This is a review of an extraordinary tome by Charles Taylor, A secular Age. The book contains about 800 pages of intricate analysis and debate.1 This review attempts to summarise the author’s discussion of secularism under a few key headings and then offers a brief discussion of the material in each case. In the final section, it offers some personal reflections on the missiological implications of his main themes.

The article discusses the twin and, to a certain extent, reciprocal ideas of ‘Manifest Success’ and ‘Manifest Destiny.’ It argues that, as developed respectively by certain streams of thought within Islamic communities and religiously motivated political movements within the USA, they both display strong ideological characteristics in the negative sense. Apart from the historical evidence that contradicts their utopian aspirations, the sense of identity and destiny which they wish to inspire is politically dangerous for being illusory. Muslims and Christians need (...) to be aware of the ideological instrumentalising of their faith traditions, in order to be able to repudiate the undesirable appropriation of their core beliefs. (shrink)