Age of Authenticity and Mission

The Canadian philosopher, Charles Taylor, who is a master at studying and understanding our current secular culture, has labelled our present time – “The Age of Authenticity”. I’ll paraphrase his definition this way,

“the age of authenticity is an understanding of life that has developed over the last 200 hundred years in which each of us has a unique way of realizing our true self and that it is important for each of us to find that way out and to live it out – without surrendering to any models that might be imposed on us from outside ourselves, including other people, society, previous generations, religious systems, or political authorities.” (BAM paraphrase of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age, pg 475)

In other words, we are all trying to get in touch with our inner-selves and to live an authentic life defined only by what we find inside of us.

The Bible, however, has a different view of the authentic self inside of us and a different view of what it means for us to life authentic lives.