Theological trends in our postsecular age

Abstract

The article is a contribution to the commemoration of the 2008 centenary celebration of the University of Pretoria. Its focus is on present-day theological trends. The article’s point of departure is the commendation of the philosopher Charles Taylor for being awarded with the Templeton Prize in 2007. With this prize the Templeton Foundation bestows ‘progress toward discoveries about spirituality’. The article links Charles Taylor’s idea of the postmodern spiritual tendency of ‘enchantment’ as a closure of modernity’s exclusive humanism to Peter Berger’s reproach of civil religion. It pleads for a non-fundamentalist and non-populist post-secular spirituality which concurs with post-theism, a de-centring of the power of institutional religion and the enhancement of a biblical hermeneutics that does not emphasise a proposition-like and moral code-like reading strategy. The article is aimed at a spirituality of living faith in light of ancient biblical and confessional life stories.