In this episode we look at the idea of goodness and how humanity has shifted its understanding of why we pursue it.

How did humanity come to accept goodness in the same movement as distancing themselves from God? How did agape love descend to a form of measured universal sympathy? Is this is natural progression of humanity once the structures of religion are removed? We explore these and other questions, and seek to address the issue of how to be a missionary in this space in today's world.

"They could find within their own human resources the motivation to universal beneficence and justice" (p248).

"The disengaged, disciplined agent, capable of remaking the self, who has discovered and thus released in himself the awesome power of control, is obviously one of the crucial supports of modern exclusive humanism" (p 257).

"Like all striking human achievement, there is something in it which resists reduction to these enabling conditions" (p258).

"The core of the subtraction story consists in this, that we only needed to get these perverse and illusory condemnations off our back, and the value of ordinary human desire shines out, in its true nature, as it has always been" (p253).

References:

-Pages of A Secular Age, Charles Taylor: (242-259)

Website:

-https://sites.google.com/contemplatingculture

In this episode we look at the development of the Modern Moral Order as expressed in "polite society", the power of this communally held notion, and the impact of this upon religion and people of faith. Polite society has bequeathed us tolerance, but is this really what we're called to?

References:

-Pages of A Secular Age, Charles Taylor: (234-242)

Website:

https://sites.google.com/contemplatingculture

In this episode we look at the 3 forces Charles Taylor proposes as fuelling the rise of deism:

-the success of the order project, the mentality that "we can do it on our own"

-continuation of the ideals of the reformation, the decline of the mysterious and heroic as the ordinary vocations are affirmed

-reaction against the 'juridicial-penal' model, where self-interest came to be accepted as good in a rejection of the "depraved humanity" of Jansenism

We discuss what was it may have been like for the individual and their life of faith living in this period of transition, as well as the response of theologians through theodicy (giving an account for God). Taylor sums up this response when he says "Now that we think we see how it all works... [people begin discussing divine justice] and the theologians begin to feel that this is the challenge they must meet to fight back the coming wave of unbelief" (p. 233).

References:

-Pages of A Secular Age, Charles Taylor: (226-234)

Website:

https://sites.google.com/contemplatingculture

We proceed into looking at Part II: The Turning Point, as Charles Taylor outlines deism as a hinge point between classic Christianity and exclusive humanism.

In this episode we look at the 4 anthropocentric shifts Taylor outlines that characterise the shift to providential deism:

i) the eclipse of higher purpose than human flourishing in the here and now

ii) the eclipse of grace and intervention of God in daily life

iii) the eclipse of mystery and reduction of the world to a knowable closed unit

iv) the eclipse of the goal of human transformation/deification in this life

Taylor says of this line of Christianity that "it barely involved the saving action of Christ, nor did it dwell on the life of devotion and prayer, although the 17th century was rich in this. The argument turned exclusively on demonstrating God as reator, and showing his Providence" (p 225).

References:

-Pages of A Secular Age, Charles Taylor: (221-225)

Website:

https://sites.google.com/contemplatingculture

In our second episode with Bishop Mark Edwards OMI, we explore the role of a missionary within a culture.

Matteo Ricci SJ provides the example of taking Christianity into China, where he offers us three key guides for this kind of mission: i) befriend the people, ii) disentangle faith from your own culture so that you can inculturate into the new culture, and iii) seek to be authentic to your faith and to the culture you are living in.

Plenty of thought-provoking questions in this one.

Reflection:

-How do I feel about living in the culture and times that I do?

-What do I understand the missionary task to be in today's world?

References:

-'A Catholic Modernity', Charles Taylor (https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=uscc_marianist_award)

-'A Catholic Modernity: 25 Years On', Charles Taylor (https://www.aup-online.com/content/journals/10.5117/NTT2021.3/4.009.TAYL)

-'Matteo Ricci, Missionary of Inculturation', Jesuits Communication Office (https://www.jesuits.global/2022/12/19/matteo-ricci-missionary-of-inculturation/) -'Matteo Ricci: Shaped by the Chinese', Nicolas Standaert (https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20100521_1.htm)

In this very special episode of Contemplating Culture, Bishop Mark Edwards from Wagga Wagga Diocese in regional New South Wales joins us as we review Part I: The Work of Reform.

We look at key learnings, themes that stick out to us, and try and hold together the overarching story of the road travelled with Charles Taylor to date.

Reflection:

-Why did I begin listening to this podcast?

-What episodes have stuck out to me so far? Why?

-email us at: contemplatingculture@gmail.com

References:

-A Secular Age, Charles Taylor: (1-218)

In the conclusion of Part I: The Work of Reform, we spend some time reflecting on what the driving force behind history is. Is it ideas that provide the power for change (Idealism), or do the external factors and motivations lead the way and wait for the ideas to take shape around them (Materialism)?

Taylor concludes in The Spectre of Idealism that it is both.

As missionaries, it is not just the movements of society through history, but the history of individual lives that we are concerned with. In this episode we explore how these principles apply for the big personal shift through history of conversion.

References:

-Pages of A Secular Age, Charles Taylor: (212-218)

Website:

https://sites.google.com/contemplatingculture

This week we look at one of the bequests of the shifting social imaginary: direct access society.

As things started to become more 'secular' (relating exclusively to ordinary time), the importance of higher times and therefore those that mediate to these higher times (priests, kings, etc) diminishes. What unfolds is the direct-access citizen-state, and the implications of this are huge.

We cover Taylor Swift, Jesus as a Saviour vs. Jesus as a friend, and a smattering of in-betweens.

Reflection:

-How does my own faith hold the tension of direct and mediated access to God?

References:

-Pages of A Secular Age, Charles Taylor: (207-211)

Website:

https://sites.google.com/contemplatingculture