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dbg108's review against another edition
5.0
Sweeping historical perspective with insightful and careful arguments. My only critique is that in an effort to be extraordinarily careful and precise, Taylor tends to diminish some of the larger effects of mainstream views within the Christian tradition and in scientific rationalism. But overall, it's excellent, transcendent work.
latviadugan's review against another edition
4.0
Taylor’s “A Secular Age” is a landmark treatment of the history and development of secularism in Western culture. Taylor begins by identifying 3 characteristics of secularism: first, God is removed from the public spaces (though often revered privately); second, people increasingly choose not to practice religion or believe in God; third, belief in God becomes one option among many.
Why is it that 500 years ago it was difficult to not believe in God, but today it is difficult to believe in him? What happened? While the common assumption is that science is slowly eroding away any credible belief in God, Taylor challenges this assumption and asserts that the reality is more complicated.
Words he uses to describe secularization are “disenchantment,” “imminent frame,” and the “Reform Master Narrative.” He addresses not only how these historical movements impact religion and science, but also how they’re integrated into contemporary politics and sexuality, and how they manifest in individualism, ideas of liberty, and morality. Over time, these movements make it more difficult to see beyond the frame of the material, and such a worldview becomes “natural.”
But as hard as it is to believe, it can be equally hard to disbelieve. The world is haunted.
Both secular and spiritual worldviews require certain leaps of faith and raise unanswerable questions, though this is not often recognized in a secular context. Both strive for "fulfillment." A secular worldview finds this in humanistic flourishing, which leads to individualism and is defined by personal happiness. A spiritual worldview points to something more important than personal fulfillment, and therefore calls for sacrifice and the reigning in of personal desires. A secular humanist views this as holding back human potential and denying the essence of humanity. Spiritual worldviews see such paths ("itineraries") as leading to the fulfillment of ultimate human potential. Both of these views are addressing the question of "meaning" in life.
Especially interesting was the contribution (rather than the challenge) that the Reformers and Protestant Christianity made to the rise of secularism. If I understood Taylor correctly, this occurred in North America through Deism and modernism, belief that we could/must order the moral, political world according to divine laws built into the material universe. It also happened as the result of “reform,” or the call for every individual to be 100% Christian. This flattening of hierarchy, the removal of sacred time, the priesthood of all believers, and the ordinary vocations of life being opened as avenues of divine service inadvertently eclipsed the transcendent.
Taylor doesn't believe it's possible for humans to completely avoid questions of transcendence. Though science enlightens us regarding the material world, it has also served to drown out the voices of the spirit, which were more easily heard in previous times. Yet there are testimonies of those in history who have been awakened to the transcendent, to love. It's interesting that Taylor points to the lives of such "saints" as evidence for his thesis, and not to the Scriptures. The Scripture helps us see the "light" in these saints. Additionally, Taylor advocates that art and beauty point to something transcendent, something of value and meaning, as an indicator of non-materialistic reality.
The final part of the book is a mild apologetic for Christianity (Roman Catholic) as the most satisfying answer for the question of meaning and for ultimate human flourishing.
The book is a long and difficult read due to its subject matter, but also because it is largely the transcript of a series of talks.
Why is it that 500 years ago it was difficult to not believe in God, but today it is difficult to believe in him? What happened? While the common assumption is that science is slowly eroding away any credible belief in God, Taylor challenges this assumption and asserts that the reality is more complicated.
Words he uses to describe secularization are “disenchantment,” “imminent frame,” and the “Reform Master Narrative.” He addresses not only how these historical movements impact religion and science, but also how they’re integrated into contemporary politics and sexuality, and how they manifest in individualism, ideas of liberty, and morality. Over time, these movements make it more difficult to see beyond the frame of the material, and such a worldview becomes “natural.”
But as hard as it is to believe, it can be equally hard to disbelieve. The world is haunted.
