How (Not) To Be Secular

How (Not) To Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor by James K A Smith, 139 pages

Perceptive reviewers have called Charles Taylor's A Secular Age "An unqualified masterpiece."  It is, however, a complex work calling upon formidable philosophical resources to explicate 500 years of history over 776 pages of text - without counting notes or index.  Both for those who don't want to invest the effort to tackle Taylor's work and those for whom 776 pages weren't enough, Smith offers a short work that is part summary and part supplement.

Smith does excellent work just to reduce the central points of Taylor's masterpiece down to 139 pages without becoming overly dense or losing all nuance.  With admirable sensitivity, he lays out Taylor's thought in a way that renders it more comprehensible both to unbelievers and to Reformed Christians.  Smith's pop culture references misfire more often here than in his Desiring the Kingdom (he zings Rob Bell twice in as many pages and misattributes Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" to Nine Inch Nails), but this is redeemed by his on-point discussion of Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace.

Great for anyone interested in the rise and nature of modern secularity, whether or not they have already read A Secular Age.