'In Secular Steeples, Conrad Ostwalt challenges long-held assumptions about the relationship between religion and culture and about the impact of secularization. This book tries to move away from the idea that religion will diminish as secularization continues. Instead, Ostwalt guides us along a busy two-way street, where religions and secular views interact and enrich each other.' 'Ostwalt contends that secularization has not and will not destroy religion; however, it shifts the authority to express religious ideas to non-traditional cultural forms such as literature, film, or music. Religious institutions, he says, use the secular and popular media of television, movies, and music to make sacred teachings relevant.' When religious institutions no longer dominate culture, they lose their focus on striving for the sacred. Oswalt says that secular culture may not only express religious messages more effectively, but also contain more authentic religious content than official religious teachings.