Both secular and spiritual worldviews require certain leaps of faith and raise unanswerable questions, though this is not often recognized in a secular context. Both strive for "fulfillment." A secular worldview finds this in humanistic flourishing, which leads to individualism and is defined by personal happiness. A spiritual worldview points to something more important than personal fulfillment, and therefore calls for sacrifice and the reigning in of personal desires. A secular humanist views this as holding back human potential and denying the essence of humanity. Spiritual worldviews see such paths ("itineraries") as leading to the fulfillment of ultimate human potential. Both of these views are addressing the question of "meaning" in life.
Especially interesting was the contribution (rather than the challenge) that the Reformers and Protestant Christianity made to the rise of secularism. If I understood Taylor correctly, this occurred in North America through Deism and modernism, belief that we could/must order the moral, political world according to divine laws built into the material universe. It also happened as the result of “reform,” or the call for every individual to be 100% Christian. This flattening of hierarchy, the removal of sacred time, the priesthood of all believers, and the ordinary vocations of life being opened as avenues of divine service inadvertently eclipsed the transcendent.
Taylor doesn't believe it's possible for humans to completely avoid questions of transcendence. Though science enlightens us regarding the material world, it has also served to drown out the voices of the spirit, which were more easily heard in previous times. Yet there are testimonies of those in history who have been awakened to the transcendent, to love. It's interesting that Taylor points to the lives of such "saints" as evidence for his thesis, and not to the Scriptures. The Scripture helps us see the "light" in these saints. Additionally, Taylor advocates that art and beauty point to something transcendent, something of value and meaning, as an indicator of non-materialistic reality.
The final part of the book is a mild apologetic for Christianity (Roman Catholic) as the most satisfying answer for the question of meaning and for ultimate human flourishing.
The book is a long and difficult read due to its subject matter, but also because it is largely the transcript of a series of talks.
jacksezerhga's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.75
This book is hard to chug through. I believe Taylor is brilliant in skill and capabilities, but accessible writing is not one. However, I will refer to this book for the rest of my life probably. Taylor attempts a very grueling task of deconstructing the theories and histories that contribute to our secular age. His knowledge on politics, philosophy, history, and theology is absurdly expansive. This book will be a historical document, an absolute amalgam of intellectuality.
charityjohnson's review against another edition
2.0
It's close to blasphemy not to give it a higher rating. However, I got nothing from it that wasn't already self-evident to a thinking person.
However....
However....
davehershey's review against another edition
5.0
Who Should Read this Book - Anyone who wants to understand how the secular modern world came into existence in the centuries following 1500.
What’s the Big Takeaway - The story of secularism and modernity that people learn science and reject religion, is deficient and not grounded in reality. Taylor offers a much more nuanced story that portrays the secular world as one in which there are many live options from belief to unbelief and no option is uncontested.
And a quote - How do I pick a quote from an 800 page book like this?
How about - “But the expressivist outlook takes this a stage farther. The religious life or practice that I become part of must not only be my choice, but it must speak to me, it must make sense in terms of my spiritual development as I understand this. . . But if the focus is going now to be on my spiritual path, thus on what insights come to me in the subtler languages that I find meaningful, then maintaining this or any other framework becomes increasingly difficult” (486).
I read this book exactly ten years ago. I was blown away by the breadth and depth of the work. It is probably not too much to say Taylor’s work here completely changed how I understood what it meant to be secular and living in the modern world. I’ve overheard SO MANY discussions on podcasts and at coffee shops and churches where I want to just chime in, “you should read Charles Taylor.”
Of course, most normal people do not have the time or energy to read a mammoth book like this. I’m not sure what it says about me that I’ve now read it twice.
But in the last ten years, I have often wondered how much I missed in this book. Since then, I have read plenty of other books on the same subject. Further, I have seen plenty of authors interact with Taylor. I think CS Lewis said something about how great books are ones that demand rereads. Usually I only reread fiction. Yet, I felt 2021 was the year to dive back in to Taylor. I read his other magnificent work, Sources of Self, over the summer. This one took quite a bit longer because its longer, and I work on a university campus so I’ve been busier.
That said, I got so much more out of this reread. Actually, come to think of it, I wish I had underlined in a different color so I could come back in another ten years!
