Secular Steeples

Popular Culture and the Religious Imagination

Book Details

Discerning Reader Editorial Review

Reviewed 04/08/2009 by Chad Vandervalk.

Not Recommended. Despite some intriguing talking points, an unrewarding slog.

Sacred culture is becoming more secular, and secular culture is becoming more sacred.

At least that is what Conrad Ostwalt in Secular Steeples: Popular Culture and the Religious Imagination would have us believe.

I recently received a copy of Ostwalt’s book to review, thinking that I would thoroughly enjoy it. I have always been fascinated by the interaction between the modern concepts of sacred and secular. I readily admit that I have a certain bias, as I have always thought the line between the two concepts, if it exists at all, is very thin indeed.

Truth is, I did not enjoy this book. It is written in an academic manner not suited to the content, which is more popular. Ostwalt spends more time spelling out what he is going to say than he spends actually telling it. This book sat on my shelf for quite a few days as I tried to slog through it.

If you can bring yourself to wade through to the end, you may be intrigued by Ostwalt’s conclusion. He argues throughout the book that there is a deep connection between the sacred and secular, something that is much deeper than previously expected.

What we normally consider sacred culture or institutions constantly adopt secular means to an end. They take on secular ways when convenient or advantageous. This secularisation of the sacred is inherent in Western religion and marks the history of Christianity from virtually the beginning. But secular culture also participates in secularisation by taking on religious functioning on many levels. …The two directions mark a dialogue in society, a two-way reaching out that blurs the distinctions and boundaries we sometimes like to imagine existing between the secular and the sacred.

Ostwalt is firmly planted in our time frame and seems to be writing from a modern perspective. We have to remember, however, that “secular” culture (that is non-religious culture) is a rather recent phenomenon. Up until the time of the Enlightenment, no one would consider labelling a culture "non-religious" as religion was an integral part of culture.

Ostwalt tries to argue that there is no dichotomy between sacred and secular, but by positing a constant discussion between the two he ultimately ends up with exactly that. He assumes that there have always been two ways to have culture; religious and non-religious, sacred and secular.

I would argue, however, that the rise of secular culture is a recent phenomenon and the trend that Ostwalt is pointing out, a trend of increasing dialogue between the sacred and secular realms, is a reversal of the project of the Enlightenment; it is a realization that there is no such thing as a non-religious culture, but that even secular culture is embedded with sacred meaning.

Ostwalt agrees that the post-modern era is leading toward less sacred-secular antagonism, but he does not see that it is leading us back to a time of no distinction, when all culture is imbued with sacred meaning.

This reunification of the sacred and secular realms brings with it some very real risks:

The danger of sacralising the secular is that it can occur without moral or ethical grounding and can become relativistic to the extent of meaninglessness. The risk of secularisation of the sacred is functional. If the sacred adopts secular functions while refusing to revise its theological orientation, then it runs the risk of delegitimising that particular theological perspective (the example is the church that becomes so identified with secular culture that it loses its prophetic voice in society).

Overall I found the book disappointing. It was repetitive to the point of exhaustion and the style of writing was too academic for the subject manner. Ostwalt points out some very interesting trends, and he has an observant eye. I would argue that his interpretation of the things he notices, however, seems to be a little off.