Theology books built on the work of philosopher, Charles Taylor, are everywhere to be found these days. His book, A Secular Age, has provided a vocabulary that expresses well the moment we inhabit. In Secular Age he traces a complex story in the West, 500 years in the making, when the “social imaginary” moved from a presumption of belief to a presumption of doubt. This was no nefarious tale of atheists walking us down the primrose path to secularity, but was the outgrowth of Protestant theologians and Christian philosophers. Luther, Calvin, Locke, and Descartes all make cameos among a cast of hundreds. It’s not what they thought they were doing, but the result was that the world moved from being seen as enchanted to disenchanted. The self moved from porous to buffered, from interdependent to autonomous and self-possessing. Along with this, came a series of “splits” designed to accommodate faith in a world increasingly defined by scientific method. Facts are things that can be proven, everything else falls into the bucket of values, the container for faith. Facts define discourse in the public world, values occupy the private. Churches no longer occupy the public square, but hang out shingles in the suburbs, catering to the private and idiosyncratic values of individual religious consumers. This list of splits could be multiplied.

One recent response to the splits of the secular world, particularly among evangelicals, carves out a place for faith as an alternative reality with a different set of facts. While God is active in this world, the splits are still upheld through a denial of the reality of the other side. This world of faith, however, is only a slightly enchanted world, with some things being deemed supernatural (the realm of God), everything else being natural (secular?). Speaking in tongues is an enchantment, an accounting job is disenchanted or secular. “Values voters,” aka evangelicals, want to make gains in the public square, all the while upholding the autonomy of the self-possessing, expressive individual. In other words, they basically accept the terms of secularity, just hoping to make the world of faith more muscular than the secular.

One sign of this is the way Christian media is understood. The “mainstream media” and their pluralistic values can no longer be trusted to deliver a Christian view of the world. Christians now need their own trusted news networks. I would also point to the explosion of the world of Christian music. Of course, when Bach was composing music for an enchanted world, all music was in service of God. Now, there is secular music and Christian music. I think this distinction again honors the splits created on the path to secularity. A vast amount of “Christian music” is God-directed, but in a very “God and me” kind of way. For instance, comparing a contemporary church’s musical catalog is a long way from the Psalms which are rooted more in the everyday trouble and turmoil of life. I sometimes hear grumpy theologians like me say, “I see your praise team. Where’s your lament team?”

We know of Christian artists who have crossed over. Aretha and Whitney learned to sing in the church, and musically they didn’t stray far from their gospel roots. Same with Johnny Cash. These artists had”secular catalogs,” but also produced the occasional gospel album. They sang about murder and trains, or love and sex, and then they would do a separate album of gospel classics.

I have doubts about our ability to completely re-enchant the world, and even if this would be a good thing. Some aspects of the enchanted world described by Taylor surely give way to explanations provided by the world of critical method. For instance, I doubt that we will return to largely allegorical readings of Scripture given the light that critical methods of reading have shined on our understandings. Still, the church needs to learn again to speak of God in the ordinary day-in-and-out of life. Instead of re-enchatment, I wonder if a more realistic goal might be integration.

Back to music. I wonder if the way forward artistically might be with groups like U2 and Over the Rhine, or individual artists life Madison Cunningham and Bruce Cockburn. They sing about real life struggles–marriage, despair, violence, poverty, love, loss, meaning–but from a faith-filled perspective. I have friends in the music publishing world who are frustrated that artists are quick to be pigeonholed as “Christian artists” if faith themes are found in some of their songs. However, it is precisely these types of artists who might help us overcome the splits associated with a secular age. Unlike Cash and Aretha, they don’t have one foot in each world. There is only one world with multiple realities.

I think I’ll go listen Dylan’s, Oh Mercy.