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How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor
A Secular Age provides a monumental history and analysis of what it means for us to live in our post- Christian present — a pluralist world of competing beliefs and growing unbelief. This book by Jamie Smith is a small field guide to Taylor’s genealogy of the secular, making it accessible to a wide array of readers.
Smith’s How (Not) to Be Secular is also, however, a philosophical guidebook for practitioners — a kind of how-to manual that ultimately offers guidance on how to live in a secular age. It’s an adventure in self-understanding and a way to get our bearings in postmodernity. Whether one is proclaiming faith to the secularized or is puzzled that there continue to be people of faith in this day and age, this is a philosophical story meant to help us locate where we are and what’s at stake.]]>
Smith’s How (Not) to Be Secular is also, however, a philosophical guidebook for practitioners — a kind of how-to manual that ultimately offers guidance on how to live in a secular age. It’s an adventure in self-understanding and a way to get our bearings in postmodernity. Whether one is proclaiming faith to the secularized or is puzzled that there continue to be people of faith in this day and age, this is a philosophical story meant to help us locate where we are and what’s at stake.]]>
161 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 2, 2014
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December 5, 2020
The Contested World
It may not be entirely obvious but Charles Taylor’s 2007 book, The Secular Age, was the antidote (or at least therapy) to Trump before Trump arrived on the world-scene. A shame, then, that relatively few have read it. Taylor’s book is about Fake News, about what it is, why it’s a problem now, and how it can be dealt with. Smith offers a summary and interpretation of Taylor for those who may find the latter’s 900 pages and rather more than complete footnotes too formidable to tackle.
Smith pinpoints Taylor’s thesis admirably: .“What Taylor describes as “secular” [is] a situation of fundamental contestability when it comes to belief, a sense that rival stories are always at the door offering a very different account of the world.” Smith emphasizes the sometimes subtle point that Taylor is establishing, namely that the issue today is not one of belief but of believability: “Taylor is concerned with the “conditions of belief” - a shift in the plausibility conditions that make something believable or unbelievable.” To put the matter in an even more direct way: “The difference between our modern, “secular” age and past ages is not necessarily the catalogue of available beliefs but rather the default assumptions about what is believable.”
Even if one disagrees with Taylor’s analysis or Smith’s interpretation (and I have serious issues with Smith’s constant Christian apologetics), it’s impossible to deny that Taylor got the issue right: We no longer agree on reality, and this is driving us all a bit crazy. This shows up most obviously in two areas: literature and politics. The problem in both is not that there is a conflict among beliefs, as for example in the traditional doctrinal disagreements among religions, but that there is no consensus on what constitutes a correct belief about the world at all. I suggest calling this the problem of cultural epistemology for convenience.
This issue of cultural epistemology did not arrive fully formed with Taylor. It has historical antecedents. Aesthetic reflection rather than mainstream philosophy saw it coming first. Hannah Arendt, for example, in her The Life of the Mind actually made the same point as Taylor in 1971 when she articulated the distinction between truth and meaning (See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). The former, she suggests, depends on the criteria established by the latter, not vice versa. And meaning is infinitely contestable as both literary scholars and biblical exegetes know only too well.
James Wood makes a roughly equivalent point to Taylor in his The Broken Estate of 1999 (See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). Wood is concerned lest literature become the new religion by default as the epistemological foundations of religion itself are simply ignored by an educated populace. This is a danger also recognised by Taylor who posited the tidal pull of both militant atheism and religious fundamentalism on post-modernist culture. Each of these extreme positions carries with it its own self-fulfilling criteria of epistemological validity that are deadly for, among other things, the conduct of democratic politics.
Alain de Botton in his 1998 How Proust Can Change Your Life (See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) raises a similar warning. Lacking any compelling reason to choose one set of epistemological criteria over another, the ‘default’ position in today’s culture is one of ‘efficiency,’ that which requires least expenditure of effort or resources. The obvious problem with such a position is that efficiency can only be judged in terms of some superior criterion of value. And such a criterion is only discoverable through intensive political effort.
The demonstration of Taylor’s thesis in politics could hardly be more stark than in the rise of Trump in his dramatic coup of the Republican Party. It is clear that among Republicans, whatever criteria of validity may have been shared with other Americans and applied in the past are no longer applicable. Trump is correct: he could commit a murder on 5th Avenue in NYC and his supporters would not waiver. He lies, evades and manipulates on a daily basis, yet this has no effect on his ratings among his ‘base’.
This rather dramatic suspension of ‘normal’ cultural epistemology is a favourite topic of confused disbelief by those in academia and the media who have a rather different view of what Taylor calls the ‘immanent frame’ than Trump’s adherents. For example, Michiko Kakutani’s recent The Death of Truth (See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) bemoans the loss of historical consensus on what constitutes truth as the source of the ‘Trump problem.’ While it is possible to empathize with her frustration over Trump’s continuous and obvious mendacity, however, her solution of imposing highly contestable criteria of epistemological validity on the debate is philosophically inane and in any case useless in dealing with the Trumpist coalition.
I dare not in this brief review present Taylor’s approach to this problem of cultural epistemology. Nor do I want to summarily condemn Smith’s (or Taylor’s) Christian bias except to say that their analysis suggests just how ultimately vacuous (and harmful) the Pauline idea of faith actually is (See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) . It seems more important to me that The Secular Age become more widely read among a literate and political not just a philosophical audience. It is an essential account of our present intellectual state for every educated person.
It may not be entirely obvious but Charles Taylor’s 2007 book, The Secular Age, was the antidote (or at least therapy) to Trump before Trump arrived on the world-scene. A shame, then, that relatively few have read it. Taylor’s book is about Fake News, about what it is, why it’s a problem now, and how it can be dealt with. Smith offers a summary and interpretation of Taylor for those who may find the latter’s 900 pages and rather more than complete footnotes too formidable to tackle.
Smith pinpoints Taylor’s thesis admirably: .“What Taylor describes as “secular” [is] a situation of fundamental contestability when it comes to belief, a sense that rival stories are always at the door offering a very different account of the world.” Smith emphasizes the sometimes subtle point that Taylor is establishing, namely that the issue today is not one of belief but of believability: “Taylor is concerned with the “conditions of belief” - a shift in the plausibility conditions that make something believable or unbelievable.” To put the matter in an even more direct way: “The difference between our modern, “secular” age and past ages is not necessarily the catalogue of available beliefs but rather the default assumptions about what is believable.”
Even if one disagrees with Taylor’s analysis or Smith’s interpretation (and I have serious issues with Smith’s constant Christian apologetics), it’s impossible to deny that Taylor got the issue right: We no longer agree on reality, and this is driving us all a bit crazy. This shows up most obviously in two areas: literature and politics. The problem in both is not that there is a conflict among beliefs, as for example in the traditional doctrinal disagreements among religions, but that there is no consensus on what constitutes a correct belief about the world at all. I suggest calling this the problem of cultural epistemology for convenience.
This issue of cultural epistemology did not arrive fully formed with Taylor. It has historical antecedents. Aesthetic reflection rather than mainstream philosophy saw it coming first. Hannah Arendt, for example, in her The Life of the Mind actually made the same point as Taylor in 1971 when she articulated the distinction between truth and meaning (See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). The former, she suggests, depends on the criteria established by the latter, not vice versa. And meaning is infinitely contestable as both literary scholars and biblical exegetes know only too well.
James Wood makes a roughly equivalent point to Taylor in his The Broken Estate of 1999 (See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). Wood is concerned lest literature become the new religion by default as the epistemological foundations of religion itself are simply ignored by an educated populace. This is a danger also recognised by Taylor who posited the tidal pull of both militant atheism and religious fundamentalism on post-modernist culture. Each of these extreme positions carries with it its own self-fulfilling criteria of epistemological validity that are deadly for, among other things, the conduct of democratic politics.
Alain de Botton in his 1998 How Proust Can Change Your Life (See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) raises a similar warning. Lacking any compelling reason to choose one set of epistemological criteria over another, the ‘default’ position in today’s culture is one of ‘efficiency,’ that which requires least expenditure of effort or resources. The obvious problem with such a position is that efficiency can only be judged in terms of some superior criterion of value. And such a criterion is only discoverable through intensive political effort.
The demonstration of Taylor’s thesis in politics could hardly be more stark than in the rise of Trump in his dramatic coup of the Republican Party. It is clear that among Republicans, whatever criteria of validity may have been shared with other Americans and applied in the past are no longer applicable. Trump is correct: he could commit a murder on 5th Avenue in NYC and his supporters would not waiver. He lies, evades and manipulates on a daily basis, yet this has no effect on his ratings among his ‘base’.
This rather dramatic suspension of ‘normal’ cultural epistemology is a favourite topic of confused disbelief by those in academia and the media who have a rather different view of what Taylor calls the ‘immanent frame’ than Trump’s adherents. For example, Michiko Kakutani’s recent The Death of Truth (See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) bemoans the loss of historical consensus on what constitutes truth as the source of the ‘Trump problem.’ While it is possible to empathize with her frustration over Trump’s continuous and obvious mendacity, however, her solution of imposing highly contestable criteria of epistemological validity on the debate is philosophically inane and in any case useless in dealing with the Trumpist coalition.
I dare not in this brief review present Taylor’s approach to this problem of cultural epistemology. Nor do I want to summarily condemn Smith’s (or Taylor’s) Christian bias except to say that their analysis suggests just how ultimately vacuous (and harmful) the Pauline idea of faith actually is (See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) . It seems more important to me that The Secular Age become more widely read among a literate and political not just a philosophical audience. It is an essential account of our present intellectual state for every educated person.
January 25, 2024
For some time now, I had been meaning to read the most important work of the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, published in 2007 and considered to be one of the most profound and stimulating analyzes of Western modernity. But the more than 800 pages put me off and they still do. That's why I decided to read this introduction of about 120 pages, that seemed like a manageable chunk. Well, that still was an underestimation, because Taylor's very philosophical reasoning makes this introduction no easy feat.
I was quite impressed by the historical panorama that Taylor sketches of how we have ended up in our secular age, mainly through a combination of the unintended effects of the Reformation, the penchant for the precise observation of nature (naturalism), and the tendency towards nominalism, which dates from the Middle Ages, i.e. the realization that words do not coincide with things. For me as a historian, Taylor uses a very rough brush, but the fact that he continually emphasizes the contingency of the process - in Smith's words a “zigzag account of causal complexity” - made quite an impression. I'll definitely go back to that later.
