Abstract
Charles Taylor observes that “secularization” has two different meanings: the loss of religious belief and practice and the withdrawal of religion from the public sphere. Distinguishing the two meanings of secularization helps to reveal the cultural pattern, which Taylor calls the ethic of authenticity. For these two meanings, Taylor offers a third phenomenon, that it is easier to understand a developing andinstitutionalized world by thinking about the Transcendent, accepting the Transcendent, and talking about the Transcendent. Taylor also makes a distinction between two important phases in Western history that mark how God is present in the public sphere: a hierarchical indirect-access society and a direct-access horizontal society, and points out that this shift in societal patterns has increasingly exposed the thirst to cope with life (hunger to go beyond life) as part of human identity. This human identity is embodied in an external medium, closely related to the Transcendent.
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