Can Secularism Help Make Faith More Meaningful?

 I am an avid David Brooks reader, and one of his pieces made me think more carefully about the correlation between faith and a secular society. Here, Brooks attempts to summarize Charles Taylor's academically dense book, A Secular Age. Whereas most would point to an increasingly secularized society as obstructing faith, Taylor argues that a secular society has made faith more of a choice, making it more meaningful for the believer.

I believe that Taylor is correct.  People 500+ years ago could only imagine the cosmos from a purely religious standpoint. For them, faith was intertwined with fact, making it less of a conscious choice to believe. Conversely, we have the opportunity to discover and perceive our place in the world from a variety of perspectives. While I am immensely grateful for my religious views, I am edified from Tolstoy's insights into the human condition, a study of photosynthesis to understand the natural world, and Margaret Fuller's philosophies to help me contemplate women's societal place.

Because of our increased access to knowledge in myriad fields, faith becomes a much more deliberate decision. We have the opportunity to consciously choose a faith-based perspective as a means to interpret our world. And that's how it should be. If faith is an imperfect knowledge of things,  it would not mean much if we did not experience a propensity for doubt. I think it is a shame that doubt is often feared by the faithful, while I have come to realize that the greater chance for doubt, the better opportunity I have to increase my faith. Perhaps that is why Joseph Smith's vision is so intensely meaningful for me, as there are myriad reasons to dismiss the story. And yet I do believe it with a fervent intensity.

I am grateful for prayer, probing, and pondering to find the answers I am seeking, to mitigate my gaps in knowledge, as well as confirm what I hope so earnestly to be true. And I am grateful to be on a lifelong search to find nuggets of truth, wherever I find them.

Photo by Wikimedia Commons.

Abercrombie's marketing from a 19th-century feminist position

Many of you are aware that Abercrombie 's CEO recently affirmed that his market clothing was "exclusionary," as it is supposed to only appeal (and fit) the "cool" kids. In fact, Abercrombie's clothing is so exclusive that it does not include a woman's size above a size 10--sparking outcry and vitriolic criticism worldwide.

Obviously, I do not condone Abercrombie's philosophy. But I think that the CEO's choice to exclude overweight women from their clothing is important to consider in a post-modern world. Society has come a long way in valuing women other than their fertility and physical attractiveness. In fact, it was long held that children inherited their physical body from their mother and their soul from their father. From this belief, women became associated more with beauty and men for their wisdom and knowledge.

Margaret Fuller, one of the most seminal 19th-century feminists, lambasted these views in Woman in the Nineteenth Century, as she recognized that these beliefs reduced women solely to a body, rather than a body with a soul. Moreover, she asserted that when men viewed women as simply a body meant for physical pleasure, they subsequently reduced themselves to the bodily sphere as well, as they were solely focusing on their carnal appetite. Rather, Fuller argued, both men and women had to be aware of the the need for the soul's nourishment, which came as a result of intellectual activity and an earnest search for truth. That is not to say that the body was inferior to the soul; physical exercise in her mind was vital in assisting the soul. But in focusing more on activities intended to fuel their vanity, women, in her mind, became a "blighted half-being."

Today, an unprecedented amount of women have more opportunity than ever to engage and enlarge their intellects, and, in many ways, Fuller's dream has been realized. But when we read comments such as those by the Abercrombie CEO, we are reminded that there are still threads of societal regression. We are still showing signs of valuing women to the extent that they are aligned with an ideal physical form. The outcry of Abercrombie's marketing brings me hope that society is moving in the direction of valuing the woman's souls over their bodies. And I hope that it continues.