In his landmark book, A Secular Age, Canadian philosopher Charles Margrave Taylor says, [religion] “remains powerful in memory; but also as a kind of reserve fund of spiritual force or consolation.” (p. 522) What are the implications of preaching the Gospel, whether as pastor in an established congregation or in a new mission? What is the relationship of a “neo-Durkheimian” memory in this secular age to our preparation and delivery of sermons? Of our liturgy? Is a secular man’s memory of the sacred past best ushered into the sanctuary of the living God through deep, serious tones and the most exquisite artistic expressions of that memory? Or by a lighter expression, mirroring the secular age, that presents as being disconnected from the sacred memory?
References
Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.
Volf, Miroslav. A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2011.
Williams, Rowan. Faith in the Public Square. London: Bloomsbury, 2012.