Another Religious Voice in a Secular Society

Jeffrey Stout's Democracy and Tradition, published 2004, is reaching a twenty-year anniversary. In the political climate that has only continued to heat in those twenty years, the book's call for a culture of democracy is still as important as ever. Stout's argument in that book is that rather than being a purely secular culture with no shared values and lacking any moral framework, American democracy is itself a tradition. Democracy is a tradition that “inculcates certain habits of reasoning, certain attitudes toward deference and authority in political discussion, and love for certain goods and virtues.”1 This tradition shapes the character of its members. Citizens need to be formed to live democratically. The book opens with a quote from John Dewey to set the stage: “Democracy is a form of government only because it is a form of moral and spiritual association.”2 Along with Dewey, Emerson and Whitman are Stout's exemplars of this democratic tradition. Stout promotes what he considers an Emersonian form of self-cultivation in which we seek to continually form our character according to specific social aspirations.At the heart of this democratic culture is an understanding of political deliberation as a “continuing social process of holding one another responsible.”3 As he develops his conception of the democratic tradition, the core of this tradition is the formation of a people centered on discursive practices of exchanging reasons for beliefs and actions. Central to the culture that Stout is bringing to light are the notions of character and piety, reconceived around gratitude.4 The virtues important for good character in this tradition are those that contribute to democratic life together. We engage in civilizing practices, discursive practices, that shape us for living together in a culture centered on expressive freedom.In the middle of the book Stout has a section engaging “religious voices in a secular society.” There he first critiques John Rawls and Richard Rorty for either excluding or sequestering religious reasoning in public debate. He critiques the Christian voices of John Milbank, Richard Neuhaus, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Stanley Hauerwas for their willingness to separate Christian moral thinking from the tradition of democracy in which it lives. The religious voices in our secular society that he includes serve in his argument as primarily negative examples. They are critics of American democracy as a fragmented, empty liberalism that cannot enable virtue formation or provide a voice for Christian witness.5 Therefore tradition and democracy are placed at odds with one another by these Christian thinkers. In the work of MacIntyre and Hauerwas, tradition as a positive concept is placed over against liberal democracy, which they see as problematic. In contrast, Stout defends practices of democratic questioning and reason giving within a tradition that seeks to form the character of its members and a culture that nurtures them. This requires social practices that involve and form the necessary virtues. Practices become a tradition when sustained across generations.6To further the analysis of this section of Democracy and Tradition, I think it will be fruitful to hear another religious voice in a secular society. This paper relates certain themes from the philosophy of Charles Taylor to the work of Stout in Democracy and Tradition. The communal philosophy of Taylor makes an important contribution to the democratic, discursive views of morality and truth that Stout offers. In his conclusion Stout calls for a way beyond secular liberalism and theological traditionalism.7 Taylor provides us with such a path and does so in a way that resonates with the pragmatic tradition in philosophy, making Taylor a valuable resource if we seek to affirm the democratic tradition Stout was arguing for. I want to argue here that Taylor's pluralism, which is both philosophical and political, offers a way of conceiving of religious belief and engagement in a secular context. The explication of Taylor here will highlight the ways that Taylor contributes, as a religious voice, to the democratic culture Stout was seeking. It will also seek to show that Taylor's work should be seen as a contribution to the pragmatist tradition of religious reflection. Taylor's conception of religious belief and practice in a secular world resonate with William James's religious philosophy while surpassing James with an emphasis on the social nature of religion and providing a catholic affirmation of pluralistic dialogue contributing to Stout's project.In Ethics After Babel, Stout finds wanting analytical and positivist analysis of the language of morality and says that we need to understand “whatever forces, rational or irrational, incline [people] toward religious faith or against it in the first place.” We need a “broadly humanistic account of those forces, an account capable of tracing their relation to changing historical circumstances and variations in moral language.”8 Taylor offers an attempt at one such “philosophically inflected history.”9 The work of Taylor prior to 2004 would already have been a valuable dialogue partner, but since that time Taylor has continued to publish his ideas on living in a pluralist, secular society. Most notably, his monumental A Secular Age10 details the move of western society from a cultural position of religious belief to a context in which religious belief is only one option among many. In this context, Taylor lays out a social philosophy that requires democratic engagement and participation in a commitment to cultural pluralism.In A Secular Age, Taylor gives us roughly six hundred pages narrating the emergence of a secular world. The focus here is not on offering