Taylor’s question is how come in 1500 belief in God was taken for granted and today it is highly contested. He presses back against the common “subtraction story” that we just learned science and discarded religion. Its nowhere near this simple. His definition of a secular age is where all beliefs are contested. Even we who believe the ancient doctrines of Christianity will inevitably experience them differently for we know we have choices and other “live options”. We are, as Taylor says, cross-pressured. But so too are those who reject belief in God; they are haunted by a lack of transcendence.
We’re all secular.
The story Taylor tell of how we got there focuses on Reform. I’ve seen some reviewers accuse Taylor of blaming secularism on the Reformation. This demonstrates a simple failure to get his point (which is okay, its a long book and I’m sure I didn’t always get his point) because he explicitly says the Reform movement as he is speaking of predates the Protestant Reformation. He speaks of the decision at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 that all Catholics must take communion once a year. Prior to this, the Church had settled in to two tracks towards spiritual growth - a fast track for monks and other mystic types and a slower track for the rest of us. Space was given for people to let loose (Carnival) and not everyone was expected to live like Jesus all the time (be “radical” as we might put it today). But the church began to desire to elevate all of culture.
Eventually though, this elevation could not be sustained. Plus, this-worldly ends came to be seen as the primary ends. There has always been a tension in Christianity between human flourishing and self-denial - Jesus healed and fed people but also called people to give it all up. The call for all people to move up ended up sort of leveling out and kind of bringing people down.
There is a lot more to the story! Taylor speaks of disenchantment which is another HUGE point. The premodern world was enchanted, filled with spirits and angels and all sorts of things. It was a cosmos full of life. Now we look out and just see a natural world. Closing off the supernatural, we live “buffered” selves in an “immanent” frame.
The great thing about Taylor is that this is not esoteric mumbo-jumbo. You can see the practical, real world truth. I think of communion as we non-Catholics take it. We see it as remembering which implies all that is happening is happening inside our heads. Rather than seeing power out there in the elements, bringing God into us, its just in our minds, disembodied from participating in creation the way the ancients did.
At one point, Taylor was talking of how people were questioning religion and moving away from the faith of their parents. But this is a cycle, where the next generation may move back to the faith. I had just been in a conversation with friends about “deconstruction” and “exvangelicals” and “ex-Christians” and realized all this has been going on for centuries. There were numerous other moments where Taylor pinpointed things that were happening and even pointed to changes that have come about in the 15 years since the book was published.
Overall, its a brilliant book. Its certainly work. If anyone wants encouragement, know that Taylor does write it almost as a story (at least the first half or so). That said, he does meander and go off on tangents and could have made the same basic argument in 3/4 the pages. But its a feast and worth the time.
2011 review:
Wow. Absolutely fantastic. This is certainly one of the best, most challenging, books that I have ever read. I am still turning over in my mind many of the points Taylor makes. Reading this book reminds me why I read difficult books - I am sure I did not get all of it, but being stretched in reading it was a joy in itself.
Taylor basic goal is to answer why it was next to impossible not to believe in God in 1500 whereas today it is very difficult to believe in God. What caused this change in our culture, almost a complete reversal, in the last 500 years?
Many have said the answer is simple - we discovered science and thus rejected religion. You see this answer from atheists who sell a lot more books then Taylor does, people like Dawkins and Harris. While the rise of science did play a part, Taylor convincingly argues...strike that, he shows historically that this explanation is way too simple. There were many reasons that led tot his change - the Reformation leading to disenchantment, the rise of a discipline culture and more.
Today it is difficult to believe, though Taylor does show that any position one takes is fraught with some difficulty. We live in a world with many live options.
There is a lot more to say, though that would require me going back with a fine-tooth comb over my highlights. Maybe some other day...
What’s the Big Takeaway - The story of secularism and modernity that people learn science and reject religion, is deficient and not grounded in reality. Taylor offers a much more nuanced story that portrays the secular world as one in which there are many live options from belief to unbelief and no option is uncontested.
And a quote - How do I pick a quote from an 800 page book like this?
