Over the last year, I read Charles Taylor's magisterial book, A Secular Age, and blogged a bit about it. On the most recent post, I got this comment from Peter, and I've been thinking about it ever since. This year, I'm trying to take on re-reading the book with the intention of thinking his question through more carefully.
He said, "Would love to hear how Taylor's book has changed your own conscious understanding of your religious beliefs (rather than an understanding of our societies approach to religion in general). In reading Taylor's book, I have found his book to be profoundly shaping of my own understanding and approach to my religion/ spirituality, but I am still not quite capable yet in the articulation of the shape or direction of that shift. For me, this is the difference between knowing that something happened, and knowing exactly what it was that took place!"
Well as part of my effort to think it through, I've decided to try speaking to congregations about the book, trying to make sense of it in that way. It is an old saying that to really know something you have to teach it. So here I go. November 23 and 30 I'm presenting at Pilgrim Lutheran in St. Paul. Here's my gig blurbs:
Engaging with one of the most important books on religion to appear in recent decades, Charles Taylor's A Secular Age (Harvard 2007), we will explore the phenomenon of belief and non-belief in the USA.
11/23
Meet Margie: Practicing Non-Believers in a Secular Age
Through the example of Margie, a young 20-something high school teacher in a Midwest city, we will explore how it is that 500 years ago it was almost inconceivable not to believe in God while today it is one acceptable option among many. Further, we can ask how the changes in how we understand ourselves and our lives make even those of us who do believe do so with a more fragile hold on those beliefs. We will explore a range of responses to this including the importance of 'authenticity' in spiritual life, the role of 'choice' and how it makes sense that some, like Margie, continue to engage in religious practice, including worship, in the absence of sure conviction of its truth.
11/30
Meet Phinney Ridge: Practicing Congregations in a Secular Age
Through the example of Phinney Ridge, a creative west coast congregation, we will explore the ways Christian faith functions in a secular age. We'll look at how some of the key seeds of secularization were sown by the church's own teaching, and how the process of secularization has created a 'nova effect' of ever-increasing spiritual options for seekers to explore. When this multiplication of spiritual options combines with a social order based on the individual, practices become like free-floating options lacking the coherence and depth of an integrated religious life. We'll see how a strategic understanding of this reality allows Phinney Ridge to connect in powerful ways with those, like Margie, who've kept the Christian faith at arms-length.
I'll blog about the experience when we get to November!
Peace,
Chris
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