{"id":4777,"date":"2015-04-29T00:54:27","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T07:54:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=4777"},"modified":"2015-04-29T20:24:04","modified_gmt":"2015-04-30T03:24:04","slug":"from-the-sacred-profane-to-the-sacred-secular-kinder-gentler-times-in-charles-taylors-a-secular-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/from-the-sacred-profane-to-the-sacred-secular-kinder-gentler-times-in-charles-taylors-a-secular-age\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Sacred & Profane to the Sacred & Secular. Kinder, Gentler Times in Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age."},"content":{"rendered":"

In a previous post I looked at the first three parts of Charles Taylor\u2019s A Secular Age<\/em>. Here I will be focusing on the last two sections of his 800+ page text \u2013 \u201cNarratives of Secularization\u201d and \u201cConditions of Belief.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pausing for a brief moment of overview, we previously considered Taylor\u2019s presentation that we exist in an age of secularization precisely because we have been through an age when the sacred pervasively permeated society at all levels. Taylor argued that without the sacred being encountered and navigated as so done we would not have arrived at the point we are at today. Today we are at a point of volitional disregard of anything Transcendent, Beyond, or otherwise Other (other than the so-phrased \u2018Other\u2019 in philosophical discourse \ud83d\ude42 ). Supposedly, Rudolf Otto\u2019s and Mircea Eliade\u2019s Ganz Andere<\/em>, Mysterium Tremendum<\/em>, Mysterium Fascinans<\/em>, Das Heilige<\/em>, etc. is nowhere to be found.[1]<\/a> In this sense, how appropriate that Taylor titled his work with the much gentler term of \u2018secular\u2019 as opposed to employing the terminology \u2018profane\u2019 — the term that the previous authors used in describing the antithesis of the Sacred. Now, as Taylor suggested in his first three sections of A Secular Age<\/em>, there is essentially no antithesis, there is only the multiplicity of secularities. Of course, Taylor recognizes various spiritualities that continue forward, but argues that there is largely a subsumtion of these to larger materialistic forces at play. That is, for Taylor, even spiritual reform movements are seen as having been and\/or being pieces of larger secularization movements at play.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

In part IV, Taylor moves into leading us to how we have come to be where we currently reside. Taylor begins by reminding us that we live in a world framed primarily by immanentism. Recalling Raphael\u2019s School of Athens<\/em>, Aristotle would be proud. However, he also notes that there is a resurgence of searching for more-than-is<\/em> by many. Yet, because of the often multi-connected collusion of the nation-state and structured-religion and as well, due to structured-religion\u2019s all too frequent tendency to prefer a powerful\/wealthy in-crowd, current resurgence of seeking more-than-is<\/em> often leans toward newly conceptualized versions of old religiosity more comfortable with loosely connected communities of \u2018spirituality\u2019 as opposed to more formal structures. That is, religion today is as often as not a free-floating spirituality as it is grounded religious adherence per se.<\/p>\n

So, if one is going to believe something these days, how is it that such belief arises and is navigated? This is the focus of the fifth and final section of Taylor\u2019s book — \u201cConditions of Belief.\u201d<\/p>\n

Too simply in almost all ways to do all of this any substantive form of justice, I have found Taylor\u2019s work overall to be a bit of Shakespearean \u201cme thinks he doth protest too much\u201d and of \u201cmaking much ado about nothing.\u201d I offer this largely tongue-in-cheek, with much due humility and with significant caveat after caveat because it is quite obvious that some protest is needed and all of this is certainly not about nothing. Yet, I do offer a bit of, \u201creally, 800+ pages?\u201d because here again in the last section as at various points throughout we find Taylor writing, \u201cReligions remains ineradicably on the horizon of areligion; and vice-versa.\u201d[3]<\/a> So, okay, there are choices that many are making now that really were not supposedly experienced in the same manner in previous societies, but at the same time all of this to say that the conversation between the \u2018religion\u2019 and \u2018areligion\u2019 remains current.? I recognize that it\u2019s important to note the difference and that it is in fact important to conjecture, analyze, critique and ponder such difference, but at the same time, in some ways this is fairly close to saying \u201csacred\u201d and \u201cprofane.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another hundered and twenty some pages forward Taylor writes, \u201cOur age is very far from settling in to comfortable unbelief\u2026Could it ever be otherwise? The secular age is schizophrenic, or better, deeply cross-pressured. People seem at a safe distance from religion; and yet they are very moved to know that there are dedicated believers, like Mother Teresa.\u201d[4]<\/a> Interesting, but certainly not groundbreaking insight. The final chapter (chapter 20) moves even more fully into articulation of spirituality\/mysticism\/renewal movements that have been occurring throughout history and a call for embodied, integrated faith over-against a Platonic dualism. Great. But\u2026<\/p>\n

So, there are some profound pieces in to be found in Taylor\u2019s A Secular Age<\/em>, but it overall leaves me where the writer of Ecclesiastes found himself long ago. Let\u2019s end by quoting this short passage and you can decide whether this whole thing ends up being comforting or discomforting for you, \u201cWhat has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry Into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and Its Relation to the Rational<\/em> [trans JW Harvey] (New York: Oxford University Press, 1923; 2nd ed, 1950; reprint, New York, 1970); Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion <\/em>[trans. W. Trask] (London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1959)<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Charles Taylor, A Secular Age<\/em> (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), 424.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid., 592.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid, 727.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a previous post I looked at the first three parts of Charles Taylor\u2019s A Secular Age. Here I will be focusing on the last two sections of his 800+ page text \u2013 \u201cNarratives of Secularization\u201d and \u201cConditions of Belief.\u201d Pausing for a brief moment of overview, we previously considered Taylor\u2019s presentation that we exist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"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":[2,481,186,189],"class_list":["post-4777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-lgp4-2","tag-taylor","tag-taylor-secular","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4777","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\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4778,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4777\/revisions\/4778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}