Sacred Matters:Celebrity Worship, Sexual Ecstasies, the Living Dead, and Other Signs of Religious Life in the United States

Sacred Matters makes the powerful case that we must take the broad view of religious life in America today. Laderman argues that genuinely religious practices and experiences can be found in the unlikeliest of places?in science laboratories, in movie theaters and concert halls, at the Super Bowl, in Americans’ obsession with prescription drugs and in their pursuit of pornography. Laderman depicts an American cultural landscape blooming with sacred icons, popular devotions, and deep-rooted mythologies. Sacred Matters makes a powerful and illuminating case that religion is everywhere?and that we have barely begun to reckon with its hold on our cultural life.

Gary Laderman is a professor of American Religious History and Cultures at Emory University. He is the author of two books on death in America: The Sacred Remains and Rest in Peace. Laderman is also the director and co-editor of the new online religion magazine, ReligionDispatches.org. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.