Introduction
What does it mean to live in secular times? Almost everyone (at least Westerners) would agree that we live in secular times. And over the past few centuries, the status of religion in society has changed significantly and profoundly. In this magnum opus that is defining our time, Taylor addresses this question. What do these changes mean? How do we go from a society where it is impossible not to believe in God to a society where faith is only one of many options, even for the most determined believers?
Taylor has been one of the most insightful thinkers on these issues. He offers us a historical perspective. He examines the secularization of modernity and its development in the world of "Western religion". In fact, what he describes is not a single, continuous transformation, but a series of new attempts. In the process, earlier forms of religious life gradually dissolved or ceased to be stable, and new forms were created. Here we see that today's secular world is no longer portrayed by the absence of religion – despite the significant decline in religious belief and practice in some societies – but by the continued increase in new choices (religious, spiritual, anti-religious) according to which individuals and groups make sense of their lives and shape their spiritual aspirations.
In this book, Charles Taylor seeks to grasp what the secular age means for the world, including the new forms of collective religious life it has encouraged, and the violence that has been bred by this mass mobilization tendency. This book is both timely and timeless.
About the Author
Born in Montreal, Canada in 1931, Charles Taylor received his Ph.D. from the University of Oxford in 1961 and then taught at McGill University. His published works include The Roots of the Self, The Ethics of Authenticity, Hegel, and The Modern Social Imagination. He has won the Templeton Prize, the Kyoto Prize, the Kluge Prize, and the Berggruen Prize.
Wonderful book review
Charles Taylor had previously dealt with the issue of secularism. But we didn't expect him to bring us such a great new book. The purpose of writing this book is twofold: to give a historical account of the secularization of Western culture and social order, and to point out what it means to be a secular person and to live in a secular society. No summary can summarize Taylor's mastery of detail, and he presents us with a stunning overall picture ......Taylor's book has made a significant and highly original contribution to the secularization debate that has been going on since the last century, and it is hard to match it. It is a must-read and unmissable book.
Alastair Macintyre
Author of After Virtue.
This is one of the most important books I've ever read in my life. I've admired Taylor for a long time. But I think it's one of his groundbreaking books, a very important book, because he succeeds in reshaping the whole debate about secularism in it. Taylor is concerned with the "conditions of spiritual experience and seeking" that would call our time a "secular age," ......It is difficult to find a book so less controversial in this field that broadly understands all possible positions, including those that are far removed from itself, without indicating which side is more virtuous than any other in this multifaceted process of transformation.
Robert N bellah)
Author of Habits of the Heart.
This is not only the culmination of his impressive life's work, but also the question of the rise of secularity and the meaning of the individual in relation to the "community" that has been debated in many disciplines. Taylor tells the story calmly, clearly, carefully, step by step, and so far the reader can move steadily forward with a complete summary of the journey. As such, this book is educational in its own right, and if you are thinking about the social and intellectual basis of the Western attitude towards the "world", it is one of the few books you can start reading right now. This is a book that theologians should read; Biologists, geneticists, and researchers in related fields should also read to understand the extreme complexity of the debate surrounding the nature of religion and what they should know before releasing their findings to the world.
D**id Martin
Author of On Secularization.
Wonderful book excerpts
We live in a secular age – what does that mean? Almost everyone would agree that, in a sense, "we" do. By "we" we mean those who live in the West, or in the Northwest, or (in other words) in the North Atlantic world, although the secular nature also extends partially, and in different ways, beyond this world. When we compare these societies with any other society in human history—that is, with almost all other contemporary societies on the one hand (e.g., Islamic countries, India, Africa), and with the rest of human history on the other hand (the history of the Atlantic world or elsewhere)—it seems difficult to reject the assertion of secularity.
But the meaning of this worldliness is not so clear. There are two alternative formulations for its characterization, or more appropriately, two families of alternative representations. The first focuses on common institutions and practices, with thestate being the most obvious (but not the only). The difference, then, is that all the political organizations of pre-modern societies are connected in some way to God or other ultimate notions of reality, or to God by faith, or by attachment, based on God, and blessed by God, whereas the modern West is free from that connection. The church is now separated from the political structure – there are some exceptions in the UK and the Nordic countries, but they are very low-key and not strict enough to really constitute an exception. To a large extent, religious belief or non-belief is a private matter for individuals. Political society is likewise seen as a society of believers and unbelievers (of all religions).
In other words, in our "secular" society, you can get fully involved in politics without having to "encounter God," that is, without going to the situation where the God of Abraham is powerfully and unmistakably proof of the importance of the whole enterprise. Today, the few remnants of ritual or prayer moments can hardly constitute such an "encounter", but in the **religious world of the earlier centuries, it was inevitable.
This way of presenting makes us understand that it is not just countries that are being involved in this change. If we go back centuries in our own civilization, then we will see that in the above sense, God is present in all social practices—not just political practices—and at all levels of society. For example, when the locality is based on the diocese, which is still primarily a community of prayer; Or, when the guild maintains a religious ritual life that is not merely a formality; Or, the only way in which all parts of society can present themselves is through religious festivals, such as the corpuschristi procession. In those societies, you can't participate in any kind of public activity without "encountering God" in the sense described above. But today the situation is completely different.