I must admit that the subsequent description of exactly where we are in the secular era and how we (can) deal with the demons of that era was much more difficult. Taylor does not shy away from detours in his reasoning and regularly introduces new concepts and horizons of insight. It now seems to me that his principal goal was to critique the simplistic contemporary view that the secular, that is to say the exclusive humanistic view is the only possible realistic view of things, and I can agree with that critique. Smith emphasizes that Taylor cannot (and does not) hide his Catholic background in his analyzes of possible ways to deal with the ghosts of the secular age, and also that was very recognizable. But I felt that Smith's introduction in this second part remained a little more on the surface, and therefore lacked convincing power. I guess I will have to start that “A Secular Age” myself at some point, but it won't be right away.
I was quite impressed by the historical panorama that Taylor sketches of how we have ended up in our secular age, mainly through a combination of the unintended effects of the Reformation, the penchant for the precise observation of nature (naturalism), and the tendency towards nominalism, which dates from the Middle Ages, i.e. the realization that words do not coincide with things. For me as a historian, Taylor uses a very rough brush, but the fact that he continually emphasizes the contingency of the process - in Smith's words a “zigzag account of causal complexity” - made quite an impression. I'll definitely go back to that later.
I must admit that the subsequent description of exactly where we are in the secular era and how we (can) deal with the demons of that era was much more difficult. Taylor does not shy away from detours in his reasoning and regularly introduces new concepts and horizons of insight. It now seems to me that his principal goal was to critique the simplistic contemporary view that the secular, that is to say the exclusive humanistic view is the only possible realistic view of things, and I can agree with that critique. Smith emphasizes that Taylor cannot (and does not) hide his Catholic background in his analyzes of possible ways to deal with the ghosts of the secular age, and also that was very recognizable. But I felt that Smith's introduction in this second part remained a little more on the surface, and therefore lacked convincing power. I guess I will have to start that “A Secular Age” myself at some point, but it won't be right away.
January 20, 2015
James K.A. Smith's short book is an absolute marvel, and for me at least, quite literally a guilty pleasure. The guilt comes in because this book, in 139 thoughtful and readable pages, lays out the whole argument of Charles Taylor's massive and reportedly magisterial tome, A Secular Age. I have wanted to read that book for years...and yet each time I have attempted it, I've found myself unable to penetrate its prose and really engage its argument. This is embarrassing for me, as someone who wrote his dissertation in part on the work of Taylor; I probably read nearly everything the man published between the 1980s and the early 2000s, after all. But thus far, A Secular Ages detailed, careful, convoluted arguments have defeated me. I still hope to read it someday--especially now that Smith has outlined for me exactly what the book is about! As with all things dealing with Taylor, I find myself mostly agreeing with what he's trying to do (in a nutshell, two things: first, explain historically, culturally, and philosophically why religious belief was an obvious cognitive possibility in Western civilization 500 years ago, but for many essentially a cognitive impossibility now; and second, give a careful phenomenological account of why, in the midst of that impossibility, our secular age still seems "haunted" by a longing for belief), but curious about what it may mean for how we think about language, community, and political life. And as for Smith, I had the pleasure of meeting him just a few days ago at a symposium here in Wichita; his comments there, and his discussions of Taylor's arguments in this book, were witty, challenging, and insightful. I'm only giving this book four stars because, after all, it's a companion volume--a book which exists only because so many are like me: desiring to read and understand A Secular Age, but in need of some help and encouragement to do so. But for providing just that help and encouragement, I am in Smith's--and this excellent book's--debt.
December 15, 2020
I finished this book. I rate it three stars because it may be worth more than that but I don’t really know what I read. After I’ve completed this book I begin to wonder whether English is my first language.
February 4, 2016
Significant book, but still obtuse. Someone should write the book, "How to Read James K.A. Smith Reading Charles Taylor."
August 24, 2022
I read this (in the same reading group at Baylor) immediately after finishing Taylor's A Secular Age. My review appeared in Modern Reformation (July/August 2016). [Jamie's wife is an elder in the CRC; Darryl Hart's response here is 🔥.]
See Smith's interview with Keller here. Interview with Smith at The Gospel Coalition.
Preface
vii: secular folks have different maps; no God-shaped hole
viii: doctorate of ministry program in a book
ix: longing
x: intended audiences; postmodern cross-pressure
Introduction: Our Cross-Pressured Present: Inhabiting a Secular Age
2: new atheist maps and fundamentalist maps are not nuanced enough
[3: Taylor is reliable because he recognizes nuance?]
7: new atheists' chronological snobbery
8: fury of a resurrected atheist
8-9: aesthetic argument for God's existence; Tolkien and Christianity as the best story
10: haunting is mutual; O'Connor and the Christ-haunted South
11: Christian writers have haunted characters; shift in plausibility structures; can't undo the secular [why not? we've already forgotten how to be premodern] (see also pp. 61, 64, 90, 115)
12: wayfarers in the desert are open to signs [those in the city are not?]; ironically, postmodernity must allow space for Christianity [including fundamentalism]; disestablishment of Christendom
12-13: cross-pressures of fans of Nietzsche, Comte, Oprah, Gilbert, and Tolkien
14: David Foster Wallace's haunted writing
15-16: magic cement mixer
16n25: Wallace vs. Franzen
16-17n28: gifts and narcissism
18-19: shift in what is believable
20-23: Taylor's 3-fold taxonomy of the secular
23-25: importance of telling a better story
Ch. 1: Reforming Belief: The Secular as Modern Accomplishment
26: secular isn't a remainder—it's a sum
27: obstacles to unbelief
[27: semiotic cosmos]
28-35: 5 elements of our secular social imaginary
29: location of meaning shifted to the individual
30-31: importance of community
32: excellent point about Taylor's Catholicism
33: inhabiting vs. resolving the tension
35: removing obstacles doesn't get things moving; Reform ≠ Protestant Reformation [at least, that's what Taylor wants us to believe]
35-36: Reform resisted the hierarchical split in vocations
38: two ways of leveling hierarchy, and the former may have occasioned the latter (Smith is skeptical)
39: Taylor might not be right about Calvin and grace (n10)
39: Reformation --> disenchantment (Lord's Supper) --> naturalism --> king isn't sacred; Smith accepts some of this (blessing and curse)—see my comment re: corruption
40: Brad Gregory referenced (n12)
41: interest in nature not necessarily a step towards naturalism
42: nominalism and God's sovereignty; decline of telos/essence --> rise of empiricism (scientific method)
43: civility, discipline, control
45: primacy of the individual; disembedding
45-46: social imaginaries = what we take for granted
Ch. 2: The Religious Path to Exclusive Humanism: From Deism to Atheism
47: we need meaning
48: exclusive humanism is a 2nd nature, not a 1st
48-50: four "eclipses"
48-49: Taylor's Thomism (tension between nature and grace) [is Barth the one who talks about grace completing nature?]
49: Adam Smith and John Locke and mutual benefit; rejection of fundamentalist dualism could lead to the eclipse of heaven/eternity [Doug Wilson talks about Augustine's City of God as a concerted effort to help people resist this]
50: providential deism; perspicuity vs. mystery [is Taylor talking about the Reformation doctrine of the clarity of Scripture?; it applies to believers, not unbelievers, because of the noetic effect of the fall]; "participation" (Boersma reference in n3)
51-53: how apologetics diminishes Christianity (e.g., theodicy)—so how does one do apologetics? (n5?; not sure his tweet reply helped me)
53: politics are also liberated from a magisterium
54n8: to be fair, Locke and Hobbes did offer some solution to the wars of religion
58: excarnation and Kant; see n13 for a warning to Protestants
59: callout box defends Calvin
Ch. 3: The Malaise of Immanence: The "Feel" of a Secular Age
60: summary of Parts 1-2
61: exclusive humanism doesn't immediately capture everyone's imaginations; secular2 folks think that secularism3 is monolithic (smart people who have shed religious trappings)
61: no going back? why not?
61-62: summary of Part 3
62: nova effect, fragilization, cross-pressures, homogenization irony
63: malaise of modernity (see p. 65)
64: buffering occludes significance/meaning
65: modern moral order (MMO) and epistemic confidence (lack of theodicy)
69: we seek significance within immanence
70: "imaginary" = what we take for granted; cosmos/universe stuff again
71: 2 parts to the existential shift; fixation on design
[72: I wish Smith would define fundamentalism; young earth creationism is new?]
[73: "so-called"? no antithesis?]
74: don't focus on Enlightenment (Leithart referenced)
74-76: role of art (mimesis —> poeisis); lack of signs; disembedded art; the Romantic option
76-77: science never converted anyone
[77: false dichotomy between narrative and reason? (cf. "event" vs. proposition)]
78: loss of all meaning —> Nietzsche; Kant's morals are still immature
Ch. 4: Contesting the Secularization2 Thesis
79: move from history to analysis; resisting subtraction stories
80:diffusion story; modern developments; religion as the shape of ultimate concern; religion is bigger than ever
80-81: presuppositionalism is not a black hole
82: 2 features of Taylor's Catholic presuppositions
82-83: what religion is; what secularization is
83: Taylor is telling a different story (cf. p. 24); re-placement of religion; human flourishing seen as an end; Taylor agrees with facts on the ground (see diagram)
84: the ancien régime and the Age of Mobilizaiton; convincing princes helped the Reformation's success
85: the Age of Authenticity and expressive individualism, choice, and tolerance
86-87: consumer identity (sense of belonging)
87-88: AR, AM, and AA
88: Taylor uses secularism to account for changes in religion, not just religion; Smith's question about the emergent church
89-90: individuality and questing
90-91: Taylor likes pluralism?
