It’s common for people to associate modernity and modernization with secularization. But Christians have a unique understanding of the secular. The Latin root saeculum can be variously translated as “epoch (this age),” “historical time,” “the world,” and “the time that remains between Christ’s redemptive work on earth and the full restoration of the Kingdom of God in the parousia, the end for which God made the world.” To be secular, in this Christian sense, is just to live in human history—in, but not of, the world.
“Modern” has a parallel Christian meaning. The Latin root modernus was used in a historical sense as early as 550 AD. “Modern” means this time, this saeculum, rather than the age that came before. For Christians, it’s fitting to say that modernity is every AD date, all the time after Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. And before the Second Coming.
With this expansive perspective on modernity, the Dante Society asks, What does it mean to be modern? How has Christianity shaped modernity? What challenges and opportunities do various modernities present to the Church? And how and when do the language and concepts of modernity become hindrances rather than aids to understanding life in time?
We will explore these and other questions in conversation with brief, highly readable essays from the Genealogies of Modernity Journal. Each essay takes up some aspect of modern life, or some particular understanding of what it means to be modern, and considers it in light of the Christian intellectual tradition. Discussion will be led by Ryan McDermott.
Participants should read the essay before the seminar. Each seminar stands on its own, so don’t worry about jumping in whenever you are able.
“History Wobbles,” by Duncan Reyburn
"In our own time, somewhat in contrast with G. K. Chesterton’s, the watchword decline is more prevalent than progress. We commonly hear of managed decline—although in many instances it does not seem to be managed at all. We still hear of progress, of course, but pervasive political precarity makes progress less trustworthy as a popular category. Chesterton’s philosophy offers a healthy antidote to any historicist fatalism, though, whether it happens to be overly pessimistic (as it is for declinists) or overly optimistic (as it is for progressives)."