How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor

Bibliography James K. A. Smith. How (Not) To Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014. 161 pp. $16.00. Category Theology Summary Christians navigate a world dominated by secularism. Christendom has seen an end, but is that the final end? What do we mean by secularism? How did we get here? Do Christians embrace this environment? Combat it? How? Why? Why not? What are the implications of secularism in everyday life? How do Christians navigate a secular world? For a pastor to ignore these questions would be foolish. He can’t just sweep the Church under a sacred rug and hide it in the secular room it occupies. But how does a pastor address these questions? Where does he start? To whom does he turn for counsel? An excellent conversational partner is James K. A. Smith’s recent book, How (Not) To Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor. This 150-pager is an accessible commentary of Charles Taylor’s seminal work on post-modernity. Smith, a philosophy professor at Calvin College, distills Charles Taylor’s, A Secular Age, to one-tenth its size, helping readers to interact with and process Taylor’s observations. Who is Charles Taylor? Taylor is a Catholic philosopher who has made significant contributions to interpreting post-modernity. Taylor’s 900 page tome, A Secular Age, explores the rise of secularism during the last 500 years. It studies the shift from a worldview of transcendence, humanity looking beyond to a supernatural realm, to a worldview of immanence, humanity locating itself in a natural realm devoid of supernaturalism. As focus shifts from one to the other, we see the decline of sacred and the rise of secular, the decline of superstition and the rise of science, the decline of corporate structures and the rise of individualism. It’s a story of reform, leading to deism, leading to secular humanism, leaving secularists with what Taylor calls lives under cross-pressure – “expressions of doubt and longing, faith and questioning” (14). Smith interacts with Taylor’s work, corresponding each chapter to each successive part of Taylor’s, A Secular Age. Smith does not just tell you what Taylor says, he explains the significance of it, commenting on what he agrees or disagrees with, and adding nuances or implications of Taylor’s reading of secularism. Smith’s work is not just Cliff Notes; it’s critical interaction with Taylor. Smith contextualizes Taylor’s observations with pictures we can relate to, such as examples from Fleet Foxes, Arcade Fire, Seinfeld, and a smattering of other pop-culture references. These references are punchy. He is not detailed in explaining them. Rather, they’re like solid one-liners that, if we know the context, end up being powerful connections for readers. If you’re going to read this book, do so with dictionary at side, and consult Smith’s glossary of Taylor’s verbiage. It follows the conclusion. I’m not saying How (Not) To Be Secular is a difficult read. You’ll simply want help along the way. Benefit for Pastoral Ministry Every pastor is a theologian who must engage rigorous reads. Though this one is not extremely heady, it will press you. Yet, it is practical. As you read, you’ll find yourself muttering, “So that’s what’s going on!” or “That’s why that person walked away from the Faith!” or “That’s why it is so difficult to defend Christianity against anti-theists!” For me, How (Not) To Be Secular, helped process my story from conversion to today. It caused reflection on why I am enamored by pietism (the historical period, people, and movement). I saw chinks in secular humanism’s armor. It trained me to point those flaws out and interact confidently with secular humanists. How (Not) To Be Secular, synthesized history, philosophy, sociology, and theology as if I were the blind man in the gospel seeing blurry trees and then blinking to take in humanity for the first time. Four critical contributions that I found in How (Not) To Be Secular include Taylor’s three definitions of secular, his sense of social imaginary, the significance that reform plays in the secular story, and his discussion on subtraction stories. Though you may not parade as an intellectual theorist, it does not mean you are not pondering meaning, purpose, and transcendence. It does not mean you are not seeking God or coping in light of the supposed “death of God”, which secularism presumably conceived. This is not just true of pastors; it’s true of congregations. Therefore, equip yourself to give an informed response by reading How (Not) To Be Secular by James K. A. Smith. Recommendation How (Not) To Be Secular negotiates the post-modern narrative, makes sense of the secular malaise, and gives a fresh take, which dispels the myth of secular spin.

I really enjoyed studying this book! It gave me a much clearer understanding of the secularists perspective and even helped me develop a deeper sympathy for the current state of secularism. The historical context provided was eye-opening, and learning about the three types of secularism helped me grasp the viewpoint more fully. I wouldn’t call it an offensive apologetics book, but rather a thoughtful Christian perspective on the secular worldview. My only challenge was that the author can be a bit wordy at times, but that might just be me!

Starting last year I have been paying a lot of attention to James KA Smith (Jamie). The first book of his that came across my radar screen was Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation. (I still haven’t actually read that one, it is on my list for this summer.) But I did read Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works. And it really did fundamentally change my perspective on liturgy and worship. Since then I regularly read Smith’s editorials (he is the editor of Comment magazine) and I have slowly been reading some of his other books. How (Not) to Be Secular is the type of book I wish were more popular. For important ideas to really take hold, we need good authors to popularize those important ideas into formats that a general public can understand. Charles Taylor’s A Secular age is a massive and important book, but at 900 pages it is too long (and too dense) for most readers. (And more than a few people have suggested Taylor is not the most readable author.) So Jamie Smith has put together a 148 page companion that covers the basics of the argument and includes relevant contemporary examples. The basic idea of A Secular Age is to explain what it means to live in a secular age and how we have come to this place in culture. "We are all skeptics now, believer and unbeliever alike. There is no one true faith, evident at all times and places. Every religion is one among many. The clear lines of any orthodoxy are made crooked by our experience, are complicated by our lives. Believer and unbeliever are in the same predicament, thrown back onto themselves in complex circumstances, looking for a sign. As ever, religious belief makes its claim somewhere between revelation and projection, between holiness and human frailty; but the burden of proof, indeed the burden of belief, for so long upheld by society, is now back on the believer, where it belongs." Taylor’s innovation is how he reframes discussion about secularization from what it has lost (belief in God) to how the very nature of belief claims have changed. “...these questions are not concerned with what people believe as much as with what is believable. 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. It is this way of framing the question that leads to Taylor’s unique definition of 'the secular.’" There is no good way to summarize this book. Smith already has condensed a 900 page book into 148 pages and I can’t condense that 148 pages into 700 words. But there are a couple points that really struck me as important. First, it is a good reminder that our world is not the only possible world. We have one 'take' on the world, that is not the same one that our pre-modern ancestors had, and it is not the only possible one that could have come about. Second, part of how secularization came about is that God moved from the being that controlled everything, to the being that put everything into place. So where pre-moderns saw God's hand in everything, we tend to see God as a step removed. The sun rises not because God told it to rise, but because God put into place a natural world that makes it appear that the sun is rising. It is probably more important for Christians to understand how our world has changed than non-Christians because our very belief systems now have to take into account not only the reality of God in the world, but the reality of God in a world that has moved God yet another step away. Third, as has been noted by a number of books I have been reading lately, the real incarnation of Jesus as human becomes even more important (and in some ways more unbelieveable) because of the way that modern culture understands God as other. And fourth, we cannot turn back. "So shouldn’t an “authentic” Christianity want to turn back the clock? “Isn’t the answer easy? Just undo the anthropocentric turn” (p. 651). Not so fast, cautions Taylor. First, even if we wanted to, there’s no simplistic going back. The anthropocentric turn is in the water; it’s increasingly the air we breathe.31 Not even orthodox Christians might realize the extent to which we’ve absorbed this by osmosis. Second, for Taylor, we shouldn’t want to." If you are interested in my take aways, Smith did do an interview with his publisher about the book that I think does a very good job introducing the book and giving you are good jumpstart on Taylor. [...] If you are frustrated with the way that apologetics are done in the church, or with how many seem to be missing the point (both inside and outside the church) of what it means to believe in something this might be a helpful book.

James k.a smith sums up Taylor's book very well. The language of the book is not so easy if English is not your first language, but even with that, the book is one of the most important for comprehending of a secular age

Thank goodness I read this book before tucking into 'A Secular Age'. Smith gives an eminently readable overview of Taylor's magnum opus: a thought-provoking, insightful, and well-written introduction that is a solid and substantive work in its own right. 'A Secular Age' is, as Smith repeatedly affirms, a must-read for anyone trying to understand our zeitgeist, but it's a heavy slog. If you're pressed for time or not up on your Latin, go for Smith.

If you are interested in the way that our society feels about the eternal and present and how this has developed then this book is very interesting. Not necessarily and easy read - useful to have the dictionary handy and sometimes requiring a paragraph to be read several times to really absorb the meaning but I am sure that this reflects the way that James summarises what must be an even denser tome. Great at painting the picture and challenge and very thought provoking even though the so what do we do about it seems underdeveloped (by Charles Taylor) - but maybe this is for someone else to do.

Smith provides a helpful unpacking of Taylor's opus. Smith opens up Taylor's ideas for an easier digestion, I found it to be a good commentary.

I found this a delightful introduction to Charles Taylor's magnum opus, 'A Secular Age'. It was probably unlikely that I would have picked that 800-page tome up and read it without some sort of help and encouragement, which is what Jamie Smith so admirably supplies here. That doesn't mean that 'How Not To Be Secular' is a walk in the park: if nothing else, one has to get one's head around Taylor's own lexicon, in order to understand the complexities and power of secularism...in order then to go beyond that and perceive the case for transcendence. Smith's writing is pithy, toothsome. Perhaps because he is firing off Taylor's more ponderous narrative, what we get is something that is an extraordinarily effective introduction - it leaves one wanting to then grapple with the real deal, but actually in the short term it supplies a most helpful distillate of Taylor's reasoning. I, for one, am glad I encountered this modest little book first. It probably has some attractions for any secular thinker, beginning to come up against the boxing in of immanence, but it is peculiarly valuable for Christian pastors, teachers, leaders, seeking to understand the strengths and weaknesses of secularism, in order to engage effectively with this worldview which has, in such a short space of time, come to dominate almost every aspect of cultural life in the West. Jamie Smith does not provide us with an uncritical endorsement of all of Taylor's thinking in 'A Secular Age', but highlights questions for serious readers to explore further. He also usefully flags up some key points where Protestant and Catholic thinking will tend to diverge - but that's all to the good in seeing how our transcendent take on reality can pan out. Finally, I did find his discussion of modern (religious) responses to modernity as a kind of 'reconversion' to a premodern worldview, encumbered with the dangers of nostalgia - rather thought-provoking. This really is a great little book, and you won't regret reading it. Go on, buy it!