Notes on Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age

In 2007 Professor Charles Taylor published his monumental A Secular Age (Belnap Press of Harvard University Press). It is widely regarded as the premier philosophical examination of the various meanings and history of the word ‘secular.’ By his own account the text began in 1999 as the Gifford Lectures, comprising now Parts I, II, III of the present text. Parts IV and V were in view during the Lectures but not brought to print until the 2007 text.

In the fall of 2009 I began meeting with a group of pastors and laity at our cabin—“Anchor Point”—on Ft. Gibson Lake in eastern Oklahoma to work through Taylor’s text. In preparing for our discussions I began constructing my own ‘notes’ on Taylor’s text. In the hope that a few readers of this website might find these notes useful, I am posting them herein.

Comments welcomed.

Notes on Intro, Part I The Work of Reform.pdf

Notes on Pt II The Turning Point and Pt III The Nova Effect

Notes on Pt IV Narratives of Secularization

Notes on Pt V Conditions of Belief