Kevin N. Flatt

Secularization, Social Order, and World History provides a new perspective on the nature of secularization. Scholars have shown that the concepts of “religion” and the “secular” that are assumed in traditional accounts of secularization are not universal human categories, but specifically modern and Western ideas. What if we told the story of secularization not from the perspective that secularization itself produced, but from a standpoint outside the modern West? This book draws on premodern traditions from China, India, the Islamic world, and beyond to develop an alternative conceptual framework of “sacred-social order.” Sacred-social orders aim to align all of human life—from marriage to government to the calendar—with suprahuman purposes and authorities. From the perspective of sacred-social order, the secularization of Western societies was not simply “the decline of religion,” but a revolutionary break with sacred order across all social domains and the attempt to construct a new secular order on purely human foundations. As the secular order has been exported around the world, it has provoked movements for the restoration of sacred-social order that are often misunderstood as mere religious revivals or a clash of civilizations. Bridging sociology, history, religious studies, and philosophy, this work offers an innovative, global account of secularization and its discontents.

Secularization, Social Order, and World History provides a new perspective on the nature of secularization. Scholars have shown that the concepts of “religion” and the “secular” that are assumed in traditional accounts of secularization are not universal human categories, but specifically modern and Western ideas. What if we told the story of secularization not from the perspective that secularization itself produced, but from a standpoint outside the modern West? This book draws on premodern traditions from China, India, the Islamic world, and beyond to develop an alternative conceptual framework of “sacred-social order.” Sacred-social orders aim to align all of human life—from marriage to government to the calendar—with suprahuman purposes and authorities. From the perspective of sacred-social order, the secularization of Western societies was not simply “the decline of religion,” but a revolutionary break with sacred order across all social domains and the attempt to construct a new secular order on purely human foundations. As the secular order has been exported around the world, it has provoked movements for the restoration of sacred-social order that are often misunderstood as mere religious revivals or a clash of civilizations. Bridging sociology, history, religious studies, and philosophy, this work offers an innovative, global account of secularization and its discontents.

Where are we going as a Canadian people? Given Augustine's dictum that nations are ruled by what they love and desire, what is it that will shape the hearts and minds of Canadians in the days to come? Ever since the 1960s Canadian historians have downplayed the vital role that Christianity played in the lives of many men and women who built this nation before and after Confederation. But, as argued by the five essays in this book--which range over Canadian church history, theology and the Bible--despite the various demographic changes that have taken place in Canada such that Christianity no longer has a privileged hegemony, the Christian Faith still has a key contribution to make in both the public square and private sector of Canadian life. Read and reflect--and pray

At a time when Canadians were arguing about the merits of a new flag, the birth-control pill, and the growing hippie counterculture, the leaders of Canada's largest Protestant church were occupied with turning much of English-Canadian religious culture on its head. In After Evangelicalism, Kevin Flatt reveals how the United Church of Canada abruptly reinvented its public image by cutting the remaining ties to its evangelical past. Flatt argues that although United Church leaders had already abandoned evangelical beliefs three decades earlier, it was only in the 1960s that rapid cultural shifts prompted the sudden dismantling of the church's evangelical programs and identity. Delving deep into the United Church's archives, Flatt uncovers behind-the-scenes developments that led to revolutionary and controversial changes in the church's evangelistic campaigns, educational programs, moral stances, and theological image. Not only did these changes evict evangelicalism from the United Church, but they helped trigger the denomination's ongoing numerical decline and decisively changed Canada's religious landscape. Challenging readers to see the Canadian religious crisis of the 1960s as involving more than just Quebec's Quiet Revolution, After Evangelicalism unveils the transformation of one of Canada's most prominent social institutions.

At a time when Canadians were arguing about the merits of a new flag, the birth-control pill, and the growing hippie counterculture, the leaders of Canada's largest Protestant church were occupied with turning much of English-Canadian religious culture on its head. In After Evangelicalism, Kevin Flatt reveals how the United Church of Canada abruptly reinvented its public image by cutting the remaining ties to its evangelical past. Flatt argues that although United Church leaders had already abandoned evangelical beliefs three decades earlier, it was only in the 1960s that rapid cultural shifts prompted the sudden dismantling of the church's evangelical programs and identity. Delving deep into the United Church's archives, Flatt uncovers behind-the-scenes developments that led to revolutionary and controversial changes in the church's evangelistic campaigns, educational programs, moral stances, and theological image. Not only did these changes evict evangelicalism from the United Church, but they helped trigger the denomination's ongoing numerical decline and decisively changed Canada's religious landscape. Challenging readers to see the Canadian religious crisis of the 1960s as involving more than just Quebec's Quiet Revolution, After Evangelicalism unveils the transformation of one of Canada's most prominent social institutions.