Assessment

Essay 40%, final exam 60%

Module Aims

This module deals with the origins of secularism in the light of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age and Brad Gregory’s The Unintended Reformation, chapter 1: ‘Excluding God’.

They both exclude the subtraction theory, found among the New Atheists, which claims that Christianity was overcome from outside by a more rational, less superstitious attitude.

The course deals with both Taylor’s ‘Reform Master Narrative’ and Gregory’s variant of the ‘Intellectual Deviation Narrative’ which point to social, philosophical, and theological diagnosis of atheism and secularism as emerging from a flattening of the Christian narrative itself.

It concludes with suggestions emerging from the narratives which can contribute to a re-invigoration of Christian faith and practice.

Learning Outcomes

• — Discuss the phenomenon of secularity and the ways in which Charles Taylor distinguishes present-day secularism from previous types.
• — Discuss the impact of secularity in the Western world and how it frames the way people – even religious people – think about faith.
• — Understand the different ways that thinkers have explained the genesis of secularism.
• — Compare Taylor’s and Gregory’s analyses to each other.
• — Describe the Catholic Church’s description of Secularism particularly in Gaudium et Spes and Ecclesia in Europa.
• — Discuss and critique the New Atheists’ approach to these matters, showing to what extent they are unintentionally drawing from the developments mentioned by Gregory and Taylor.