Culture and religion have always been closely interrelated. