I have started to read Charles Taylor’s 874-page book, A Secular Age. I do not know whether I will agree with Mr. Taylor’s opinions, but I am pleased to read a thorough discussion of “secularism.” The book was published in 2007, so it is a little bit surprising to read the first sentences of the Introduction,
What does it mean to say the we live in a “secular age?” Almost everyone would agree that in some sense we do …
I guess that because the author came of age in the twentieth century — the first half of which was indeed a secular age — he would suppose that the present era is more like its predecessor than different from it.
However, I disagree with that. My own observations are that the world — especially the United States — since the end of the Second World War has gradually discarded secularity except as a specialized scientific and technical discourse; that this twenty-first century is an age of faith, not of secularity.
The idea that the present age is “secular” is — at best — a received idea; at worst — a conceit among those persons of faith who — for their own purposes — prefer to characterize faith as beleaguered, rather than triumphant, as it is.
The strange thing is that many — perhaps most — persons who value a secular society, are in the grip of the same, mistaken notion. That mistake has led them to be complacent in the delusion that a secular society is theirs to keep or to lose. In fact it has been lost, and its defenders — if they ever rouse themselves — will be hard put to recover some little lost ground.
