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<\/a><\/p>\nHumanity continues to be impacted by ideas from religion and culture. It is difficult to distinguish religious practice from the culture in which it emerges.\u00a0 Why pinpoint at the two categorizes and not others like banking, the modern biomedical enterprise and so forth? I believe that they are all inseparably intertwined but while studying Charles Taylor\u2019s book, particular scenarios regarding religion, ethnicity and culture came to mind which explain some more about the earlier statements. The memories where triggered by Taylor\u2019s notion of \u201csocial imaginaries.\u201d[1]<\/a> What role do imaginaries play in the diversification of new options in a world infused with both religious and non-religious choices? In another book titled Modern Social Imaginaries, Taylor describes social imaginaries as:<\/p>\n \u2026 something much broader and deeper than the intellectual schemes people may entertain when they think about social reality in a disengaged mode. I am thinking, rather, of the ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie the expectations.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n The division between the \u201csecular and the scared\u201d is based on social imaginaries which have influenced Christianity in many ways. I believe that the consequences from the measures of \u2018us verse them\u2019 and \u2018with us or against us\u2019 hinder faithful witness. Not long ago, myself and a group of Ugandan Christians were introduced to the concept of the \u201c10\/40 window\u201d by American evangelical missionaries in Uganda.\u00a0 The missionaries were sociable and friendly, but when it came to the discussion about the \u201c10\/40 window\u201d, there was a shift in their countenance. I thought to myself, this must be a terrible place. The missionaries defined the 10\/40 window as the place where most of the unreached people group by the Christian message lived. This particular place was across African and Asia, from 10 degree latitude north of the equator to 40 degrees latitude north of the equator, thus \u201cthe 10\/40\u201d.<\/p>\n We were told that a large number of the population had not heard the gospel. \u00a0Yet, the group of Uganda Christians who attended the training meeting still questioned how possible it was that the land of St Augustine and other historical Christian intellectuals might be \u201cunreached\u201d? Were the missionaries aware of the many people to whom Jesus appeared and called to follow him in those particular areas of the world? Why did the missionaries need to have a sweeping label for countries, cultures and continents?\u00a0 Was such a label Christian or secular? Was this an introduction to new options in Uganda on how to approach people living in the region under question? \u00a0Does Western Europe need a similar demarcation since Christendom is on the decline? One can only imagine that there where social imaginaries that accompanied the creation of the 10\/40 concept. \u00a0But what are the social imainaries in the missionary “targeted” region? How do people marry there? What languages are spoken there? What stories could the missionaries have told about the people is ways of living? In my option, such simplistic concepts like “10\/40 window” are unnecessary and disengaging. When religious people are fearful, they either practice the process of \u2018othering\u2019 or retreat. It was no surprise that non of the Ugandans expressed further interest in the missionaries’ training seminar.<\/p>\n Taylor\u2019s work covers a historical perspective of the developments in Western Christendom, modernity and the rise of the secular category amid religion and cultural. While studying his work, I was pulled back to events in my history in ways that helped me to understand some of the existing doubts and discrepancies. As I continue to be mindful of how to be a disciple of Christ I am compelled to be embedded in the gospel and discerning of how I proclaim it. There is need to know how to practice a dialectical way of relating in the world of ideas, modernity, religion and culture. \u00a0Language, symbols, literature, music, dance, theater, aesthetics and poetry are necessary for the entry into human stories and encouraging an environment of love, respect and mutuality.<\/p>\n