Review of Andrew Root's "Faith Formation in a Secular Age" (Part 6)
7: Faith and Its Formation in a Secular Age Subtraction We think of our world in terms of subtraction. For example, we taken prayer out of school, lost our moral guidelines, church attendance has declined. More liberal folks think if we could just get rid of religion we be more rational and peaceful. Our faith formation, then, becomes a plugging up of the holes caused by this subtraction. But these pragmatic actions don’t work because the problem is not subtraction. Charles Taylor says it this way: “Modernity is defined not just by our ‘losing’ an earlier world, but by the kind of human culture that we have constructed.” [1] It’s not the world we’ve known minus some vital components we can replace but a whole new world. “Rather than subtraction, we’ve added layers of authenticity and youthfulness, creating forms of cultural and social life where ‘the God gap,’ for many, simply isn’t there.” (2458) “The adding of the mass society and its need for consumer want bro...