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One of the
most important books to be published in these opening years of the 21st
century in philosopher Charles Taylor’s A
Secular Age. It is the story of a cultural journey, tracing the steps
involved in moving from a world in which belief was considered normative to the
world in which we live today where that is no longer the case. The downside is
that the book consists of 776 pages of densely argued prose. So we can be glad
for James K. A. Smith’s How (Not) to be
Secular, weighing in at 139 pages, that admirably extracts and summarizes
the heart of Taylor’s arguments and conclusions.
One
fascinating point that Taylor makes is that the movement to secularism in
society has an intense effect on how believers believe. Even if we are careful
to remain orthodox in our religious convictions and practice, living in an age
of unbelief means that our relationship to our faith will be markedly different
from that of believers who lived, say, in Europe in 1500.
One way
things is different, Taylor argues, is in what he terms the fragilization of belief. Smith defines
it this way in his helpful Glossary:
Fragilization In
the face of different options, where people who lead “normal” lives do not
share my faith (and perhaps believe something very different), my own faith
commitment becomes fragile—put into question, dubitable. (p. 141)
Taylor discusses the phenomenon in various places in A Secular Age, and in one place
describes it this way by saying we need to imagine what things were like 500
years ago:
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At
that time, non-belief in God was close to unthinkable for the vast majority;
whereas today this is not at all the case. One might be tempted to say that in
certain milieux, the reverse has become true, that belief is unthinkable. But
this exaggeration already shows up the lack of symmetry. It is truer to say
that in our world, a whole gamut of positions, from the most militant atheism
to the most orthodox traditional theisms, passing through every possible
position on the way, are represented and defended somewhere in our society.
Something like the unthinkability of some of these positions can be experienced
in certain milieux, but what is ruled out will vary from context to context. An
atheist in the Bible belt has trouble being understood, as often (in a rather
different way) do believing Christians in certain reaches of the academy. But,
of course, people in each of these contexts are aware that the others exist,
and that the option they can't really credit is the default option elsewhere in
the same society whether they regard this with hostility or just perplexity.
The existence of an alternative fragilizes each context, that is, makes its
sense of the thinkable/unthinkable uncertain and wavering.
This fragilization is then increased
by the fact that great numbers of people are not firmly embedded in any such
context, but are puzzled, cross-pressured, or have constituted by bricolage a
sort of median position. The existence of these people raises sometimes even
more acute doubts within the more assured milieux. The polar opposites can be
written off as just mad or bad, as we see with the present American culture
wars between “liberals” and “fundamentalists”; but the intermediate positions
can sometimes not be so easily dismissed. (p. 556-557)
The irony
of all this, of course, is that Taylor may be correct in this—I am convinced he
is—while we remain more or less unaware of the situation. We weren’t around 500
years ago, have grown up in our secular age, and so whatever it consists of is
simply part of our normal. As I have read Taylor, on the other hand, my
experience has been less learning something utterly alien so much as seeing
what’s been in front of me all along but that I haven’t been able to name.
And so my
question to you—Does fragilization
strike you as correctly identifying some of the reality of life and faith we
experience today? Where do you see or experience it? I invite your comments.
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This entry was posted
at Monday, September 29, 2014
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Belief,
Charles Taylor,
Christian faith,
Fundamentalism,
Liberalism,
Secularism
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