Faith as an Option: the 21st Century Religious and Spiritual Scene
In this lecture, Canadian philosopher, Charles Taylor, will examine the conditions of belief in the contemporary West. Our current situation is one in which Western Christendom — a society and civilization meant to reflect the Christian faith in all its facets — is unraveling. The faith exists in all kinds of societies, including those built historically around cultures quite alien to Christianity. But we are definitely living in a post-Christendom culture; the common world we all share is moving away from the essential features of Christendom. What does this cultural situation mean for the orientations and forms of Christian faith, as well as for other spiritual paths? How can these many paths relate to each other today?
Dr. Charles Taylor
One of Canada’s most important thinkers, Dr. Charles Taylor has long challenged the idea that the Enlightenment’s rational movement had reduced notions like morality and spirituality into anachronisms. Such a narrow, reductive approach denies a fuller account of human meaning. Dr. Taylor’s extensive writings and lectures have covered a range of subjects such as individual rights and collective responsibility, language, social behavior, morality and multiculturalism. In 2007, he joined with sociologist Gérard Bouchard to chair the Québec Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences; he received the Templeton Prize; and he published A Secular Age, the significant study of the changing place of religion in our societies. Dr. Taylor was appointed Companion of the Order of Canada in 1995, and Grand Officer of the Ordre national du Québec in 2000.