---

 

WHAT IS "SECULAR3"?

 

 

[NOTE: I wrote most of this article the week before the reporting of the senseless murder of Iryna Zarutska by a deranged career criminal with a grudge against white people, and the assassination of Charlie Kirk – a 31-year-old father of two little children who devoted his life to peaceful, civil debate about the ills of modern American society. These awful events underscore the urgency of this article.]

Sacred | Secular. Is this an either/or question, or a both-and question? Our modern mindset leads us to think of it as either/or, either sacred or secular. But is that the way we should approach this hugely important issue? Perhaps both-and is better. The article "Three Meanings of ‘Secular'’' explains what "secular" has come to mean in the present day. This threefold concept is based on the book A Secular Age by Charles Taylor, a British scholar, published by Harvard University's Belknap Press. This probably sounds rather stuffy and intellectual, so I've done a little research on it in order to attempt here to boil it down into just several paragraphs. Let's begin –

Secular3 refers to a concept formulated by philosopher Charles Taylor, describing a society where religious belief is no longer assumed or mandatory, but is one among many possible worldviews – this is sometimes called "Taylorian secularity" or "secularity 3". Charles Taylor identifies three meanings of secularity:

Secular1: Religion's reduced role in public institutions.

Secular2: Decline in personal religious belief or practice.

Secular3: A cultural condition where belief in religion is no longer automatic and must be consciously chosen – everyone is aware of religious and non-religious alternatives and must actively select their own worldview, making belief itself "fragile" in comparison to earlier eras.

(If this whets your curiosity, for a 4-page review of Taylor's 776-page A Secular Age, click HERE.)

Importance of Secular3:
Secular3 does not mean a society is non-religious; religious belief may still be widespread, but belief is always held alongside an array of viable, competing options: doubt and lack of certainty.

This condition changes how people experience faith – beliefs are adopted more as personal choices within a diverse marketplace of possibilities, rather than inherited communal certainties.

Secular3 underlies much of contemporary Western society, affecting how individuals relate to morality, meaning, and tradition.

     Summary Table: Secularity Types

Secular Type	Core Focus	Social Condition
Secular1	Public institutions and laws	Separation of church and state
Secular2	Individual belief and practice	Decline in personal religious adherence
Secular3	Separation of church and state	All beliefs are optional and chosen among competing alternatives

Secular3 is widely referenced in philosophy, sociology, and discussions of modern Western culture to explain how individuals and societies negotiate religion and meaning in pluralistic contexts. What are some examples of historical events of the ancient, medieval, secular1. secular2, and secular3 eras? . . .

Read the rest! Go to our ARC-News blog. And create your own blog or website for less than $2 per month!

 

---

 

A Personal Note: Simon, the director of Vision Complex Orphanage and School in Tanzania, writes: "This is a used minibus, and it is a kind of a van we want to buy. It costs $7000, and the owner has accepted installments until we complete paying him, then we will own it. So far, we have collected $200 for this minibus." If you can help buy the bus, please go to https://Agape-Restoration-Society.org/donate.htm and designate for "Vision Complex: minibus" – thank you!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Our new $33 microphone is installed and working! Here's a photo of our "recording studio." The lamp is just a basic $20 desk lamp that I got from Amazon.com in Jan. 2024. Then I traced a circle around the lampshade on a sheet of paper, cut it out and put it just inside the lampshade to soften the light. So altogether, our "recording studio" costs just $53 + tax. We've been using my PC's built-in mic up to now for our "Morning Prayers" daily podcasts, but the sound volume and quality wasn't very good, you couldn't hear our recordings very well. This new mic is louder and clearer: here's the first recording with the new mic on Wednesday, 3 Sept. (When I'm working otherwise at my desk, I point the lamp toward the bulletin board and swing the mic to the side.)

And in case you might ask what those drawings are on the bulletin board, here's a closer-up photo and a link to our updated ARC sketches for "BUILDING THE ARC" – fully accessible housing and a community room/chapel for people with mobility issues (that's about 15% of the U.S. population). What Did Jesus Do (WDJD)? Christ did a "Show and Tell" – He first showed His disciples how to share the Good News, the Gospel, in word and deed by preaching, caring for the sick, maimed and lame; then He told them to go out and do the same.

Did you know that only about 5% of the people you invite to church will actually come? And they won't come if they can't get in! But 100% of the people you bring to an accessible church will come! Don't just sit back and wait for people to come to church: the Lord said, "Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled" (Luke 14:23). That's what we, the Church, should be doing today. But somehow, we've lost track of that: in the Great Commission (Matthew ch. 28), the old King James version reads – "Go into all the world and teach all nations..." – however, that's actually a poor translation. The original Greek text says – "Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations." In other words, "DWJD" – "Do What Jesus Did!" Become a real disciple!

 

---