Review: Sacred Matters-Introduction

This post begins my review of Gary Laderman's book Sacred Matters: Celebrity Worship, Sexual Ecstasies, The Living Dead, and Other Signs of Religious Life in the United States.  I will publish a post reviewing each of the individual chapters which will each include a short summary, critique/engagement with the claims made in the chapter, and some questions.  

Inspired by the lack of genuine engagement in the media regarding religion in the United States surrounding the 2004 presidential election Laderman set out to explore a more nuanced and less simplistic understanding of religion, including all the varied perceptions and experiences of the sacred.  

Is there such a thing as god-less religion?  Is America deeply religious in ways other than those commonly associated with the Great Religions of the Book?  Laderman begins his book by answering such questions with a resounding yes.  In the next nine chapters he explores such topics as film, sports, celebrity, medicine and sexuality in search of signs of religion in these unexpected places.  

Without god religious life centers around such things as building community among members, specific rituals or myths, experiences of transcendence, ethical and moral teaching, and transformation of individuals.  Laderman is not ignorant of the fact that with this complex understanding of religion many Americans can be said to belong to many different religious communities at one time, quite possibly even ones with conflicting values.  Religion can no longer be relegated to the private confines of ones internal beliefs and convictions, it involves the people you associate with and the things which give your life meaning.

I think Laderman is on to something. In an interview with Bill Moyers liberation theologian James Cone gives an insightful definition of religion as mankind's attempt to give life (and its experiences) meaning; the question is does that require god?  If not, then what?  Laderman answers with Sacred Matters.