o1mnikent

I recently enjoyed Charles Taylor’s latest book. It is a refreshing departure from the current definitions of secularity espoused by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens on the one hand and Bill O’Reilly and James Dobson on the other. Whatever convincing or philosophically redeemable arguments they offer (there aren’t many, but admittedly a few) become obscured by polemic and sarcasm and become so infused with politics that they lose the trust of those who would benefit the most from a clear-headed discussion. Toward that end, Taylor departs from the current religion/secular debate by taking a descriptivist approach: he’s lest interested in what we ought to do — reject religion as a source of evil (Dawkins) or prepare to fight the culture wars (Dobson) — and more interested in why the current context makes the religion/secular debate so fierce. Ultimately, Taylor is more interested in understanding why it was unlikely - even impossible - to reject religion in 1500, while today it is not only possible, but quite acceptable.

Taylor begins by offering three possible definitions of secularity. The first two are widely popular: in the first, the secular refers to public spaces that ought to be religiously neutral. This definition of secularity serves as the backdrop for the recurring debates about whether or not the ten commandments placement in courtrooms violates a space that, according to our definition, ought to be religiously neutral.

The second kind of secular refers to the overall decline in religious practice, or the absence of religion. Pastors and pundits usually refer to this kind of secular to describe the overall religious climate in America or the kind of belief-system from which faithful church-goers ought to abstain.

To these two definitions of the secular, Taylor adds a third. This kind of secular “consists of new conditions of belief; it consists in a new shape to the experience which prompts to and is defined by belief; in a new context in which all search and questioning about the moral and spiritual must proceed” (20). In other words, the secular is not defined by religious neutrality or plurality, nor by the continual errosion of religion since the Enlightenment - what Taylor calls the “subtraction theory”; rather, the secular is defined as the overall context that makes a particular belief possible or more likely. This full-orbed definition of secularity rises above petty politics or the kind of hopelessness that informs most secularization theories.

From here, Taylor repeats his initial question: “Why was it virtually impossible not to believe in God in, say, 1500 in our Western society, while in 2000 many of us find this not only easy, but even inescapable?” and he spends the next seven hundred pages outlining a possible answer to that question, complete with a sweeping history of philosophy and politics since the Enlightenment, with an eye toward understanding the origins of the current milieu. He explains the shift from a monolithic, Aristotelian, enchanted, and ordered world that has fractured and now opens itself up to new and various possible beliefs, for better or worse. In his story, Taylor also discerns the place of the subplots, such as Romanticism, transcendentalism, Providential Deism (and its descendant, Intelligent Design), and sixties counter-culture. His book is fascinating.

That said, I found A Secular Age cumbersome in many respects. For one, Taylor’s book suffers from poor organization. Taylor often begins a thought, explains why it’s important, and then promises to “return to this later” before exploring something else. Moreover, a book such as this should not be written in the first person. Taylor begins many paragraphs with a key thought that helps him develop his thesis; he then spends the rest of the paragraph writing first-person caveats that attempt to clarify the first sentence, lest his readers misunderstand him. This is not a good way to write a history of philosophy (instead, rewrite the first sentence in a way that makes sense; move on; repeat).

Nonetheless, A Secular Age is a good read, and will be in print for many years to come. It is a refreshing and gentle alternative to New Atheism.

(Also, this book has been the subject of discussion on The Immanent Frame, a blog hosted by the Social Science Research Council, with an impressive list of contributors that includes Robert Bellah, D. Michael Lindsay, James K.A. Smith, and Charles Taylor himself.)