How about - “But the expressivist outlook takes this a stage farther. The religious life or practice that I become part of must not only be my choice, but it must speak to me, it must make sense in terms of my spiritual development as I understand this. . . But if the focus is going now to be on my spiritual path, thus on what insights come to me in the subtler languages that I find meaningful, then maintaining this or any other framework becomes increasingly difficult” (486).
I read this book exactly ten years ago. I was blown away by the breadth and depth of the work. It is probably not too much to say Taylor’s work here completely changed how I understood what it meant to be secular and living in the modern world. I’ve overheard SO MANY discussions on podcasts and at coffee shops and churches where I want to just chime in, “you should read Charles Taylor.”
Of course, most normal people do not have the time or energy to read a mammoth book like this. I’m not sure what it says about me that I’ve now read it twice.
But in the last ten years, I have often wondered how much I missed in this book. Since then, I have read plenty of other books on the same subject. Further, I have seen plenty of authors interact with Taylor. I think CS Lewis said something about how great books are ones that demand rereads. Usually I only reread fiction. Yet, I felt 2021 was the year to dive back in to Taylor. I read his other magnificent work, Sources of Self, over the summer. This one took quite a bit longer because its longer, and I work on a university campus so I’ve been busier.
That said, I got so much more out of this reread. Actually, come to think of it, I wish I had underlined in a different color so I could come back in another ten years!
Taylor’s question is how come in 1500 belief in God was taken for granted and today it is highly contested. He presses back against the common “subtraction story” that we just learned science and discarded religion. Its nowhere near this simple. His definition of a secular age is where all beliefs are contested. Even we who believe the ancient doctrines of Christianity will inevitably experience them differently for we know we have choices and other “live options”. We are, as Taylor says, cross-pressured. But so too are those who reject belief in God; they are haunted by a lack of transcendence.
We’re all secular.
The story Taylor tell of how we got there focuses on Reform. I’ve seen some reviewers accuse Taylor of blaming secularism on the Reformation. This demonstrates a simple failure to get his point (which is okay, its a long book and I’m sure I didn’t always get his point) because he explicitly says the Reform movement as he is speaking of predates the Protestant Reformation. He speaks of the decision at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 that all Catholics must take communion once a year. Prior to this, the Church had settled in to two tracks towards spiritual growth - a fast track for monks and other mystic types and a slower track for the rest of us. Space was given for people to let loose (Carnival) and not everyone was expected to live like Jesus all the time (be “radical” as we might put it today). But the church began to desire to elevate all of culture.
Eventually though, this elevation could not be sustained. Plus, this-worldly ends came to be seen as the primary ends. There has always been a tension in Christianity between human flourishing and self-denial - Jesus healed and fed people but also called people to give it all up. The call for all people to move up ended up sort of leveling out and kind of bringing people down.
There is a lot more to the story! Taylor speaks of disenchantment which is another HUGE point. The premodern world was enchanted, filled with spirits and angels and all sorts of things. It was a cosmos full of life. Now we look out and just see a natural world. Closing off the supernatural, we live “buffered” selves in an “immanent” frame.
The great thing about Taylor is that this is not esoteric mumbo-jumbo. You can see the practical, real world truth. I think of communion as we non-Catholics take it. We see it as remembering which implies all that is happening is happening inside our heads. Rather than seeing power out there in the elements, bringing God into us, its just in our minds, disembodied from participating in creation the way the ancients did.
At one point, Taylor was talking of how people were questioning religion and moving away from the faith of their parents. But this is a cycle, where the next generation may move back to the faith. I had just been in a conversation with friends about “deconstruction” and “exvangelicals” and “ex-Christians” and realized all this has been going on for centuries. There were numerous other moments where Taylor pinpointed things that were happening and even pointed to changes that have come about in the 15 years since the book was published.
Overall, its a brilliant book. Its certainly work. If anyone wants encouragement, know that Taylor does write it almost as a story (at least the first half or so). That said, he does meander and go off on tangents and could have made the same basic argument in 3/4 the pages. But its a feast and worth the time.
