Faith Formation in a Secular Age : Volume 1 (Ministry in a Secular Age): Responding to the Church's Obsession with Youthfulness

The age of authenticity was, in no small measure, a new way of engaging the immanent frame of the secular age without overthrowing it and returning to Edwards’s or Becket’s days. The world itself was presumed to be only natural and material; there was nothing in the world that was more than this.

In late modernity we’re not willing or able to name (beyond for our individual selves) the virtues, the values, or the character traits that make for a good life. We may have some ideas, but describing the substance seems to risk violating the ethic of authenticity. Our moral stance—our sense of what is good and what creates a good life—is authenti

there is clear resonance between the counterculture’s pursuits of authenticity and conservative evangelicalism. Rick became deeply aware of the ways that the age of authenticity placed each individual on their own journey, a voyage to finding meaning and purpose, one that emphasizes individualism and the affirmation of ordinary life.

But it’s much less so for persons seeking a good life, and communities of faith seeking the communion of the Holy Spirit through the crucified Christ felt as the shalom of God the Father.