91: postsecularism rejects the secular meta-narrative
Ch. 5: How (Not) to Live in a Secular Age
92: what Part 5 is about; can't beat smug with smug apologetics (transcendent spin); undercutting secular2 confidence; secular2 is a reading
92: immanent frame
92-93n1: is Taylor/Smith right? (some kind of duality is present in Scripture)
93: not whether (we inhabit the immanent frame), but how; 2 questions (tipping towards orientation, and recognizing your "take"
94-95: vibe/background; Wittgensteinian picture and Jamesian open space vs. "spin" (epistemological unconsciousness)
95: grid (take, spin, open, closed)
96: Taylor's affective epistemology
97: closed world structures (CWSs) and fragilization
98-99: "irony" of classical apologetics (foundationalist paradigm)
99: closed spin claims to be a discovery; modernity is seen as adulthood; data ≠ story; subtraction stories are self-congratulatory stories
100: captivating stories
100-01: new authority and shutting out other stories (Iago)
101: false dichotomy between Christianity and exclusive humanism; Arnold's "Dover Beach"
101n13: there's no universal justice in the immanent frame
102: moral force of a story > evidence (n14 sounds presuppositional)
102 (and n15): "liberation" as a breakdown (Tom Wolfe novels)
102-03: master narrative of exclusive humanism requires self-authorization
103-05: cross-pressures; resistance to reduction ("Is this all there is?"); "fullness" (Taylor is vague/ecumenical with this term, but he opposed theistic apologetics on the same grounds—see pp. 51-53 (including n5)
104: three fields of cross-pressure (agency, ethics, aesthetics)—a non-believing register has a hard time accounting for an impoverished response
105: aims to displace the "spun" confidence of some "closed" accounts
106: Reformation and affirming creation; "puritanical"
106n19 (see p. 113): Smith points to Taylor's willingness to shift away from orthodoxy—Smith's point, however, is to summarize, not respond [I wish he would have responded more—Christians need a guide, and Taylor isn't it (I'm not sure that Smith is either)]
106-09: therapeutic treatment of sin
107: irony of swapping a priest for a therapist; disordered loves
109-10: dilemma (2 critiques of Christianity); exclusive humanism has the same problems
110-11: counter-Englightment and triangle figure; strange coalitions
112-13: Christian eschatology buys us time to meet the maximal demand
113: Taylor's justification for jettisoning doctrines is sparse (seems anthropocentric)
113-14: avoiding Platonic excarnation; misunderstanding ascetic sacrifice; authentic Christianity
114n26: weakness of Kuyperian Christianity [antithesis not ambivalent enough?] or the American appropriation and iteration of Kuyper's thought; see Twitter
114-17 (Rob Bell): mutilating critique and eternal punishment; eclipse of sacrifice, including the cross
116n32: Smith challenges Taylor's decline of Hell (see pp. 116-17)
117n35: Augustine can affirm both depravity and human self-affirmation
117-21: violence
118: biology can't explain/give meaning
119: Taylor's deism/Pelagianism—no language of grace
120: Schadenfreude is bad? [I though I detected some of that in Smith's dismissal of fundamentalism]
120: Taylor's 3 apologetical points (callout box on conversations); n38—reformed epistemology (I hope the "level playing field" acknowledges the antithesis—see p. 121]
120-21: Taylor's unapologetic starting point is an attempt to start conversations about the meaning of "fulness"; does Taylor find any positions to be assured or immoral?; no one has a take-free account
122: the meta-question of meaning (not easily suppressed); immanent "transcendence"
122-23: motivation isn't just meaning
123: responses to evil/suffering (negative and positive)
124: 3 forms of distance (varieties of force)
125: exclusive humanism can tempt us to neglect the helpless—Christianity guards against that; fear of being labeled an [postmillennial? religious right?] activist—Christian fundamental [HA] ambivalence [don't expect success?]; secular solidarity can also generate violence (e.g., nationalism)
125-26: more on motivation
126: MMO and shame; mental display [and slackivism]
126-27: fatigue of moral superiority (Nietzsche says, "I knew it")
127: apologetics --> realistic transformation (fundamental ambivalence)
128: codes can't provide motivation (moral sources) --> [some god is always worshipped, and his laws are implemented—so whose is it going to be? not "whether" but "whose"?]
129: Christianity's open take is plausible and can deal with secularity3's unease/restlessness
129-31: time/death (restlessness); cycles and narratives (gathered time); fear of boredom
Conclusion: Conversions
132: Taylor is inconsistent about the immanent frame (speaks as if you can get outside it)
132-33: the point isn't proof/certainty, but to tell a story about a feeling [Schleiermacher?]
133: the "philosophic song" can't be mined—it's a story (see n4); reference to Colin Jager; Taylor's use of exempla is Catholic —> the portraits are the apologetic
134-35: temptation of nostalgia [cf. Gregory's final chapter]; modern expectation to close the gap between the City of God and the City of Man; Taylor doesn't explain how he gets to liberalism
[does "gap" mean that there are areas of life untouched by Christ's rule?]
135: the gap as incidental or as essential; more [fundamental?] ambivalence; activism and realized eschatology
n7: we see Smith's opinion
135-37: Hopkins
[Christ is the logos, not the feeling]
136: poetics and making; fragility—language (and rituals and prayers) could go dead . . . (the need for new, subtler language)
137-39: alternative futures
[is "making room" for Christianity enough? is that what "disciple all nations" means?]
137: fullness and transcendence
138: better account (n9) = better story; Taylor's assumption that the transcendent presses on the immanent
alternate future 1: secular immanence becomes less plausible...
alternate future 2 (not mutually exclusive): waste land sense will lead people to look beyond immanence
Smith's alternate future a (see n10): fundamentalists will become liberal
Smith's alternate future b: we'll become more sacramental, like Smith
Glossary
extremely helpful
Index
several mistakes and omissions
See Smith's interview with Keller here. Interview with Smith at The Gospel Coalition.
Preface
vii: secular folks have different maps; no God-shaped hole
viii: doctorate of ministry program in a book
ix: longing
x: intended audiences; postmodern cross-pressure
Introduction: Our Cross-Pressured Present: Inhabiting a Secular Age
2: new atheist maps and fundamentalist maps are not nuanced enough
[3: Taylor is reliable because he recognizes nuance?]
7: new atheists' chronological snobbery
8: fury of a resurrected atheist
8-9: aesthetic argument for God's existence; Tolkien and Christianity as the best story
10: haunting is mutual; O'Connor and the Christ-haunted South
11: Christian writers have haunted characters; shift in plausibility structures; can't undo the secular [why not? we've already forgotten how to be premodern] (see also pp. 61, 64, 90, 115)
12: wayfarers in the desert are open to signs [those in the city are not?]; ironically, postmodernity must allow space for Christianity [including fundamentalism]; disestablishment of Christendom
12-13: cross-pressures of fans of Nietzsche, Comte, Oprah, Gilbert, and Tolkien
14: David Foster Wallace's haunted writing
15-16: magic cement mixer
16n25: Wallace vs. Franzen
16-17n28: gifts and narcissism
18-19: shift in what is believable
20-23: Taylor's 3-fold taxonomy of the secular
23-25: importance of telling a better story
Ch. 1: Reforming Belief: The Secular as Modern Accomplishment
26: secular isn't a remainder—it's a sum
27: obstacles to unbelief
[27: semiotic cosmos]
28-35: 5 elements of our secular social imaginary
29: location of meaning shifted to the individual
30-31: importance of community
32: excellent point about Taylor's Catholicism
33: inhabiting vs. resolving the tension
35: removing obstacles doesn't get things moving; Reform ≠ Protestant Reformation [at least, that's what Taylor wants us to believe]
35-36: Reform resisted the hierarchical split in vocations
38: two ways of leveling hierarchy, and the former may have occasioned the latter (Smith is skeptical)
39: Taylor might not be right about Calvin and grace (n10)
39: Reformation --> disenchantment (Lord's Supper) --> naturalism --> king isn't sacred; Smith accepts some of this (blessing and curse)—see my comment re: corruption
40: Brad Gregory referenced (n12)
41: interest in nature not necessarily a step towards naturalism
42: nominalism and God's sovereignty; decline of telos/essence --> rise of empiricism (scientific method)
43: civility, discipline, control
45: primacy of the individual; disembedding
45-46: social imaginaries = what we take for granted
Ch. 2: The Religious Path to Exclusive Humanism: From Deism to Atheism
47: we need meaning
48: exclusive humanism is a 2nd nature, not a 1st
48-50: four "eclipses"
48-49: Taylor's Thomism (tension between nature and grace) [is Barth the one who talks about grace completing nature?]
49: Adam Smith and John Locke and mutual benefit; rejection of fundamentalist dualism could lead to the eclipse of heaven/eternity [Doug Wilson talks about Augustine's City of God as a concerted effort to help people resist this]
50: providential deism; perspicuity vs. mystery [is Taylor talking about the Reformation doctrine of the clarity of Scripture?; it applies to believers, not unbelievers, because of the noetic effect of the fall]; "participation" (Boersma reference in n3)
51-53: how apologetics diminishes Christianity (e.g., theodicy)—so how does one do apologetics? (n5?; not sure his tweet reply helped me)
53: politics are also liberated from a magisterium
54n8: to be fair, Locke and Hobbes did offer some solution to the wars of religion
58: excarnation and Kant; see n13 for a warning to Protestants
59: callout box defends Calvin
Ch. 3: The Malaise of Immanence: The "Feel" of a Secular Age
60: summary of Parts 1-2
61: exclusive humanism doesn't immediately capture everyone's imaginations; secular2 folks think that secularism3 is monolithic (smart people who have shed religious trappings)
61: no going back? why not?
61-62: summary of Part 3
62: nova effect, fragilization, cross-pressures, homogenization irony
63: malaise of modernity (see p. 65)
64: buffering occludes significance/meaning
65: modern moral order (MMO) and epistemic confidence (lack of theodicy)
69: we seek significance within immanence
70: "imaginary" = what we take for granted; cosmos/universe stuff again
71: 2 parts to the existential shift; fixation on design
[72: I wish Smith would define fundamentalism; young earth creationism is new?]
[73: "so-called"? no antithesis?]
74: don't focus on Enlightenment (Leithart referenced)
74-76: role of art (mimesis —> poeisis); lack of signs; disembedded art; the Romantic option
76-77: science never converted anyone
[77: false dichotomy between narrative and reason? (cf. "event" vs. proposition)]
78: loss of all meaning —> Nietzsche; Kant's morals are still immature
Ch. 4: Contesting the Secularization2 Thesis
79: move from history to analysis; resisting subtraction stories
80:
80-81: presuppositionalism is not a black hole
82: 2 features of Taylor's Catholic presuppositions
82-83: what religion is; what secularization is
83: Taylor is telling a different story (cf. p. 24); re-placement of religion; human flourishing seen as an end; Taylor agrees with facts on the ground (see diagram)
84: the ancien régime and the Age of Mobilizaiton; convincing princes helped the Reformation's success
85: the Age of Authenticity and expressive individualism, choice, and tolerance
86-87: consumer identity (sense of belonging)
87-88: AR, AM, and AA
88: Taylor uses secularism to account for changes in religion, not just religion; Smith's question about the emergent church
89-90: individuality and questing
90-91: Taylor likes pluralism?
