages.<\/p>\n

Taylor, with Smith\u2019s synthesis, outlines three religious forms:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. AR \u2013 ancien regime<\/li>\n
  2. AM \u2013 Age of Mobilization<\/li>\n
  3. AA \u2013 Age of Authenticity[4]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    AR \u2013 ancien regime, \u201c\u2026we have a close connection between church membership and being part of a national, but particularly a local community; this connection was cemented in part by the coexistence of official orthodox ritual and prayer, on one hand, with, on the other, ritual forms concerned with defense, luck, warding off evil.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 This brought me back to Noll\u2019s writings.\u00a0 Noll, speaking about the creeds, said, \u201cThe creeds were never intended to be a comprehensive survey of all biblical wisdom.\u00a0 But by their explicit references to Scripture as revealing the great work of God in Christ, Nicea and Chalcedon do make an indirect assertion about the primary function of the Bible.\u201d[6]<\/a>\u00a0 By Taylor\u2019s implication, this would be around 1500 \u2013 1800.<\/p>\n

    AM \u2013 Age of Mobilization.\u00a0 Smith deciphered Taylor by saying, \u201cThe status quo and ancien regime having been replaced, we now realize that if anything is going to fill the void, we need to up with it \u2013 we will need to \u2018mobilize\u2019 new rituals, practices, institutions, and so forth.\u201d[7]<\/a>\u00a0 Taylor said, \u201c\u2026we can fix the limits of the Age of Mobilization from roughly 1800 to 1950 (perhaps more exactly 1960).\u201d[8]<\/a><\/p>\n

    AA \u2013 Age of Authenticity.\u00a0 \u201cThis contemporary social imaginary is crystallized in terms of authenticity.<\/em>\u00a0 So the primary \u2013 yea, only \u2013 value in such a world is choice: \u2018<\/em>bare choice as a prime value, irrespective of what it is a choice between, or in what domain\u2019 (p. 478).\u00a0 And tolerance is the last remaining virtue: \u2018the sin which is not tolerated is intolerance\u2019 (p. 484).\u201d[9]<\/a>\u00a0 Taylor believes this is the world we live in today.<\/p>\n

    These three forms\/stages seem to clarify secularization\u2019s progression and the cause and effect of how it is so widespread.\u00a0 Each of the three give, credence to the digression away from a transcendent, Almighty God and the embracing of increasing humanism.\u00a0 Taylor and Smith give us the \u201cmap\u201d but also offer us the possible \u201ccure\u201d to keep us from the slippery slope of secularization.<\/p>\n

    Analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Taylor\u2019s reference to \u201creligion\u201d help steer me to a more holistic view of organized involvement.\u00a0 Taylor said, \u201c\u2026 \u2018religion\u2019 for our purposes can be defined in terms of \u2018transcendence\u2019\u2026It is our relation to a transcendent God which has been displaced at the centre of social life (secularity 1); it is faith in this God whose decline is tracked in those theories (secularity 2).\u201d[10]<\/a>\u00a0 I stand in agreement with Taylor\u2019s assessment of the need of God being transcendent and His displacement from both social life and theories.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a> My concern is practice.\u00a0 Smith said, \u201cTaylor does <\/em>affirm that there has indeed been a process of secularization; he also recognized that in much of the West, there has also been a decline in religious participation and identification.\u201d[11]<\/a>\u00a0 As flawed as the local church can be, I still embrace the necessity and involvement of the corporate expression of the \u201cbody of Christ\u201d \u2013 the local church.\u00a0 My hypothesis is that the \u201cdecline in religious participation and identification\u201d has helped to promote the secularization of the West, especially the United States.\u00a0 What will the church choose to do about this present reality?\u00a0 How will we move from sacred to secular?<\/p>\n

    [1]<\/a> Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, <\/em>(Cambridge, MA:\u00a0 The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), 618.<\/p>\n

    [2]<\/a> K. A. Smith, How Not to Be Secular:\u00a0 Reading Charles Taylor, <\/em>(Grand Rapids, MI: \u00a0William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014), 108.<\/p>\n

    [3]<\/a> Taylor, ix.<\/em><\/p>\n

    [4]<\/a> Smith, 82-83.<\/p>\n

    [5]<\/a> Taylor, 440.<\/p>\n

    [6]<\/a> Mark A. Noll, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, <\/em>(Grand Rapids, MI:\u00a0 William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2011), 126.<\/p>\n

    [7]<\/a> Smith, 84.<\/p>\n

    [8]<\/a> Taylor, 471.<\/p>\n

    [9]<\/a> Smith, 85.<\/p>\n

    [10]<\/a> Ibid., 20.<\/p>\n

    [11]<\/a> Smith, 83.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Introduction My Part I was concerned about the sacred becoming secular.\u00a0 But greater was finding the \u201cmap\u201d to navigate the secular back to sacred.\u00a0 Taylor then challenged me again with semantics.\u00a0 I had heard years ago if you want to change the culture, change the language; Taylor proved that to be true. Taylor states that, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[471,186],"class_list":["post-11983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-smith","tag-taylor","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11983\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}