Present Tense: Christian Education in Secular Time

Abstract

The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor describes our present secular society as inhabiting time differently. Our age is no longer embedded in what he describes as 'higher time' with a divine foundation and the idea that the society was constituted in something that transcended contemporary common action, or the 'present tense'. Institutions like the church and university are creatures of an older time, so how do we practice Christian Education in secular time? This chapter posits three conceptual distinctions that might serve Christian institutions of higher education well as we reimagine our vocation: Imagination rather than worldview, pedagogy rather than curriculum and, distinctively rather than uniquely Christian.