91: postsecularism rejects the secular meta-narrative
Ch. 5: How (Not) to Live in a Secular Age
92: what Part 5 is about; can't beat smug with smug apologetics (transcendent spin); undercutting secular2 confidence; secular2 is a reading
92: immanent frame
92-93n1: is Taylor/Smith right? (some kind of duality is present in Scripture)
93: not whether (we inhabit the immanent frame), but how; 2 questions (tipping towards orientation, and recognizing your "take"
94-95: vibe/background; Wittgensteinian picture and Jamesian open space vs. "spin" (epistemological unconsciousness)
95: grid (take, spin, open, closed)
96: Taylor's affective epistemology
97: closed world structures (CWSs) and fragilization
98-99: "irony" of classical apologetics (foundationalist paradigm)
99: closed spin claims to be a discovery; modernity is seen as adulthood; data ≠ story; subtraction stories are self-congratulatory stories
100: captivating stories
100-01: new authority and shutting out other stories (Iago)
101: false dichotomy between Christianity and exclusive humanism; Arnold's "Dover Beach"
101n13: there's no universal justice in the immanent frame
102: moral force of a story > evidence (n14 sounds presuppositional)
102 (and n15): "liberation" as a breakdown (Tom Wolfe novels)
102-03: master narrative of exclusive humanism requires self-authorization
103-05: cross-pressures; resistance to reduction ("Is this all there is?"); "fullness" (Taylor is vague/ecumenical with this term, but he opposed theistic apologetics on the same grounds—see pp. 51-53 (including n5)
104: three fields of cross-pressure (agency, ethics, aesthetics)—a non-believing register has a hard time accounting for an impoverished response
105: aims to displace the "spun" confidence of some "closed" accounts
106: Reformation and affirming creation; "puritanical"
106n19 (see p. 113): Smith points to Taylor's willingness to shift away from orthodoxy—Smith's point, however, is to summarize, not respond [I wish he would have responded more—Christians need a guide, and Taylor isn't it (I'm not sure that Smith is either)]
106-09: therapeutic treatment of sin
107: irony of swapping a priest for a therapist; disordered loves
109-10: dilemma (2 critiques of Christianity); exclusive humanism has the same problems
110-11: counter-Englightment and triangle figure; strange coalitions
112-13: Christian eschatology buys us time to meet the maximal demand
113: Taylor's justification for jettisoning doctrines is sparse (seems anthropocentric)
113-14: avoiding Platonic excarnation; misunderstanding ascetic sacrifice; authentic Christianity
114n26: weakness of Kuyperian Christianity [antithesis not ambivalent enough?] or the American appropriation and iteration of Kuyper's thought; see Twitter
114-17 (Rob Bell): mutilating critique and eternal punishment; eclipse of sacrifice, including the cross
116n32: Smith challenges Taylor's decline of Hell (see pp. 116-17)
117n35: Augustine can affirm both depravity and human self-affirmation
117-21: violence
118: biology can't explain/give meaning
119: Taylor's deism/Pelagianism—no language of grace
120: Schadenfreude is bad? [I though I detected some of that in Smith's dismissal of fundamentalism]
120: Taylor's 3 apologetical points (callout box on conversations); n38—reformed epistemology (I hope the "level playing field" acknowledges the antithesis—see p. 121]
120-21: Taylor's unapologetic starting point is an attempt to start conversations about the meaning of "fulness"; does Taylor find any positions to be assured or immoral?; no one has a take-free account
122: the meta-question of meaning (not easily suppressed); immanent "transcendence"
122-23: motivation isn't just meaning
123: responses to evil/suffering (negative and positive)
124: 3 forms of distance (varieties of force)
125: exclusive humanism can tempt us to neglect the helpless—Christianity guards against that; fear of being labeled an [postmillennial? religious right?] activist—Christian fundamental [HA] ambivalence [don't expect success?]; secular solidarity can also generate violence (e.g., nationalism)
125-26: more on motivation
126: MMO and shame; mental display [and slackivism]
126-27: fatigue of moral superiority (Nietzsche says, "I knew it")
127: apologetics --> realistic transformation (fundamental ambivalence)
128: codes can't provide motivation (moral sources) --> [some god is always worshipped, and his laws are implemented—so whose is it going to be? not "whether" but "whose"?]
129: Christianity's open take is plausible and can deal with secularity3's unease/restlessness
129-31: time/death (restlessness); cycles and narratives (gathered time); fear of boredom
Conclusion: Conversions
132: Taylor is inconsistent about the immanent frame (speaks as if you can get outside it)
132-33: the point isn't proof/certainty, but to tell a story about a feeling [Schleiermacher?]
133: the "philosophic song" can't be mined—it's a story (see n4); reference to Colin Jager; Taylor's use of exempla is Catholic —> the portraits are the apologetic
134-35: temptation of nostalgia [cf. Gregory's final chapter]; modern expectation to close the gap between the City of God and the City of Man; Taylor doesn't explain how he gets to liberalism
[does "gap" mean that there are areas of life untouched by Christ's rule?]
135: the gap as incidental or as essential; more [fundamental?] ambivalence; activism and realized eschatology
n7: we see Smith's opinion
135-37: Hopkins
[Christ is the logos, not the feeling]
136: poetics and making; fragility—language (and rituals and prayers) could go dead . . . (the need for new, subtler language)
137-39: alternative futures
[is "making room" for Christianity enough? is that what "disciple all nations" means?]
137: fullness and transcendence
138: better account (n9) = better story; Taylor's assumption that the transcendent presses on the immanent
alternate future 1: secular immanence becomes less plausible...
alternate future 2 (not mutually exclusive): waste land sense will lead people to look beyond immanence
Smith's alternate future a (see n10): fundamentalists will become liberal
Smith's alternate future b: we'll become more sacramental, like Smith
Glossary
extremely helpful
Index
several mistakes and omissions
May 6, 2021
Charles Taylor é filósofo contemporâneo, nascido em 5 de novembro de 1931, na cidade de Montreal, no Canadá.
Ele é Católico Apostólico Romano, então isso precisa estar sempre em mente, muito embora, os pontos basilares do cristianismo, de modo geral, estejam ali presentes.
Ele não entra profundamente em temas teológicos e por isso mesmo seu romanismo não se mostra tão evidente, apenas subjacente.
É Professor Emérito de Filosofia e Ciência Política na Universidade de McGill.
Escreve sobre sobre filosofia política, ciências sociais, história da filosofia e filosofia da religião.
Sua grande obra é o livro “Uma era secular". São Leopoldo: UNISINOS, 2010.”, com 930 páginas.
Portanto, este livro, como o próprio autor diz, é um livro sobre um livro, com o objetivo de facilitar o acesso do leitor à obra de Taylor, bem como resumir e deixar mais palatável seus conceitos.
Sendo assim, se você quiser, posteriormente, se você se interessar pelo assunto, poderá ler a obra fonte, já com algum conhecimento e ajuda na interpretação da mesma.
Existem dois conceitos básicos que devem estar sempre em mente que é o da imanência, ou seja, a coisa em sua própria essência; e a transcendência, que aponta para um um fim externo e superior a si mesmo.
Ou seja o secular, deste mundo; e o espiritual, Deus, vida eterna.
É com certeza um livro excepcional para todos que desejam ter um mapeamento de nossa sociedade pós-moderna.
Ele dá nomes e organiza, de maneira acadêmica e atualizada, os princípios dos quais a Bíblia já tratou de modo teológico.
Para os evangélicos reformados, os textos bíblicos que explicam os princípios colocados no livro, começarão a brotar a toda hora em suas mentes.
Indico para pastores que precisam de uma visão ampla das estruturas de pensamento que estão presentes em nossa sociedade, e que não tem por costume lerem muitos livros sobre este assunto.
Indico para para professores de várias disciplinas, principalmente das humanidades.
Indico para professores de EBD, pois pode ser útil em desvendar algumas estruturas da nossa sociedade e o pensamento da mesma, que ficam um pouco encobertas pela própria vida em si, e os instrumentos desta mesma sociedade, que são criados, muitas vezes, até para mascarar este estrutura.
Indico para aqueles que trabalham com jovens, jovens um pouco mais maduros, e que precisam refletir sobre Cultura, Cosmovisão, Modernismo, Pós-Modernismo.
Não é um livro de teologia reformada que faz conexões com verdades bíblicas e não tem o caráter apologético; contudo, pode ser utilizado na preparação de aulas, artigos, sermões, palestras e estudos sobre este tema.
Recomendo: 👍🏻 ⭐️
Ele é Católico Apostólico Romano, então isso precisa estar sempre em mente, muito embora, os pontos basilares do cristianismo, de modo geral, estejam ali presentes.
Ele não entra profundamente em temas teológicos e por isso mesmo seu romanismo não se mostra tão evidente, apenas subjacente.
É Professor Emérito de Filosofia e Ciência Política na Universidade de McGill.
Escreve sobre sobre filosofia política, ciências sociais, história da filosofia e filosofia da religião.
Sua grande obra é o livro “Uma era secular". São Leopoldo: UNISINOS, 2010.”, com 930 páginas.
Portanto, este livro, como o próprio autor diz, é um livro sobre um livro, com o objetivo de facilitar o acesso do leitor à obra de Taylor, bem como resumir e deixar mais palatável seus conceitos.
Sendo assim, se você quiser, posteriormente, se você se interessar pelo assunto, poderá ler a obra fonte, já com algum conhecimento e ajuda na interpretação da mesma.
Existem dois conceitos básicos que devem estar sempre em mente que é o da imanência, ou seja, a coisa em sua própria essência; e a transcendência, que aponta para um um fim externo e superior a si mesmo.
Ou seja o secular, deste mundo; e o espiritual, Deus, vida eterna.
É com certeza um livro excepcional para todos que desejam ter um mapeamento de nossa sociedade pós-moderna.
Ele dá nomes e organiza, de maneira acadêmica e atualizada, os princípios dos quais a Bíblia já tratou de modo teológico.
Para os evangélicos reformados, os textos bíblicos que explicam os princípios colocados no livro, começarão a brotar a toda hora em suas mentes.
Indico para pastores que precisam de uma visão ampla das estruturas de pensamento que estão presentes em nossa sociedade, e que não tem por costume lerem muitos livros sobre este assunto.
Indico para para professores de várias disciplinas, principalmente das humanidades.
Indico para professores de EBD, pois pode ser útil em desvendar algumas estruturas da nossa sociedade e o pensamento da mesma, que ficam um pouco encobertas pela própria vida em si, e os instrumentos desta mesma sociedade, que são criados, muitas vezes, até para mascarar este estrutura.
Indico para aqueles que trabalham com jovens, jovens um pouco mais maduros, e que precisam refletir sobre Cultura, Cosmovisão, Modernismo, Pós-Modernismo.
Não é um livro de teologia reformada que faz conexões com verdades bíblicas e não tem o caráter apologético; contudo, pode ser utilizado na preparação de aulas, artigos, sermões, palestras e estudos sobre este tema.
