Secular Steeples: Popular Culture and the Religious Imagination

In this provocative volume, Conrad Ostwalt contends that secularization has not and will not destroy religion, but rather that it shifts the "authority" to express religious ideals from the traditional, institutional church to other cultural entities, such as government and media. Religious institutions already use popular secular media like television, movies, and mass-market music to make teachings relevant. When religious institutions no longer dominate culture, they lose their grip on striving for the Sacred, the author says, and their messages find other outlets. As a result, today's secular culture may in fact contain more authentic religious content than official church teachings.