While there is little doubt that Christianity has been in steep decline in Western Europe and in America, John Wilson is not certain ours is the “secular age” it’s often made out to be, most famously by the sociologist Charles Taylor.
I recently received review copies of two books on the same day. The first, a galley of a book to be published by Eerdmans near the end of July, was Encountering Mystery: Religious Experience in a Secular Age, by Dale C. Allison, Jr. The second, just out from Hurst, was Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity Is Taking Over the World, by Elle Hardy. The fortuitous juxtaposition was ironic, of course, but more than that, it was very close to my heart.
Imagine my surprise when, as I began to read Encountering Mystery, I discovered that Allison himself, despite the subtitle affixed to his book, also does not believe that we live in a “secular age.” On the contrary. . . . Perhaps that is why the superb scholar and memoirist Carlos Eire describes Encountering Mystery as a “marvelously daring book.” It is just that, describing many experiences (a few firsthand, many recounted by others) of the numinous, the mystical, the supernatural.
Ranging around the world, from Alabama to North and South Korea, from Nigeria to Guatemala and beyond, Hardy’s book [on Pentecostal Christians] gives the lie to the tired assertion that “we” are living in “a secular age.” What do you mean “we,” Kemo Sabe?
Read more on First Things: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/03/a-not-so-secular-age