2011 review:
Wow. Absolutely fantastic. This is certainly one of the best, most challenging, books that I have ever read. I am still turning over in my mind many of the points Taylor makes. Reading this book reminds me why I read difficult books - I am sure I did not get all of it, but being stretched in reading it was a joy in itself.
Taylor basic goal is to answer why it was next to impossible not to believe in God in 1500 whereas today it is very difficult to believe in God. What caused this change in our culture, almost a complete reversal, in the last 500 years?
Many have said the answer is simple - we discovered science and thus rejected religion. You see this answer from atheists who sell a lot more books then Taylor does, people like Dawkins and Harris. While the rise of science did play a part, Taylor convincingly argues...strike that, he shows historically that this explanation is way too simple. There were many reasons that led tot his change - the Reformation leading to disenchantment, the rise of a discipline culture and more.
Today it is difficult to believe, though Taylor does show that any position one takes is fraught with some difficulty. We live in a world with many live options.
There is a lot more to say, though that would require me going back with a fine-tooth comb over my highlights. Maybe some other day...
jpwright87's review against another edition
5.0
Well I finally finished it. And I must say: it's awesome. This book gives me a better glimpse of Western Civilization as a whole than any other book I can remember. It's a little long and a little repetitive, but my God it's ambitious. It's too soon to tell, but this book will probably cast a large shadow over my own views on the subject.
The first half, roughly, follows the historical development of "secularity" (he gives 3 types), his favorite points being the late Middle Ages and the so called "Axial Age" (a period between the 8th and 3rd century BC, if I remember correctly). The second half moves closer to modern cultural commentary and then also Catholic apologetics as Taylor sketches different possible responses to current times. His main argument is that secularity has not grown as religiosity (my word) has waned, but that secularity grew within compatible religious viewpoints (that's a Foucault thing, I'm pretty sure) and that the two were only recently disconnected, and that only by a misunderstanding. Within that overarching argument is what seems like a life's work of sticking points and theories, using history, philosophy, theology, and even poetry.
The first half, roughly, follows the historical development of "secularity" (he gives 3 types), his favorite points being the late Middle Ages and the so called "Axial Age" (a period between the 8th and 3rd century BC, if I remember correctly). The second half moves closer to modern cultural commentary and then also Catholic apologetics as Taylor sketches different possible responses to current times. His main argument is that secularity has not grown as religiosity (my word) has waned, but that secularity grew within compatible religious viewpoints (that's a Foucault thing, I'm pretty sure) and that the two were only recently disconnected, and that only by a misunderstanding. Within that overarching argument is what seems like a life's work of sticking points and theories, using history, philosophy, theology, and even poetry.
coco_randolph's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
mattshervheim's review
challenging
informative
5.0
Getting through the 42-hour audiobook of A Secular Age in two days... was a lot. My head is swimming. But: James K.A. Smith suggested in How Not to Be Secular that the best way to approach Taylor is as a romantic, someone who wants to capture the feeling and experience of the ideas he explores, and reading A Secular Age all at once, as a novel, a great historical romance, has been uniquely enjoyable.
There are points where I might disagree with Taylor (his discussion of therapy, for example, could be deepened and complicated with an engagement with trauma) and I'm not sold on some of his conclusions (i.e. I'm not planning to become a Catholic) but he approaches the ideas and figures he writes about with a robust intelligence, an openness to uncertainly, and a reverence for those who had gone before – "everything counts" for him – that I deeply respect. And I'm not sure any metaphor is more helpful for making sense of the experience of life today than Taylor's notion of "cross-pressured space." 5/5 but would give stars more if I could.
There are points where I might disagree with Taylor (his discussion of therapy, for example, could be deepened and complicated with an engagement with trauma) and I'm not sold on some of his conclusions (i.e. I'm not planning to become a Catholic) but he approaches the ideas and figures he writes about with a robust intelligence, an openness to uncertainly, and a reverence for those who had gone before – "everything counts" for him – that I deeply respect. And I'm not sure any metaphor is more helpful for making sense of the experience of life today than Taylor's notion of "cross-pressured space." 5/5 but would give stars more if I could.
ryanbroadfoot's review against another edition
Need more time to read this book. Will pick up again later.
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