Secularity is Optionality
Being "Based" will not save you, or your children, from our options. We can't RETVRN
I’ve been meditating on what Charles Taylor calls “Secularity #3”. In his quest to define secularity in the introduction to A Secular Age, Taylor sets up two fairly conventional and uncontroversial definitions: Secularity #1 is the separation of civil matters from church matters as the basic version, followed by the “falling off of religious practice and belief.” The first basically meaning that to engage in public life you need no longer participate in any but the most nominal forms of church. Secularity #2 is the simple observation that people have stopped going to church. These are fairly anodyne, and mostly obvious. But for a book that has around 775 pages left, he points us to a third notion of secularity which he frames as “optionality.” He notes that in our secular age, “[b]elief in God is no longer axiomatic. There are alternatives.” The very term “secular” has morphed over the millennia, from a notion meaning “this age” or “this lifetime” to be seen in relief with “eternity.” Matters of early importance were deemed secular, while matters of heavenly importance were considered Later, it was used as a distinction between cloistered religious versus parochial religious, with responsibilities having to do with parish life. It was not until the nineteenth century that our notions of secular as “not Christian” or “not religious” comes into use.
But it is clear to all with eyes to see, we live in a secular age, believer and non-believer alike, and the fundamental character of that “lived experience” is optionality.
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