{"id":459,"date":"2014-01-16T17:24:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-16T17:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=459"},"modified":"2014-08-12T23:49:07","modified_gmt":"2014-08-12T23:49:07","slug":"secularization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/secularization\/","title":{"rendered":"Secularization"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles Taylor\u2019s A Secular Age<\/em> is not for the faint of heart. It is long, turgid and akin to eating chalk. But, if one can get past that, it\u2019s understandable why so many think it is one of the most important books of a generation. After all, the Templeton Prize<\/a> is not given out to just anyone. It would do Taylor\u2019s book an injustice to do anything other than to highlight one or two of the thoughts I had while reading it. Deep analysis and dialogue with the book needs to be done by someone much smarter than I.<\/p>\n

Many religious conservatives place the blame of a secularized society squarely at the feet of science and have declared war on science because of it. Taylor argues against this notion and for that I\u2019m grateful. I\u2019ve always thought the tension between science and religion was more fiction than anything. Rodney Stark in For The Glory of God<\/em><\/a> writes that science does, in fact, owe its birth and current life to Christianity. Only Christianity offers an ordered and stable world, which allowed and allows for science to exist. I like to think that science answers the \u2018how\u2019 questions and religion answers the \u2018why\u2019 questions. We cannot lay the blame of a secularized society at the feet of science. Christians have to look elsewhere, or we\u2019ll miss the correct diagnosis of our culture\u2019s state.<\/p>\n

Taylor places the bulk of the blame on our societies desire for freedom, happiness and fulfillment in the current life.\u00a0 Taylor calls this shift an \u201canthropocentric turn\u201d (264). Society became more concerned with happiness and fulfillment than anything else. In today\u2019s culture this looks like churches teaching that Jesus was a good \u2018moral teacher\u2019 who wants people to be happy and comfortable. \u00a0There\u2019s a lack of church teaching on sacrifice, eternity, trinity, or mystery. An individual\u2019s temporal fulfillment has become the focus.<\/p>\n

I think Taylor\u2019s insight is correct. I look around at Western Christianity, and I see his diagnosis everywhere. Churches teach sermons on \u2018Finding Your Best Life Now\u2019 or \u2018Six Ways to a Happier Life.\u2019 Many Christians believe that the most important thing is to be happy. In Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers<\/em><\/a>, Christian Smith labels it \u201cMoralistic Therapeutic Deism.\u201d Unfortunately, I don\u2019t have to point to society to see it. I can look at my own life and struggles. It\u2019s my desire for the latest and greatest in everything. It\u2019s focusing on my wants and needs rather than the needs of others. It\u2019s forgetting that I am not the center of the world.<\/p>\n

But is there hope? Are we as a society doomed?\u00a0 Taylor seems to think that hope exists in the ideas of transcendence and mystery.\u00a0 He writes. \u201c.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0the sense that there is something more presses in. Great numbers of people feel it; in moments of reflection about their life; in moments of relaxation in nature; in moments of bereavement and loss; and quite wildly and unpredictably. Our age is very far from settling in to a comfortable unbelief. Although many individuals do so, and more still seem to on the outside, the unrest continues to surface. Could it ever be otherwise?\u201d (727) I pray that the \u2018unrest\u2019 would grow and grow, and we would realize that our soul doesn\u2019t find rest in our own happiness or possessions but in only in God who sacrificed his own body for those he loved.<\/p>\n

My Question: How can churches foster and cultivate this \u2018unrest\u2019 in the malaise of the modern era?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles Taylor\u2019s A Secular Age is not for the faint of heart. It is long, turgid and akin to eating chalk. But, if one can get past that, it\u2019s understandable why so many think it is one of the most important books of a generation. After all, the Templeton Prize is not given out to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"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":[2,183],"class_list":["post-459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-taylorsecular","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1787,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions\/1787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}