Recomendo: 👍🏻 ⭐️
September 10, 2014
I enjoyed Taylor's A Secular Age and I also enjoyed this distillation of it.
Smith's preface notes that Taylor's really long historical analysis can help Christians better understand their own faith as well as the perspectives of those they seek to proselytize. He says it can also help doubters come to grips with a certain "haunting" they may encounter where the holy—apparent mumbo-jumbo—temporarily slips through the cracks of one's consciousness. Finally, he hopes, like Taylor, that it will reduce the confidence of those who buy whole-hog into stereotypical secularism.
Smith has it just right: Taylor offers a sort of lexicon for cultural analysis that is more true to diverse experiences than the reductionist stories told by religious and secular fundamentalists alike. Smith takes the reader through Taylor's overall arguments (sometimes resisting, other times approving them) in order to introduce them to the lexicon. Readers presumably must then grapple with how to more directly apply Taylor's claims in their own particular circumstances, because other than a few hypothetical conversation questions Smith adds in the margins, he says little in the way of specific application.
Which leads to my biggest criticism of this book: I think Smith should have included more actual historical examples. Taylor is telling a history that includes real people, movements, outlooks, while Smith mainly glides above the actual historical actors and events. Granted, readers can go to Taylor for that, but a few paradigmatic examples would go a long way in solidifying the foundation of the overall narrative. Smith almost makes up for it by citing Fleet Foxes, Arcade Fire, Death Cab, David Foster Wallace, and other contemporary things I like, but still.
Smith's preface notes that Taylor's really long historical analysis can help Christians better understand their own faith as well as the perspectives of those they seek to proselytize. He says it can also help doubters come to grips with a certain "haunting" they may encounter where the holy—apparent mumbo-jumbo—temporarily slips through the cracks of one's consciousness. Finally, he hopes, like Taylor, that it will reduce the confidence of those who buy whole-hog into stereotypical secularism.
Smith has it just right: Taylor offers a sort of lexicon for cultural analysis that is more true to diverse experiences than the reductionist stories told by religious and secular fundamentalists alike. Smith takes the reader through Taylor's overall arguments (sometimes resisting, other times approving them) in order to introduce them to the lexicon. Readers presumably must then grapple with how to more directly apply Taylor's claims in their own particular circumstances, because other than a few hypothetical conversation questions Smith adds in the margins, he says little in the way of specific application.
Which leads to my biggest criticism of this book: I think Smith should have included more actual historical examples. Taylor is telling a history that includes real people, movements, outlooks, while Smith mainly glides above the actual historical actors and events. Granted, readers can go to Taylor for that, but a few paradigmatic examples would go a long way in solidifying the foundation of the overall narrative. Smith almost makes up for it by citing Fleet Foxes, Arcade Fire, Death Cab, David Foster Wallace, and other contemporary things I like, but still.
April 24, 2016
It's odd rating this book because it is a distillation of a larger tome I have not yet read - how much am I praising James K.A. Smith for his explanatory skills and how do I tell what is his own contributions and observations from Charles Taylor's "A Secular Age?"
But as it is, this is an excellent primer for Taylor's magnum opus. Smith provides a very helpful glossary in the back that defines the varieties of secularism and terms such as "buffered self" and "subtraction stories." Smith quotes extensively from Taylor and offers his own critique and analysis of Taylor's claims as Taylor traces how our age has not only become secular but how even those of us who still BELIEVE have had our faith irrevocably altered by changes to our social imaginaries and the rise of secularity. Smith is a great guide but for his own observations he tends to rely on figures that I am not familiar with myself (especially David Foster Wallace).
PS - Page 63 FINALLY gave me some insight as to why so many Christians like Mary Oliver.
But as it is, this is an excellent primer for Taylor's magnum opus. Smith provides a very helpful glossary in the back that defines the varieties of secularism and terms such as "buffered self" and "subtraction stories." Smith quotes extensively from Taylor and offers his own critique and analysis of Taylor's claims as Taylor traces how our age has not only become secular but how even those of us who still BELIEVE have had our faith irrevocably altered by changes to our social imaginaries and the rise of secularity. Smith is a great guide but for his own observations he tends to rely on figures that I am not familiar with myself (especially David Foster Wallace).
PS - Page 63 FINALLY gave me some insight as to why so many Christians like Mary Oliver.
September 28, 2024
THIS IS A PIVOTAL BOOK!!!
I am going to be thinking about this for the rest of my life. I would love to go read the actual book “A Secular Age” now, but alas my reading list is set for the next 3 years.
I feel like these guys have read my mail more than I have. I feel seen and felt and explained! So many things make so much more sense in life - lol.
10/10 would really highly recommend
I am going to be thinking about this for the rest of my life. I would love to go read the actual book “A Secular Age” now, but alas my reading list is set for the next 3 years.
I feel like these guys have read my mail more than I have. I feel seen and felt and explained! So many things make so much more sense in life - lol.
10/10 would really highly recommend
January 21, 2021
MUITO BOM! Em breve, D.V., enriquecerá o catálogo da Monergismo.
January 29, 2017
Smith gives us a roadmap of Charles Taylor’s analysis of modernity. On most accounts, Smith’s treatment excels and the reader is well-equipped to analyze both Taylor’s work and (post)modernity in general. The book suffers from an unfocused conclusion and Smith’s overreliance on postmodern pop culture.
In some ways the most valuable aspect is Smith’s glossary of key terms in Taylor (noted below).
Smith’s version of Taylor (S-T) avoids crude genealogical accounts of how the West declined. But there were ideological moments that made it possible. And that leads to Taylor’s thesis: it is not that belief in God is simply wrong for secularists; rather, it is unthinkable. The structures that made belief in God likely on a societal level, so Taylor, are not there anymore.
With this shift came a different understand of person and cosmos. The pre-modern self is ‘porous,’ open to outside influences (grace, blessing, curses, demons). Thus, the modern self is “buffered,” insulated from outside forces (Smith 30). But that gives way to another phenomenon: the nova effect: new modes of being that try to forge a way through cross-pressures (14ff).
Smith has an interesting but undeveloped account of epistemology and the immanent frame (IF). The IF is a concept that, like a frame, boxes in and boxes out, focuses in and out. It captures how we inhabit our age (92). It is our orientation to the world. It is more of a “vibe” than a set of deductions.
Smith is concerned that foundationalist accounts of knowledge (justified, true belief) play into a closed-world, naturalist system. “If knowledge is knowing something outside my mind, the transcendent would be about as far away as one could get” (98).
Criticisms
One horn of my criticism is aesthetic. I think postmodern literature and art is an offense against decency, so I really can’t “relate” to Smith’s usage of them. But that doesn’t negate Smith’s thesis. The other horn of my criticism is that Smith tends to give too much of the farm away. His initial claim is good: secularism not only makes belief in God difficult, it entails an entirely new structure of beliefs that do not have room for God. But I am not sure, pace Smith, why I should be impressed with this new structure. Smith asks “How do we recognize and affirm the difficulty of belief” [in a secular age, p. 6]? The first part of the question is fine--we all recognize that belief in God can be difficult for our age. But why affirm it? What does that even mean or look like? To be fair, Smith acknowledges this point occasionally (20 n32).
Nonetheless, the book has a number of poignant (and occasionally brilliant) insights that should provide good reflection for apologetics and evangelism.
In some ways the most valuable aspect is Smith’s glossary of key terms in Taylor (noted below).
Smith’s version of Taylor (S-T) avoids crude genealogical accounts of how the West declined. But there were ideological moments that made it possible. And that leads to Taylor’s thesis: it is not that belief in God is simply wrong for secularists; rather, it is unthinkable. The structures that made belief in God likely on a societal level, so Taylor, are not there anymore.
With this shift came a different understand of person and cosmos. The pre-modern self is ‘porous,’ open to outside influences (grace, blessing, curses, demons). Thus, the modern self is “buffered,” insulated from outside forces (Smith 30). But that gives way to another phenomenon: the nova effect: new modes of being that try to forge a way through cross-pressures (14ff).
Smith has an interesting but undeveloped account of epistemology and the immanent frame (IF). The IF is a concept that, like a frame, boxes in and boxes out, focuses in and out. It captures how we inhabit our age (92). It is our orientation to the world. It is more of a “vibe” than a set of deductions.
Smith is concerned that foundationalist accounts of knowledge (justified, true belief) play into a closed-world, naturalist system. “If knowledge is knowing something outside my mind, the transcendent would be about as far away as one could get” (98).
Criticisms
One horn of my criticism is aesthetic. I think postmodern literature and art is an offense against decency, so I really can’t “relate” to Smith’s usage of them. But that doesn’t negate Smith’s thesis. The other horn of my criticism is that Smith tends to give too much of the farm away. His initial claim is good: secularism not only makes belief in God difficult, it entails an entirely new structure of beliefs that do not have room for God. But I am not sure, pace Smith, why I should be impressed with this new structure. Smith asks “How do we recognize and affirm the difficulty of belief” [in a secular age, p. 6]? The first part of the question is fine--we all recognize that belief in God can be difficult for our age. But why affirm it? What does that even mean or look like? To be fair, Smith acknowledges this point occasionally (20 n32).
Nonetheless, the book has a number of poignant (and occasionally brilliant) insights that should provide good reflection for apologetics and evangelism.
January 2, 2017
Smith's summary is faithful to Charles Taylor's masterpiece, "A Secular Age," naming both how things have changed in the past 500 years from the medieval age which had "communion with God" as its chief concern to today's chief concern as "human flourishing." The two don't have to be mutually exclusive, perhaps, but the constructive movement of this particular definition of secularism (as opposed to the subtraction of God idea most commonly understood) is one of Taylor's most important points. Smith mirrors the development of Taylor's argument in short chapters, both with little unnecessary reductionism and edifyingly so that the reader can go back to Taylor seeing the forest as well as the innumerable trees.
Smith sometimes tends unhelpfully to promote Taylor's work as a Christian apologetic. The Eerdmans publishers exasperate this infrequent tendency in Smith by the reductionist, evangelically-skewed readers' guides and questions placed in the margins. Since these often contradict Taylor they should be taken out or rewritten.
That said, Smith provides a helpful way into getting acquainted with Taylor, who's book not only gives an account of where Christianity may still have its voice in our secular age, but also because it gives an account for how to be faithful in a very confusing time. I write this especially given the most recent chapter that is about to be written as Donald Trump becomes President, amidst other neo-Nietzschean movements in Europe. Taylor's work helps us distinguish between this particular expression of secularism and the resources that retain from the Christian tradition.
