Sublime

Taylor, who affirms the genius of Durkheim but turns him against himself, shows with this triad how the social function of religion adds to the opaqueness of divine action.

The faculty understand their role as not only to empower students with skills but also to open them up to the major struggles and questions of a religious life.

The meaning that’s been washed away (or at least radically eroded) is a clear vision of divine action, a sure sense that God indeed causes things in our world and directs our lives. It is not that the pastor no longer believes this. It just feels more and more like he is speaking a foreign language that few people, himself included, use in their da

The first change that keeps enchantment down, and in turn delivers a meaning system beyond divine action, is the dis-embedding of God from public life (even the conception that there is something called “public,” in contrast to “private,” is a constructed reality that helps cloud divine action).

belonging based,

Where once Protestantism and its commitments flowed directly into work, shaping work, now the ways we work in late modernity (driving toward permanent innovation) have come flowing back into the church, shaping what counts as ministry.

interpretation of violence and victimization) oppose my own identity, threatening my unique expression of who I am.

TAKE THE HEAT AND HOLD STEADY.

And if the pastor can’t do this, completely shaking off the what in favor of the how, then she is always under the threat of being perceived, ironically, as a blockage to people’s genuine (authentic) spiritual journey (more on this below).