While this shift has eroded community and the \u201cmechanical\u201d or structural systems that have maintained community (especially the institution<\/em> of church), I do not believe this is inherently bad, but has mixed effects. (Taylor posits that this shift is neither solely good nor bad; for instance, \u201cpeople discovered the hard way that there were dangers as well as liberation in throwing over the codes of their parents\u201d[8]<\/a>\u2014especially in the sexual revolution). What the church is challenged to rethink in this secular age is the assumption of a mechanical system over against the organic nature of the church (\u201creligion\u201d vs. \u201cJesus-follower\u201d). Thus creativity and imagination would take precedence over imitation and predictability. The instrumental, rote, and trivialization of church practices give way to experiential moments of passionate, holistic (whole-body), and personal meaning.<\/p>\n The reality is that \u201cchoice\u201d is not going away anytime soon. How do we respond to that? Churches can recognize that \u201cone\u2019s path [of personal spiritual development] can range through those which require some community to live out\u2026 but it can also range beyond those which require only the loosest affinity groups.\u201d[9]<\/a> In other words, people may or may not be seeking their personal fulfillment through being a part of a community. For those who do desire fulfillment through community, discipleship or external tools for transformation may be resisted: \u201cthe need to train character has receded even farther into the background, as though the morality of mutual respect were embedded in the ideal of authentic self-fulfillment itself.\u201d[10]<\/a><\/p>\n Another characteristic of this age is collective \u201cmoments of fusion,\u201d where a crowd becomes a Finally, so much of Taylor\u2019s text is analogous to texts from last spring.[12]<\/a> I\u2019m primarily thinking here of a thread in our conversations on the Calvinist\/ Puritan\/Evangelical doctrine of assurance (\u00e0 la Bebbington) that seems to perpetually underlie our spiritual quest.[13]<\/a> Taylor suggests that we all vacillate between conditions of exile, absence or ennui (\u201cthe dark night of the soul\u201d) and a place of fullness, a place, \u201cactivity or condition [where] life is fuller, richer, deeper, more worthwhile, more admirable, more what it should be.\u201d[14]<\/a> (To use other terms, perhaps “heaven”, shalom<\/em>, the Garden of Eden, thin places, etc.). The reality, according to Taylor, is that most of our lives are spent in a middle place, between these two extremes (exile and fullness), with ordinary happiness and routine order. In this middle place, during earlier ages the emphasis was a \u201cthreat\u2026 attach[ed] to very clearly defined failures. Do this, or else (damnation will follow).\u201d[15]<\/a> This moral code of the previous ages emphasized \u201cwhat we should do\/and or\u2026 believe, to the detriment of spiritual growth.\u201d[16]<\/a> We\u2019ve moved now to an emphasis on freedom to pursue (individual) happiness (without harming others), disconnected from institutionally ordained (or even \u201cbiblical\u201d) checklists to affirm salvation.<\/p>\n We do a much better job of navigating change as outsiders looking in; but in this case we ourselves are in the midst\u2014and products of\u2014this secular age. It\u2019s nothing to be frightened of, but rather to realistically face the implications for ourselves, our neighbors and churches, and the future.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Charles Taylor, A Secular Age<\/em>, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007, 440. This is where where secular1 <\/sub><\/em>was dominant. Taylor also identifies this age as Durkheimian, or proto-Durkheimian, 442, 455.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Ibid., 445ff. Secular2<\/sub> <\/em>prevailed; this age is characterized as having neo-Durkheimian social forms, 455.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Ibid., 473ff. Secular3<\/sub><\/em> aligns here; characterized as post-Durkheimian, 487.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> I do<\/em> believe it\u2019s important, thought, to understand the Age of Mobilization and secular2<\/sub>,<\/em> especially when navigating with those of the previous generation (including my parents and the seniors of our church), and those of the current generation whose social imaginary remains in that paradigm (Taylor 488).<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Ibid., 475.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Ibid., 474.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter. The Rebel Sell: How the Counter Culture Became Consumer Culture<\/em>. The Rebel Sell: How the Counterculture Became Consumer Culture<\/em>, (Chichester: Capstone, 2006), 10. (Their book was published a year before Taylor\u2019s; I\u2019d be curious how\/if they\u2019d revise anything after reading A Secular Age<\/em>.) cf. Vincent Miller, Consuming Religion\u202f: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture<\/em> (New York: Continuum, 2004).<\/p>\n [8]<\/a> Taylor, 502.<\/p>\n [9]<\/a> Ibid., 490.<\/p>\n [10]<\/a> Ibid., 485.<\/p>\n [11]<\/a> Ibid., 482.<\/p>\n [12]<\/a> I\u2019ve already referenced The Rebel Sell <\/em>and Consuming Religion <\/em>above. See also Benedict Anderson on Imagined Communities (Taylor 713).<\/p>\n [13]<\/a> See D.W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A history from the 1730s to the 1980s<\/em>, London: Routledge, 1989, 43ff.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Be-Authentic-300x161.jpg\")
<\/a>Much of the Age of Authenticity has been portrayed with hyper individualism, or self-expression for the masses (beyond the elite and intellectuals), or \u201cthat each one of us has his\/her own way of realizing our humanity, and that it is important to find and live out one\u2019s own, as against surrendering to conformity with a model imposed on us from outside.\u201d[5]<\/a> This is manifested, for instance, in \u201cthe consumer revolution\u201d[6]<\/a>. Taylor\u2019s description of this need for the (individual) pursuit of happiness via consumption aligns with Heath and Potter\u2019s primary thesis in The Rebel Sell<\/em> and Miller\u2019s Consuming Religion<\/em>.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/fullness-destiny-soaking-worship-300x300.jpg\")
<\/a>common agent, sharing, not so much a common action, but \u201can emotion, a powerful common feeling.\u201d[11]<\/a> These festive moments occur at rock concerts and sporting events, women\u2019s marches and meta-topical spaces (ie. hashtags and memes). I suggest that these moments of \u201ccollective effervescence\u201d and shared feeling are what draw people to large concert-style worship services. I am part of something bigger than myself (a sense of fullness) and it moves me. Others, though, may choose<\/em> to follow the more contemplative experience, relying on intimacy and sensory approaches to the sense of fullness for their spiritual path.<\/p>\n