In a session devoted to Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age on the tenth anniversary of its publication, I feel a bit out of place, neither a sociologist of religion nor a believer. I am, however, an interpreter of sociologists of religion, among them Durkheim, Weber, and my own teacher, Robert Bellah. I have also been a theorist deeply engaged in creating a more cultural sociology. My goal has been to redefine modernity by conceptualizing the continuing significance of such “traditional” phenomena as collective consciousness, symbols, sacred and profane codes, narratives, social performances and dramas, cultural traumas, and iconic consciousness. I approach Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age (SA) not directly, as a sociologist of religion, but obliquely, as a theorist who sees theological religion, not as the sine qua non of deep culture but rather as one among its powerful forms. I deeply appreciate the manner in which Taylor’s rich re-interpretation of belief and unbelief provides a more nuanced understanding of how both may thrive in a secular age. What I question is Taylor’s understanding of the “modern” society within which fragile belief and unbelief suffer and thrive. I want to tell a different story about modernity, from a cultural sociological point of view. SA is a deeply revisionist inquiry into how the emergence of unbelief created a secular society. Humane, learned, associative in the best sense of the term, it provides a religious but also modernist alternative to mechanistic understandings of post-traditional society. No other social thinker has written about the death of God with such a complex mixture of regret, for what we have lost, and a resigned, deeply ambivalent, yet nonetheless subtly appreciative understanding for the sense of immanence we have gained. With equal parts humility and skepticism, Taylor characterizes the secular age as “mutual fragilization,” adding welcome nuance to such over-arching concepts as differentiation and pluralism. SA is the book Max Weber might have written if he had been more religiously musical. It is the book that Robert Bellah should have written, but probably would not have, if he had lived to complete the second volume of Religion and Human Evolution.

中文翻译：

---

世俗时代的文化社会学

在查尔斯·泰勒 (Charles Taylor) 出版十周年之际，在专门讨论查尔斯·泰勒 (Charles Taylor) 的《世俗时代》(A Secular Age) 时，我觉得有点格格不入，既不是宗教社会学家也不是信徒。然而，我是宗教社会学家的解释者，其中包括涂尔干、韦伯和我自己的老师罗伯特·贝拉。我也是一名理论家，致力于创建更具文化性的社会学。我的目标是通过概念化诸如集体意识、符号、神圣和世俗的代码、叙事、社会表演和戏剧、文化创伤和标志性意识等“传统”现象的持续意义来重新定义现代性。我不是作为宗教社会学家直接接触查尔斯·泰勒的《世俗时代》（SA），而是作为一个看到神学宗教的理论家，间接地接触，不是作为深层文化的必要条件，而是作为其强大形式之一。我深深地欣赏泰勒对信仰和不信仰的丰富重新解释的方式，让我对两者如何在世俗时代蓬勃发展提供了更细致入微的理解。我质疑的是泰勒对“现代”社会的理解，在这个社会中，脆弱的信仰和不信仰会受苦并茁壮成长。我想从文化社会学的角度讲一个关于现代性的不同故事。SA 是对不信仰的出现如何创造世俗社会的深刻修正主义调查。在这个术语的最佳意义上，它是人道的、博学的、联想的，它为后传统社会的机械式理解提供了一种宗教性但也是现代主义的替代方案。没有其他社会思想家写过上帝之死，带着如此复杂的遗憾，对于我们失去的东西，以及对我们所获得的内在感的一种顺从的、非常矛盾的、但仍然微妙的理解。泰勒以同等的谦逊和怀疑态度将世俗时代描述为“相互脆弱”，为差异化和多元化等总体概念增添了受欢迎的细微差别。SA 是 Max Weber 可能会写的书，如果他更虔诚地音乐。这是罗伯特贝拉应该写的书，但如果他能活着完成宗教与人类进化的第二卷，他可能不会写这本书。“为差异化和多元化等总体概念添加受欢迎的细微差别。SA 是 Max Weber 可能会写的书，如果他更虔诚地音乐。这是罗伯特贝拉应该写的书，但如果他能活着完成宗教与人类进化的第二卷，他可能不会写这本书。“为差异化和多元化等总体概念添加受欢迎的细微差别。SA 是 Max Weber 可能会写的书，如果他更虔诚地音乐。这是罗伯特贝拉应该写的书，但如果他能活着完成宗教与人类进化的第二卷，他可能不会写这本书。