I invited Charles Taylor years ago to give a lecture at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C. I asked him to speak on the topic of how we in the West went from the ancient idea of the soul to the modern idea of the self. He gave a beautiful talk and answered questions, and then we had a small dinner in his honor.

Several conservative luminaries were present: Irving Kristol, Charles Murray, Ben Wattenberg, and Michael Novak (who also won a Templeton prize). It became clear to all present that Taylor's political leanings are left of center. Later someone said, "We have to overlook the guy's politics. He's Canadian!"

Taylor's political slant may be the price he pays for maintaining his intellectual credibility in a very liberal academic climate. But even though he would never put it this way, Taylor's philosophical work is profoundly conservative and Christian. In fact it illuminates the spiritual landscape on which most of us traditional Christians drowsily dwell. It provides intellectual ammunition for our convictions. The only thing it doesn't do is offer a strategic plan of action.

Taylor's magnum opus is Sources of the Self, a magisterial account first published in 1989 of the origins of the modern identity. This book is an education in itself, and I suggest reading it twice, once to grasp the powerful and sweeping scope of the argument, and then a second time, to digest the rich morsels. Here you will see how traditional Christian morality was supplanted in the West by the morality of the inner self, so that we now have two rival moralities contesting the public sphere, with Christian morality on the defensive and what Taylor calls the morality of authenticity in the ascendancy.

Taylor's book The Ethics of Authenticity is a wonderful short account of why our young people today attach such a high value to such things as "sincerity" and "self-fulfillment." Somehow Polonius' advice to Laertes—"To thine own self be true"—has become a kind of contemporary gospel. Taylor describes it this way: "There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way and not in imitation of anyone else's. This gives a new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life, I miss what being human is for me." Taylor traces the intellectual lineage of this way of thinking, and shows why some of the most enthusiastic backers of modernity fail to appreciate the deeper moral sources that modernity draws and indeed depends on.

I first encountered Taylor in the mid-1990s through his book Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition. Accustomed as I was to having my own critique of political correctness challenged by academics educated beyond their intelligence, I was astounded to find in Taylor a much more profound account of the rise of identity politics than anything I had encountered. Basically Taylor makes the case for the universal application of fundamental liberal principles while at the same time making room for recognizing group identity and group claims where only secondary liberal values are concerned. I apply some of Taylor's insights to the Muslims in my most recent book The Enemy at Home.

Taylor's work has become more explicitly religious in recent years, and perhaps not surprisingly, so has mine. Taylor's most recent book, published in 2003, was a new interpretation of William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience. Taylor shows why James is still relevant and that even though some forms of the old-time religion don't make much sense today, in other ways religion is more relevant than ever to make practical sense of our lives. I don't consider this book Taylor's best effort, but that still makes it very good.

I wish I could read Taylor's forthcoming book on secularism now, since I am in the process of finishing What's So Great About Christianity. But Taylor's A Secular Age is not out until September. This is Taylor's eagerly-awaited study of how we came to live in a secular age. At one time virtually all of the orbit of life in the West was shaped by religion and specifically Christianity. But now we live in a time and place where our political, economic, scientific and cultural activities are largely removed from the sphere of religion. I want to learn from Taylor what we have gained and what we have lost, and whether it is possible to retrieve some things that have been hastily left behind.

Taylor's Templeton award will, I am sure, free him to be even more productive in the future. This is one of the best things that philanthropy can do: find a man of genius like Taylor and then liberate him to focus completely on his work. Don't even let the man make his own bed or clear his dishes. This is how the dukes and earls of old got so much work out of the artists they patronized. The Templeton foundation is in this great tradition. Eventually I think this prize will come to be seen as more important than the Nobel. Charles Taylor is one of the reasons why.

Charles Taylor's A Secular Age Will Be Released in September 2007

What does it mean to say that we live in a secular age? Almost everyone would agree that we--in the West, at least--largely do. And clearly the place of religion in our societies has changed profoundly in the last few centuries. In what will be a defining book for our time, Charles Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean--of what, precisely, happens when a society in which it is virtually impossible not to believe in God becomes one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is only one human possibility among others.

Taylor, long one of our most insightful thinkers on such questions, offers a historical perspective. He examines the development in "Western Christendom" of those aspects of modernity which we call secular. What he describes is in fact not a single, continuous transformation, but a series of new departures, in which earlier forms of religious life have been dissolved or destabilized and new ones have been created. As we see here, today's secular world is characterized not by an absence of religion--although in some societies religious belief and practice have markedly declined--but rather by the continuing multiplication of new options, religious, spiritual, and anti-religious, which individuals and groups seize on in order to make sense of their lives and give shape to their spiritual aspirations.

Harvard University Press

Richard Dawkins has not been shy about criticizing parents for transmitting the claims of religious faith to their children. He's gone so far as to assert that it is tantamount to child abuse to use parental authority for teaching children religious tenets they are not mature enough to question.

However Dawkins has been on the defensive for quite sometime by disabusing children of notions that might preclude them from pure scientific thought. Last month the Dawkin's foundation released a DVD set, marketed for children called: Growing Up in the Universe. The content is nothing new. The DVD's feature lectures given by Dawkins in 1991 for the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children, which aired on the BBC that same year.

"Oxford professor Richard Dawkins presents a series of lectures on life, the universe, and our place in it. With brilliance and clarity, Dawkins unravels an educational gem that will mesmerize young and old alike. Illuminating demonstrations, wildlife, virtual reality, and special guests (including Douglas Adams) all combine to make this collection a timeless classic".

"David Martin, a noted British sociologist who nominated Mr. Taylor for the prize, said Mr. Taylor's latest work "provides a magisterial overview of the relations between religion, secular humanism and science such as no-one else has attempted, or perhaps could attempt. ... What (Mr. Taylor) has to say gives contemporary thinkers ... a compass and a star to steer by. Crucially, his body of work provides the richest vein of resources for any who seek today to defend or promote religious and spiritual understanding".

The Ottawa Citizen

A new book based on interviews from the PBS program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly finds a spiritual hunger beneath the secular veneer of modern culture, with many searching for something beyond the material world.

The Life of Meaning (Seven Stories Press) was edited by the show's executive editor and host, Bob Abernethy, and longtime journalist William Bole. Essays in the book were drawn from interviews conducted by Abernethy, who founded the show 10 years ago after four decades as an NBC correspondent, and by other Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly correspondents and producers.

The Christian Century

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