Smith sometimes tends unhelpfully to promote Taylor's work as a Christian apologetic. The Eerdmans publishers exasperate this infrequent tendency in Smith by the reductionist, evangelically-skewed readers' guides and questions placed in the margins. Since these often contradict Taylor they should be taken out or rewritten.
That said, Smith provides a helpful way into getting acquainted with Taylor, who's book not only gives an account of where Christianity may still have its voice in our secular age, but also because it gives an account for how to be faithful in a very confusing time. I write this especially given the most recent chapter that is about to be written as Donald Trump becomes President, amidst other neo-Nietzschean movements in Europe. Taylor's work helps us distinguish between this particular expression of secularism and the resources that retain from the Christian tradition.
October 26, 2016
From one perspective, this book does exactly what it sets out to do. It's a simplified introduction to Charles Taylor's massive _A Secular Age_, suitable especially for teaching at a Christian liberal arts college. That's the context and the purpose of the book, and it succeeds quite well. This book will be really good for Christians interested in but intimidated by Charles Taylor's work. (It will probably be especially useful for anyone who has been influenced by Francis Schaeffer and talk about worldviews).
But some bothersome things happen in that specific simplification.
Smith emphasizes some things in ways that Taylor doesn't (e.g. a "take" vs. "spin"), representing them as more important and central than they are in Taylor. Taken together, these shifts change the tone of the project a little bit. Smith's version ends up being an apologetic. It's aimed at explaining why certain experiences and interpretations of the secular condition are wrong, not just describing and accounting for the secular condition and how it's experienced and interpreted. That's *in* Taylor, but not to this extent. The whole project of _A Secular Age_ ends up slightly off.
The problem is made worse by the fact that it ends up shortchanging some of the really interesting aspects of Taylor's work, like how secularity shapes religious beliefs and practices. Smith mentions things like this but really doesn't give them space.
But some bothersome things happen in that specific simplification.
Smith emphasizes some things in ways that Taylor doesn't (e.g. a "take" vs. "spin"), representing them as more important and central than they are in Taylor. Taken together, these shifts change the tone of the project a little bit. Smith's version ends up being an apologetic. It's aimed at explaining why certain experiences and interpretations of the secular condition are wrong, not just describing and accounting for the secular condition and how it's experienced and interpreted. That's *in* Taylor, but not to this extent. The whole project of _A Secular Age_ ends up slightly off.
The problem is made worse by the fact that it ends up shortchanging some of the really interesting aspects of Taylor's work, like how secularity shapes religious beliefs and practices. Smith mentions things like this but really doesn't give them space.
January 11, 2019
I first read this 3 years ago, and just reread it as a roadmap while I slowly make my way through Charles Taylor’s “A Secular Age,” which is not exactly impenetrable but is rather dense and long, and it’s therefore easy to otherwise miss the forest for the trees. This book is an enlightening introduction to Taylor’s influential work, examining why it was once unthinkable to imagine a universe without God, whereas now this seems to be a viable option, and living life as if there is nothing more important than human flourishing has become the default position. It also explores the resultant feelings of malaise and meaninglessness so prevalent in our modern culture. The ideas in these 2 books have been percolating in my mind perhaps more than any other books I’ve read in the last 3 years.
June 17, 2015
Anyone who wants to speak intelligently and compellingly in the modern age should read this book. Taylor's vocabulary names so much of what it means to live in modernity. You could almost summarize the whole book with this sentence from page 47: "We can’t tolerate living in a world without meaning"
I would have appreciated a final chapter that was more Smith than Taylor, or even another book in which Smith unpacks and applies these ideas. I guess what I'm saying is that I'd enjoy reading Smith expand on his applications and critiques of Taylor that he mentions in the book.
Overall, I was very glad to have read it. I think it will help me in living and preaching in the Secular Age.
I would have appreciated a final chapter that was more Smith than Taylor, or even another book in which Smith unpacks and applies these ideas. I guess what I'm saying is that I'd enjoy reading Smith expand on his applications and critiques of Taylor that he mentions in the book.
Overall, I was very glad to have read it. I think it will help me in living and preaching in the Secular Age.
September 3, 2018
Even having not read The Secular Age, not a whole lot of what's been said in here sounded alien to me; either through reflections of my own or through classes or other reads. It would be a stellar introduction to the matter, but as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing new (under the sun).
It is, most likely, a great reader's guide to Taylor massive work.
It is, most likely, a great reader's guide to Taylor massive work.
July 9, 2018
I had high hopes for this book based on everything I have hear about it, but was really let down. Maybe I just missed the point. It seemed the author was more interested in sharing his large vocabulary than making the material practically accessible.
January 17, 2018
Admittedly, I avoided reading James K. A. Smith's companion to Taylor's _A Secular Age_ for two reasons. First, I could not fathom its purpose ("A book about... Another book?"), despite having (tried to) read and digest Taylor's immense tome. Second and related, I could not fathom how such a slight-seeming book (a scant 143 pages to Taylor's nearly 1,000) could be an adequate distillation of the former.
After setting my mind to the book, however, I was sorry I had not done so sooner. It allowed me to realize, rather painfully, that although I had "read" Taylor, I had not fully comprehended or appreciated his project--in part because of the mammoth scale of _A Secular Age_. The book functions as a reading guide for Taylor as well as a stand-alone book that even those unfamiliar with Taylor can and will benefit from.
In some ways, How (Not) to be Secular proceeds parallel to Taylor's. For example, after an Introduction setting up the premise and purpose of the book, Smith begins with two chapters that loosely explore the historical development of secularization, inculcating Renaissance humanism, the Protestant Reformation, and "movements internal to Christendom and the Roman Catholic Church" (35). The next wave of historical development (Ch 2) deals with events and ideas of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. However, these chapters read less as history and more as philosophically reflective and reflexive glosses on historical currents. From there, Smith builds on Taylor's claims with chapters on the Malaise of Immanence, Contesting the Secularization(2) Thesis, and concludes with both a call to action (Ch. 5: "How (Not) to Live in a Secular Age") and a sort of post-script on conversions in a secular age, all of which is keeping in line with Taylor's book.
Although Smith's work is a byproduct of Taylor's, in distilling it and making it more accessible, it makes its own unique contributions. The glossary alone, albeit a small touch, highlights and demystifies the ways Taylor both employs and refashions language to recenter the dominant secularization stories/ myths. In my mind, this is among the most invaluable gifts of Taylor's book--by adopting new language to describe both religious and secular mentalities and developments, he steers the discussion away from loaded and overburdened terms and toward more imaginative and equally weighted concepts. With Taylor's work as a guide, both believers and skeptics can find common ground in their pursuit of and longing for "fullness," the gaping ennui of "immanentization," and the at times lamentable isolationism inherent to the "buffered self." Yet such terms, and the others employed regularly throughout Taylor's work, can sound opaque to lay readers, which is one way Smith's work masterfully brings out the best of Taylor.
Second, Smith--coming from a Protestant/ Evangelical background--helps communicate A Secular Age (which may at times strike Protestants as vaguely "Catholic") to a broader Christian audience. This is particularly true in his close and adept reading of Taylor's theses regarding immanentization and excarnation, concepts that may not avail themselves as readily to certain streams of Protestants as to sacramentally oriented Catholics, Anglicans, and Orthodox Christians. The pull quotes and questions also help move the book into conversation with a broad spectrum of Christian readers, among them Evangelicals.
There are several areas, however, where I hoped to encounter a bit more elaboration or contextualization--in part to ameliorate some of my (small) misgivings with certain points made in Taylor's work. On p. 106-07, for example, Smith points out the shift from penal/ spiritual to therapeutic notions of sin (sin is no longer a transgression but a sickness, Smith reasons in tandem with Taylor, therefore we have moved from "responsibility to victimhood"). I wonder if this is a false or ill-informed dichotomy. After all, there are plenty of currents in historical Christian theology that speak of sin as sickness. The end result of that paradigm is not automatic victimhood, but the (re-)affirmation of our agency and free will (to seek healing, via Christ and the Church). Even sick people are in need of a doctor, but they must go to that doctor and acknowledge their sickness if they are to be healed, which requires them to move beyond the status of passive victim. Perhaps the sin-as-sickness metaphor, which is hardly foreign to Christian theology, could be drawn on to engender more meaningful dialogues with broader cultural/ Secular(3) sensibilities that have taken issue (rightly so, I'm afraid) with the somewhat problematic emphasis of certain streams Christianity on the vindictive wrath of a supposedly loving God. At the same time, I recognize that to offer this corrective, even if Smith himself wanted to do so, would have been "adding to the law" of Taylor's work, so to speak, and thus outside the scope of the book.
My final thought is that it would be nice to have a student edition of Smith's book. As useful as this guide is, it is still more suitable for graduate students or highly (highly!) advanced undergrads with at least some prior knowledge of epistemology, among other things. Yet Taylor's rendition of the secular is perhaps even more necessary for younger audiences who themselves are complete "natives" of Secularity(3), the immanent frame, the Age of Authenticity, and the "malaise" that accompanies all three.
Other than that, this is a helpful, demystifying, and incredibly meaningful read. If my review is not as glowing as I would like, it is in part because I am still mulling over Smith's (and Taylor's) suppositions--and expect to be doing so for years to come. I warmly and emphatically recommend the book for any Christian struggling to make sense and find words for the strange predicament of pursuing faith in a secular age.
After setting my mind to the book, however, I was sorry I had not done so sooner. It allowed me to realize, rather painfully, that although I had "read" Taylor, I had not fully comprehended or appreciated his project--in part because of the mammoth scale of _A Secular Age_. The book functions as a reading guide for Taylor as well as a stand-alone book that even those unfamiliar with Taylor can and will benefit from.
In some ways, How (Not) to be Secular proceeds parallel to Taylor's. For example, after an Introduction setting up the premise and purpose of the book, Smith begins with two chapters that loosely explore the historical development of secularization, inculcating Renaissance humanism, the Protestant Reformation, and "movements internal to Christendom and the Roman Catholic Church" (35). The next wave of historical development (Ch 2) deals with events and ideas of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. However, these chapters read less as history and more as philosophically reflective and reflexive glosses on historical currents. From there, Smith builds on Taylor's claims with chapters on the Malaise of Immanence, Contesting the Secularization(2) Thesis, and concludes with both a call to action (Ch. 5: "How (Not) to Live in a Secular Age") and a sort of post-script on conversions in a secular age, all of which is keeping in line with Taylor's book.
