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Charles Taylor\u2019s book, Modern Social Imaginaries[1]<\/a>, asks serious questions about society and culture.\u00a0 \u201cImagine if society were yours to shape, what would it look like?\u00a0 Would it be a religious theocracy, Marxist\/Socialist, capitalistic, a secular state, or pure anarchy?\u201d\u00a0 Taylor postulates in his text that Modernity looks a lot different from antiquity for many reasons, some political, some religious, and some secular.\u00a0 He is a remarkable writer, philosopher, and theologian.\u00a0 To get a better understanding of Taylor, I looked online and found a very helpful clip on You Tube.\u00a0 The clip is called, \u201cThe Future of Religion\u201d and features an interview with Professor Taylor and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.\u00a0 The interview helped to give me a better perspective on Taylor\u2019s views.\u00a0 Here is the link:\u00a0 http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RV2fDNVb1sc<\/a>.<\/p>\n One of the theorists that Taylor credits for the state of modern (Western) society is Hugo Grotius, the Dutch philosopher\/jurist.\u00a0 Grotius experienced firsthand the brutal religious wars of Post-Reformation Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and was appalled at what he saw.\u00a0 Grotius saw (imagined) a different world than the one he had experienced and entered the conversation of Just War Theory in a radical, unorthodox way.\u00a0 Eventually, Hugo Grotius became known as the \u201cFather of International Law.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 His most important work is \u201cThe Law of War and Peace,\u201d which he wrote after escaping prison and ending up in France.\u00a0 According to Paul Christopher:<\/p>\n The Central Theme of The Law of War and Peace is that the relations between states should always be governed by laws and moral principles just as relations are between individuals.\u00a0 This assertion is pivotal because, if true, it restricts both the authority of the Church and that of sovereign states (and their rulers).\u00a0 Such limitations on secular and Church authority are necessary if international laws are to have any force.\u00a0 But in order for his argument to persuade, Grotius must first show that just as there are moral principles operating in interpersonal relations there are analogous moral principles that are at the foundation of municipal (civil) laws.\u00a0 Only then can he stand any chance of convincing us that analogous rules apply (or should apply) in the society of states.[3]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Christopher continues to explain that what Grotius grounds his municipal law in is in a \u201claw of nature.\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0 Grotius puts it thus, \u201c[The laws are] unchangeable \u2013 even in the sense that it cannot be changed by God.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 This was indeed a new social order, and why not a new order?\u00a0 Grotius experienced the unbelievable carnage of Europe\u2019s religious wars in which whole towns were annihilated.\u00a0 He declares in his own words that the reason he \u201cimagined\u201d The Law of War and Peace<\/em>:<\/p>\n I had many and weighty reasons for undertaking to write upon this subject.\u00a0 Throughout the Christian world I observed a lack of restraint in relation to war such as even barbarous races should be ashamed of; I observed that men rush to arms for slight causes, or for no cause at all, and that when arms have been taken up, there is no longer any respect for law, divine or human; it is as if, in accordance with a general decree, frenzy had openly let loose for the committing of all crimes.[6]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In the years that I taught a course called War and Peace<\/em>, Grotius became one of my heroes.\u00a0 Yes, he was a spokesman for secularity and humanism, but what is wrong with that?\u00a0 When the Church has become impotent in her calling, sometimes a different order must come into play.\u00a0 Grotius was not a villain; he was a man who was committed to doing what was right and just, and he was a person who stood up for reason and Christ-like values.\u00a0 Yes, we live is a different world now than in Grotius\u2019 day, but we need to realize that sometimes God will use any means to bring us to a place of peace.\u00a0 For me, I will take a Grotius over brutality and butchery any day.\u00a0 So have Grotius and Locke\u2019s Social Imaginary taken us too far?\u00a0 Perhaps.\u00a0 But if we need a new Western \u201cModern Social Imaginary\u201d to change what it has become the past 300-400 years, I have an important question: Who has enough social imagination to stand up and make that needed change?\u00a0 Imagine all the people\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/31.media.tumblr.com\/13a79b4f69a2662a1e26372d1d4695af\/tumblr_inline_mzoa7nTzdw1s88eo4.jpg\")
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