Monday, April 7, 2014

Charles Taylor, Varieties of Religion Today *** 1/2

Two factors motivated me to read this short book, based on a series of lectures. First, it's a contemporary response to William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience, which is a favorite book of mine (and also based on a lecture series). Second, it's written by Charles Taylor, a philosopher whose magnum opus A Secular Age has tempted me many times. Varieties of Religion Today provides an accessible introduction to his ideas and writing style.

I enjoyed the first two sections, which analyze James' approach and situate it within Taylor's more expansive view of "religious experience." Taylor points out that James focuses entirely on the psychological aspects of religious experience at the expense of the social aspects of religious experience, and furthermore on its emotional components rather than its intellectual components. Taylor identifies the benefits that James gains from this approach -- drawing attention to the moment when a person decides what to believe -- but he (Taylor) is more interested in looking at the social aspects of religious experience.

In the third section of the book, Taylor looks at the evolution of modern belief as it relates to the link between religion and the community as a whole. In medieval times, the church was the community, and the legitimacy of the government flowed from the same source. In modern times, people choose the denomination to which they belong, but most still think of their larger community (such as their country) as having a special relationship to God's purposes. I found Taylor's ideas suggestive, but this section felt sketchier than the earlier ones. Maybe I need to plunge into the massive A Secular Age to learn the details.

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