Although Smith's work is a byproduct of Taylor's, in distilling it and making it more accessible, it makes its own unique contributions. The glossary alone, albeit a small touch, highlights and demystifies the ways Taylor both employs and refashions language to recenter the dominant secularization stories/ myths. In my mind, this is among the most invaluable gifts of Taylor's book--by adopting new language to describe both religious and secular mentalities and developments, he steers the discussion away from loaded and overburdened terms and toward more imaginative and equally weighted concepts. With Taylor's work as a guide, both believers and skeptics can find common ground in their pursuit of and longing for "fullness," the gaping ennui of "immanentization," and the at times lamentable isolationism inherent to the "buffered self." Yet such terms, and the others employed regularly throughout Taylor's work, can sound opaque to lay readers, which is one way Smith's work masterfully brings out the best of Taylor.
Second, Smith--coming from a Protestant/ Evangelical background--helps communicate A Secular Age (which may at times strike Protestants as vaguely "Catholic") to a broader Christian audience. This is particularly true in his close and adept reading of Taylor's theses regarding immanentization and excarnation, concepts that may not avail themselves as readily to certain streams of Protestants as to sacramentally oriented Catholics, Anglicans, and Orthodox Christians. The pull quotes and questions also help move the book into conversation with a broad spectrum of Christian readers, among them Evangelicals.
There are several areas, however, where I hoped to encounter a bit more elaboration or contextualization--in part to ameliorate some of my (small) misgivings with certain points made in Taylor's work. On p. 106-07, for example, Smith points out the shift from penal/ spiritual to therapeutic notions of sin (sin is no longer a transgression but a sickness, Smith reasons in tandem with Taylor, therefore we have moved from "responsibility to victimhood"). I wonder if this is a false or ill-informed dichotomy. After all, there are plenty of currents in historical Christian theology that speak of sin as sickness. The end result of that paradigm is not automatic victimhood, but the (re-)affirmation of our agency and free will (to seek healing, via Christ and the Church). Even sick people are in need of a doctor, but they must go to that doctor and acknowledge their sickness if they are to be healed, which requires them to move beyond the status of passive victim. Perhaps the sin-as-sickness metaphor, which is hardly foreign to Christian theology, could be drawn on to engender more meaningful dialogues with broader cultural/ Secular(3) sensibilities that have taken issue (rightly so, I'm afraid) with the somewhat problematic emphasis of certain streams Christianity on the vindictive wrath of a supposedly loving God. At the same time, I recognize that to offer this corrective, even if Smith himself wanted to do so, would have been "adding to the law" of Taylor's work, so to speak, and thus outside the scope of the book.
My final thought is that it would be nice to have a student edition of Smith's book. As useful as this guide is, it is still more suitable for graduate students or highly (highly!) advanced undergrads with at least some prior knowledge of epistemology, among other things. Yet Taylor's rendition of the secular is perhaps even more necessary for younger audiences who themselves are complete "natives" of Secularity(3), the immanent frame, the Age of Authenticity, and the "malaise" that accompanies all three.
Other than that, this is a helpful, demystifying, and incredibly meaningful read. If my review is not as glowing as I would like, it is in part because I am still mulling over Smith's (and Taylor's) suppositions--and expect to be doing so for years to come. I warmly and emphatically recommend the book for any Christian struggling to make sense and find words for the strange predicament of pursuing faith in a secular age.
December 1, 2020
This is a big book – not big in length (just 139 pages), but big in terms of ideas and intellectual breadth. You might be stunned then to realize that the book is actually just a summary of a bigger book called “A Secular Age,” by Charles Taylor. Smith’s intent is to make Taylor‘s big ideas more understandable, but in order to do this, just so you know what I’m talking about here, a glossary is required for the task. That’s when you know you are in deep waters.
Nevertheless, this is an extremely important book for all serious Christians to read, particularly pastors and church planters who want to “understand better the context in which they proclaim the gospel.” What Taylor sets out to explore is how we have moved from a culture 500 years ago in which everyone assumed a belief in God, to a culture 500 years later when almost everyone assumes disbelief in God. He’s not talking about carefully formed convictions that people might have, but instead the kinds of beliefs people take for granted without really even thinking about it. Beliefs that are more absorbed than adopted. “Unthoughts.”
Unbelievers sometimes make the point that Christians only believe because they were brought up in a Christian culture. Maybe so, but the reverse is true too — unbelievers should acknowledge that their convictions are held at least in part because they have been swimming in secular waters for decades. They believe what they’re told to believe, like everyone who is a product of his age.
The reality is that we live in a world that is much different than it used to be, and things are not going back to the way they were. Christians need to come to grips with this if they are to make an impact in the decades to come. The current secular age can be described as “exclusive humanism,” which Taylor says is a “radically new option” whereby human flourishing is sought without any appeal to transcendence. “Of no previous society was this true.” (23).
Another word that Taylor uses to describe the pervasiveness of secularism is “disenchantment.” The world has become flattened, with all references to transcendence having been purged. This is precisely what has caused “tensions and fractures” in our culture (captured by writers like David Foster Wallace and bands like Arcade Fire), or what Taylor calls the “malaise of immanence.” People know something is missing. Or, as Julian Barnes has said, “I don’t believe in God, but I miss him.” (5). In any case, the “process of disenchantment is irreversible.” We’re not ministering in a pre-Christian society, but a post-Christian one. Big difference.
This means church leaders in particular need to be asking questions, such as: how does this new state of affairs impact the way we teach the faith to future generations? Many churchgoers who have succumbed to secularism have sadly not been discipled well, and have simply departed from an “immature Sunday-schoolish faith that could be easily toppled.” (77). Something more is needed from the church.
Nonetheless, even though our culture has become secularized, most people are not actually totally committed atheists, but instead they are haunted by transcendence. They live in what Taylor describes as a “cross pressured” world, where they are caught between an “echo of transcendence” and a drive toward a belief that the universe is totally enclosed and purely naturalistic. Because people cannot escape the pressure of the transcendent, Taylor says we are living not just in a post-Christian world, but in a “post secular age.” This actually creates hope, because people are finding that the transcendent is actually inescapable. “Don’t you feel it? Don’t you have those moments of either foreboding or on-the-cusp elation where you can’t shake the sense that there must be something more?” (137)
This now means that the role of art has become more central. People need a way to work out the feeling that “there is something inadequate in our way of life,” so they do this through art. (76). To me this seems a profound apologetic observation. Literature, music and the visual arts have always provided a vehicle to articulate the mystery of living in an enchanted world. If the world were truly disenchanted, or totally absent of the transcendent, would human beings ever be moved toward artistic expression? (105). Exactly what is the nature of the inexpressible that people are always trying to express through their art?
This is a longer review than normal from me, but really, I feel like I’m just scratching the surface. Read this book, and then read it again, and then discuss it with your friends. Christians will be doing this for a long time to come.
Nevertheless, this is an extremely important book for all serious Christians to read, particularly pastors and church planters who want to “understand better the context in which they proclaim the gospel.” What Taylor sets out to explore is how we have moved from a culture 500 years ago in which everyone assumed a belief in God, to a culture 500 years later when almost everyone assumes disbelief in God. He’s not talking about carefully formed convictions that people might have, but instead the kinds of beliefs people take for granted without really even thinking about it. Beliefs that are more absorbed than adopted. “Unthoughts.”
Unbelievers sometimes make the point that Christians only believe because they were brought up in a Christian culture. Maybe so, but the reverse is true too — unbelievers should acknowledge that their convictions are held at least in part because they have been swimming in secular waters for decades. They believe what they’re told to believe, like everyone who is a product of his age.
The reality is that we live in a world that is much different than it used to be, and things are not going back to the way they were. Christians need to come to grips with this if they are to make an impact in the decades to come. The current secular age can be described as “exclusive humanism,” which Taylor says is a “radically new option” whereby human flourishing is sought without any appeal to transcendence. “Of no previous society was this true.” (23).
Another word that Taylor uses to describe the pervasiveness of secularism is “disenchantment.” The world has become flattened, with all references to transcendence having been purged. This is precisely what has caused “tensions and fractures” in our culture (captured by writers like David Foster Wallace and bands like Arcade Fire), or what Taylor calls the “malaise of immanence.” People know something is missing. Or, as Julian Barnes has said, “I don’t believe in God, but I miss him.” (5). In any case, the “process of disenchantment is irreversible.” We’re not ministering in a pre-Christian society, but a post-Christian one. Big difference.
This means church leaders in particular need to be asking questions, such as: how does this new state of affairs impact the way we teach the faith to future generations? Many churchgoers who have succumbed to secularism have sadly not been discipled well, and have simply departed from an “immature Sunday-schoolish faith that could be easily toppled.” (77). Something more is needed from the church.
Nonetheless, even though our culture has become secularized, most people are not actually totally committed atheists, but instead they are haunted by transcendence. They live in what Taylor describes as a “cross pressured” world, where they are caught between an “echo of transcendence” and a drive toward a belief that the universe is totally enclosed and purely naturalistic. Because people cannot escape the pressure of the transcendent, Taylor says we are living not just in a post-Christian world, but in a “post secular age.” This actually creates hope, because people are finding that the transcendent is actually inescapable. “Don’t you feel it? Don’t you have those moments of either foreboding or on-the-cusp elation where you can’t shake the sense that there must be something more?” (137)
This now means that the role of art has become more central. People need a way to work out the feeling that “there is something inadequate in our way of life,” so they do this through art. (76). To me this seems a profound apologetic observation. Literature, music and the visual arts have always provided a vehicle to articulate the mystery of living in an enchanted world. If the world were truly disenchanted, or totally absent of the transcendent, would human beings ever be moved toward artistic expression? (105). Exactly what is the nature of the inexpressible that people are always trying to express through their art?
This is a longer review than normal from me, but really, I feel like I’m just scratching the surface. Read this book, and then read it again, and then discuss it with your friends. Christians will be doing this for a long time to come.
July 31, 2018
Notes from second round: Skip this on audio and read the print version. The narration was fine. But this is a book that is constantly referencing something else, whether Taylor or another author or subject and the constant reference without the visual cues of what is being referenced make comprehension difficult. Also the constant references to pages of A Secular Age, which make sense in print, do not make the same type of sense in audio. There were paragraphs that referenced specific pages number 4 or 5 or maybe even more times, which made the ability to follow the point difficult.
_________
Short Review: I am appreciating James KA Smith more with every book of his I read. That is not to say his books are easy reads, but they do seem to hit important issues. This is also the type of book I wish there were more of, popularizing important but dense academic ideas. Charles Taylor's A Secular Age seems to be important, but at 900 pages most will not even attempt it. But Smith has written a 148 pages summary of the larger book. And the summary is fascinating. (I am still wary of undertaking Taylor's original, especially because I have seen several authors that I like, but find dense themselves say how dense and difficult they find Taylor.)