a summary of this history. The story that Taylor tells is a complex account of the expansion of religious options rather than simply ‘subtraction’ of religion from society.11 What characterizes our secular age is not the disappearance of religious belief and practice. Taylor's concern in the work is not just a story of the gradual decline of religious belief and practices or their exclusion from the public sphere. His main concern is with what he considers the “conditions of belief,” the fundamental background assumptions that make secularity possible where it was not truly possible in prior centuries. The world, in a Heideggerian sense, in which we live had to develop. We have a different background understanding of the world and of social structures now.12 Central to Taylor's account is what he sees as a process of reform that leads from medieval piety through the Protestant reformations and into modernity. This emphasis on religious and moral reform and personal commitment was a central driver of the development of a conceptual world that can be “secular” in nature. The development of a view of a world and humanity, personal and social, that could be conceived apart from God or religious tradition was a process of developments and diversification rather than simple removal of religious practice from the public sphere. Religious expressions exploded in a “nova effect” and this expansion of options included varieties of unbelief. This expansion was crucial for the development of the current picture of the world within which modern people live, believers and unbelievers alike. In “the age of authenticity,” much religious or spiritual practice was further divorced from all community and came to serve the felt need of the individual.13 The development of the immanent frame and the possibility of exclusive humanism were necessary for this secular world picture that simply was not possible before. These are Taylor's terms for a world of pure immanence without openness to transcendence or anything outside of the natural realm.14 One of Taylor's major contributions is his philosophical description of secularity that undergirds the social views seen below.For Stout, modern democracy is not merely an expression of secularism as exclusion of religion from public argument. Yet, democracy is secularized in the sense that no religious tradition can be assumed as the dominant force supporting the reasons given in discussion or for what counts as the final authority in public debate.15 This need not rule out religious expression. As Stout says, “what drove the secularization of political discourse forward was the increasing need to cope with religious plurality discursively.”16 In the same way, ethical discourse can be considered secularized. In a pluralistic context, no shared assumptions can be taken for granted about the being and nature of God. This, again, does not mean that religious reasons can play no part in the deliberation of religious people. As he insists: All democratic citizens should feel free . . . to express whatever premises actually serve as reasons for their claims. The respect for others that civility requires is most fully displayed in the kind of exchange where each person's deepest commitments can be recognized for what they are and assessed accordingly. It is simply unrealistic to expect citizens to bracket such commitments when reasoning about fundamental political questions.17Stout also asserts that people should want to hear the religious perspectives of fellow citizens in order to know what they really think as well as to hold them accountable for their reasoning in public exchange.18He rejects what he takes to be the resentment of Richard Neuhaus and the movement known as Radical Orthodoxy toward the secularization of society, which leads to their retreat from modern democracy. Much of John Milbank's work the of Radical Orthodoxy has been an argument that is no All that is and in relation to God. The theological of this are the political are Stout the of life in all of cannot such light in democratic political Stout's the into religious is to the of the public to and resentment of the secular are of the they are to They are the expression of the In contrast, Stout to an Democracy will if not express their reasons in public this is the of exclusion of religious voices or the of religious people from the In this public exchange of should be to engage their from their religious perspectives of they should also be to make good and to be accountable for their in a social Taylor with this understanding of secularity and to Stout's argument from a religious and religious Charles Taylor does not our democratic culture as a from The of a culture of has been to the development of our world. Taylor his in this think that the move to secular humanism was just a which to be We need to to an view of in which I think that the of life has been a for and that is truth in the of the this was in to about without with be to that modern is but that be a way to his Taylor asserts that the culture of could not about within In that social as a dominant social was A culture of where the of has been and where no philosophy has taken its He that modern culture of Christian life further than they were taken or could have been taken within . . . We have to the that the was a necessary of the The immanent that Christian faith in the form of possible “the of the in The modern developments in Christian which the Christian to the the social structures of and the development of the modern world, religion not its but of and We live in a world, in which of belief and and each It is a world in which belief has of the social which it and In this Taylor a public has to itself from all requires that a modern democracy an from different faith The language of public . . . has to be free from premises from one or Yet, religious reasoning still has its in public in the public will to the language of their faith for understanding and engaging others in the social sphere. “Democracy requires that each or of citizens the language in public that is most to with Taylor the a political secularization and a social the seeks to religion from the social a political secularity is They that for the moral of and the of of and of religion the major of secularism this a democratic be . . . citizens on religious beliefs and those and the of secularism need to be of the and its from the are not as in but as making it possible to the fundamental of respect for moral and of of They the the cultural make of our modern to the at is to make it possible for democratic to to the moral and spiritual within their just in Taylor's view this secularity is not an but a to a The is a society that the plurality of contributing to a social this society requires democratic This again, It is not the but the of those the of and religion and social could be different in different The is not a of one social to and is a commitment to the social structures that make them possible in a context. the we we need Taylor that this set of values is most to form where it is most order to serve as a for what is has to the and practices of Taylor does critiques of within a liberal society that makes it possible is also society of the moral necessary to the engagement to democratic that does not a communal set of values is a to It is for by a attempt to the path secular liberalism and religious is important to hear in our secular context. 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What is is a commitment to which in requires a that such Taylor has that the modern only by virtue of the society that and such an This social an for those affirm such The is to to the social and the moral of a society is important for and only in a society where is a of their Taylor that we have an to in this kind of society to affirm The work of people together about what will be on all of them is an part of the of One of the of Taylor is the of participation in public life to to a of We are to the and practices that shape our this view of through social engagement is as seen a conception of the Taylor's view of in community is on the view of nature across his The of life is within moral that are communal in views of being Taylor that such the social views and structures that them. of the requires a social one for which through a of practices the to and which calls for the a voice in deliberation about public nature as language is central to Taylor's understanding the moral The of what we are as is through our life is by The world that we is a shared to Stout we the same call for discourse and dialogue as a social practice that calls to engagement and a moral The moral of the tradition he seeks to of They from the social practices of exchanging from the that form a shared of an ethical The core of the tradition he is Taylor with Stout the that our and are within social on the of moral formation and a form of the of moral to them as moral and the of social discourse is of central to the tradition Stout was us to in Democracy and Tradition. Taylor's contribution as a religious voice offers a for Stout's discursive of this has been to Charles Taylor into the of religious voices in Democracy and Tradition, to see if Taylor provides an secular liberalism and theological In dialogue with Stout, we can see Taylor's work as a contribution to the pragmatic understanding of Taylor not as a but with William James and Taylor's work resonates with the of Taylor's understanding of is an important contribution to the discussion of religious from James He the openness of the and it with a social view of and Taylor's philosophical the of religion in the varieties of in a secular world, while that secularity He the view of religion in his emphasis on the social nature of religious life and Religious is not to the but within the communal at a good life his most Taylor his understanding of in a way that resonates with James's views of see it as with the ethical in the and deepest with the good life as it was to where that expression can be with to or or as a for whatever the good life our nature or being calls on us to The spiritual is “what gives us the and the to this This will be in different religious and for people of no religious tradition. He this to what he moral in of the Taylor for religion as an moral central to this is Taylor's of the of religion in democratic Taylor does not engage John Dewey, was at the heart of Stout's conception of democratic Yet, his is in a to that religious practice and it in a way that can a democratic his understanding of the secular world and both the and of religious options as a Taylor's offers a valuable to dialogue and religious engagement in a secular society that makes it necessary to engage his work in pragmatic to understand religion in Taylor a or a he a His philosophy, in his understanding of the and his commitment to a pluralism, are a valuable “religious for in our democratic context. Taylor his position on the pluralistic world, as a not a his faith his of philosophical developments and his political resonates with the of Democracy and as Taylor for and to a society that and promotes and expressive theological expression. of Stout twenty will from Taylor's pluralistic religious Stout the in 2004 that we were about to see the against exclusion of religious reasons for and In a cultural when we are the of Christian when we are the and resentment to the exclusion of religious reasons that Stout Taylor is an important religious voice to hear in a secular society. In of democracy and democratic such an to religious engagement with society is