Our Secular Age: Ten Years of Reading and Applying Charles Taylor

“Charles Taylors A Secular Age is a landmark book, and the essays collected here ponder it intelligently and charitably. Some echo Taylor, some extend his ideas, some contest his claims, but all engage his argument with a seriousness that the book deservesand that Christs church needs.”

“The social imaginary, the buffered self, and the immanent framethese Charles Taylor neologisms and more are illuminated and expounded (and critiqued) in this helpful collection of essays, shedding light on aspects of our present age, from theology to politics and from art and to medicine. After reading these chapters, I was compelled to do two things: (1) I revised the sermon I was to preach the next day, and (2) I went online and ordered A Secular Age. I want to know more!”

“Easily one of the best books Ive read this year. Here is wisdom from Taylor, received with appreciation and appropriate criticism, with application for Christians on mission in North America in the 21st century.”

“To be secular, says philosopher Charles Taylor, is to have no final goals beyond this-worldly human flourishing. This is only one of the many insights from which pastors can pro t from Taylors work in their ministry of the gospel to an age that has substituted spirituality and authenticity for religion and doctrine. The essays in this helpful volume do more than borrow from Taylor: they engage, question, develop, and occasionally criticize his influential account of our complex cultural moment in which we allmoderns and postmoderns, millennials and non-millennialsare trying to live, move, and have our being as disciples of Jesus Christ. Reading and applying the insights of those who have read and applied Taylor is a salutary exercise in understanding oneself and others in an age that is not only secular, but fragile, frustrated, and confused.”

“As Christians, we sometimes misunderstand not only the answers our secular neighbors have but the questions they are asking too. No philosopher has offered more insight regarding the state of belief in the modern age than Charles Taylor. In Our Secular Age, first-rate evangelical scholars and practitioners deliver 13 essays in which they explore and apply Taylors thought. This work will bene t all Christians by teaching them to communicate the gospel to a secular culture with neither ignorance nor fear.”