The short version of the book is that the traditional tale told of secularism is that as society progresses it inevitably becomes more secular. As Taylor says it is a story primarily of subtraction. But Taylor says it is much more complicated and what is important is not the loss of belief in God (because many people still believe). What is important is that the terms of what belief is understood to be has changed. Smith has done a good job bringing those ideas forward to the masses and offering slight critique and further explanation.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/how-not-to-be-secular/
Second full review on my blog http://bookwi.se/how-not-to-be-secula...
_________
Short Review: I am appreciating James KA Smith more with every book of his I read. That is not to say his books are easy reads, but they do seem to hit important issues. This is also the type of book I wish there were more of, popularizing important but dense academic ideas. Charles Taylor's A Secular Age seems to be important, but at 900 pages most will not even attempt it. But Smith has written a 148 pages summary of the larger book. And the summary is fascinating. (I am still wary of undertaking Taylor's original, especially because I have seen several authors that I like, but find dense themselves say how dense and difficult they find Taylor.)
The short version of the book is that the traditional tale told of secularism is that as society progresses it inevitably becomes more secular. As Taylor says it is a story primarily of subtraction. But Taylor says it is much more complicated and what is important is not the loss of belief in God (because many people still believe). What is important is that the terms of what belief is understood to be has changed. Smith has done a good job bringing those ideas forward to the masses and offering slight critique and further explanation.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/how-not-to-be-secular/
Second full review on my blog http://bookwi.se/how-not-to-be-secula...
July 21, 2017
This is an absolute MUST-READ for anyone in ministry or religious work, especially if you work with young people today.
Charles Taylor's "A Secular Age" has been too intimidating (at 900 pages of philosophy) for me to consider tackling, even though I am an avid reader and very interested in his arguments, and I thank God (literally) for Jamie Smith's work here. He breaks down what seem to be the essentials of Taylor's argument, with much agreement and some soft critique, all to the end of helping the "normal" person grasp the depth of what Taylor is saying, and hopefully emboldening them to wade into it on their own two feet.
This slim book had a truly profound impact on me, as I just barely started to grasp the enormity of what Taylor has sought to do, and as I got excited about engaging with his work directly. We truly live in a "haunted" time, and most of us are too busy on the day-to-day grind to lift our eyes and ask "How did we get here?" Taylor (and with Smith as a guide) helps us do just that, and ultimately helps people like me know how to talk about religion without sounding like a nutcase, in our "Secular Age."
At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, this book spoke directly into my soul, as someone who acutely feels the "cross-pressure" of our time, wanting to hold onto a vibrant faith while also seeing the wisdom and rationality of secularization. Taylor provides us a wise, thoughtful way forward without resorting to a "culture wars" or "holy huddle" mentality, but instead engaging directly with our world as it is, not as we would like it to be, or as a straw man to viciously tear down. I am in awe of Taylor, and am profoundly thankful for Smith's introduction to work that might otherwise elude me.
Read this.
Charles Taylor's "A Secular Age" has been too intimidating (at 900 pages of philosophy) for me to consider tackling, even though I am an avid reader and very interested in his arguments, and I thank God (literally) for Jamie Smith's work here. He breaks down what seem to be the essentials of Taylor's argument, with much agreement and some soft critique, all to the end of helping the "normal" person grasp the depth of what Taylor is saying, and hopefully emboldening them to wade into it on their own two feet.
This slim book had a truly profound impact on me, as I just barely started to grasp the enormity of what Taylor has sought to do, and as I got excited about engaging with his work directly. We truly live in a "haunted" time, and most of us are too busy on the day-to-day grind to lift our eyes and ask "How did we get here?" Taylor (and with Smith as a guide) helps us do just that, and ultimately helps people like me know how to talk about religion without sounding like a nutcase, in our "Secular Age."
At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, this book spoke directly into my soul, as someone who acutely feels the "cross-pressure" of our time, wanting to hold onto a vibrant faith while also seeing the wisdom and rationality of secularization. Taylor provides us a wise, thoughtful way forward without resorting to a "culture wars" or "holy huddle" mentality, but instead engaging directly with our world as it is, not as we would like it to be, or as a straw man to viciously tear down. I am in awe of Taylor, and am profoundly thankful for Smith's introduction to work that might otherwise elude me.
Read this.
August 12, 2014
Let me begin on a positive note. This is a very handy introduction to Charles Taylor's seminal ideas in A Secular Age. For those scared of Taylor's idea tic behemoth, this will be a very easy path to walk into into Taylor's thought-world. Smith presents Taylor's main ideas and eye-opening categories with clarity and rhetorical panache. As far as the negatives go, I wish he had more cultural references throughout the book. The first few pages are quite deceptive in that the personal address to preachers and pastors doing ministry in 'a secular age' fades, ultimately into nothingness, as the book progresses. It feels like Smith himself gets bogged down in Taylor's intricate thought-world and forgets to resurface in order to reconnect with his practitioners-readers. It would have been a useful feat to indicate and demonstrate practical ways of exegeting specific cultural practices, trends and artifacts using Taylor's enlightening interpretive framework. The book ends rather abruptly.
Having said all of this, if no further merits can be tallied, the simple fact of introducing us to Taylor and making him more accessible is the book's greatest strength and merit, eclipsing any and all shortcomings. For this, Jamies Smith deserves our gratitude.
Having said all of this, if no further merits can be tallied, the simple fact of introducing us to Taylor and making him more accessible is the book's greatest strength and merit, eclipsing any and all shortcomings. For this, Jamies Smith deserves our gratitude.
September 14, 2015
I'm going to call this the most important book I've read this year, only because it makes accessible to me one of the most important books I've probably encountered in my life (and not had time to read in-depth) - Charles Taylor's A Secular Age. Jamie Smith concisely presents a simplified description of Taylor's layered work regarding how the (western) world has transitioned from one in which atheism is largely unthinkable to one in which belief in the transcendent is almost unbelievable. This book is a valuable companion to Taylor's more complex work, and provides some Protestant commentary that adds an ecumenical consideration to the ideas that came out of Taylor's Catholic social imaginary. Both books serve to make explicit to readers the shifting conditions for belief in the modern world, and present postulations on the creation of these conditions, which most people take for granted. It's hard not to see cultural thought and behavior through a Secular Age lens after encountering these works, which leave us with the (somewhat unanswered) question, what am I supposed to do with this knowledge? As someone who believes, how am I supposed to act in the world as it is? It is a question I'll probably spend my whole life trying to answer.
July 26, 2017
I read Smith after reading Taylor. For those looking to read Smith, keep in mind that Smith's handbook is meant to be a study guide to Taylor - note: it should not be read in isolation from Taylor's text. The strength of A Secular Age is also its weakness: its long, slogging articulation. Taylor captures the "modern malaise" both in content and form in a way that Smith is unable to do by default in a handbook. Do not think you can read Smith and have effectively read A Secular Age. If you must choose one, read Taylor and draw your own conclusions. Smith is not bad - I'd say he as a conservative Reformed Christian misreads the liberal Catholic Taylor at times (but maybe as a phenomenologist Smith reads Taylor better than I as something of a Thomist).
December 12, 2024
12/12/2024
Should be studying for exams, but I got distracted and reread this; I can sense my Charles Taylor phase returning. Will return post exams to write a comprehensive review
First Read
Loved this book, totally changed my way of thinking about religion and secularism today. It's a much shorter summary of a much longer book, which I will definitely read.
Should be studying for exams, but I got distracted and reread this; I can sense my Charles Taylor phase returning. Will return post exams to write a comprehensive review
First Read
Loved this book, totally changed my way of thinking about religion and secularism today. It's a much shorter summary of a much longer book, which I will definitely read.
May 9, 2014
I will be thinking about this book for a long time. Very good. James K.A. Smith has the remarkable ability to take the reader on an imaginative tour of great minds, mining their thought for those less equipped in philosophy. May his readership continue to expand.
May 27, 2022
I’d like to think that one day I will read Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age, but I’m not counting on it. So I’m extremely grateful for this book that introduced me to its major terms and arguments in a winsome and compelling way.
February 1, 2022
I imagine it is a difficult thing to summarize a work like Taylor’s “A Secular Age,” but Smith does it well and adds a few of his own insights and thoughtful questions along the way. I am certain I didn’t fully grab onto every aspect of what Taylor and Smith were getting at (and that may be inevitable on the first pass, though I wish it weren’t), but I do hope to read Taylor some day, and Smith will be a sure guide.
Taylor wants us to wrestle with the change society and thought has gone through in the past 500 years — 500
years ago it would have been unthinkable to say that the world was closed — no God, no angels, no demons, nothing transcendent. Now, the heavens have closed up, so to speak, and it seems hard, nigh impossible, to have an open take — that is to believe there is more: in God and greater spiritual reality. In fact, it seems irrational (in part because rationalism appears to be the key to knowing all truth).
Taylor takes us on a tour of the past few hundred years to help us *feel* what it was like to live at various stages of history and even now. Taylor asserts that we all — atheists, agnostics, and believers — feel a sense of loss, like there should be something more. More reality, more purpose — there is a yearning for transcendence. Ultimately, Taylor *suggests* that the Christian take on reality (and emphatically not the common and false Platonist Christian or Universalist Christian take on reality) may indeed speak to the deepest yearnings of all our hearts.
Taylor wants us to wrestle with the change society and thought has gone through in the past 500 years — 500
years ago it would have been unthinkable to say that the world was closed — no God, no angels, no demons, nothing transcendent. Now, the heavens have closed up, so to speak, and it seems hard, nigh impossible, to have an open take — that is to believe there is more: in God and greater spiritual reality. In fact, it seems irrational (in part because rationalism appears to be the key to knowing all truth).
Taylor takes us on a tour of the past few hundred years to help us *feel* what it was like to live at various stages of history and even now. Taylor asserts that we all — atheists, agnostics, and believers — feel a sense of loss, like there should be something more. More reality, more purpose — there is a yearning for transcendence. Ultimately, Taylor *suggests* that the Christian take on reality (and emphatically not the common and false Platonist Christian or Universalist Christian take on reality) may indeed speak to the deepest yearnings of all our hearts.
May 16, 2021
Yes.
We are secular people. But, God.
This is a helpful overview of Charles Taylor’s work. If you’ve ever felt torn between doubt and belief or wondered “how do I show the beauty of Christianity? This is a helpful book.
We are secular people. But, God.
This is a helpful overview of Charles Taylor’s work. If you’ve ever felt torn between doubt and belief or wondered “how do I show the beauty of Christianity? This is a helpful book.
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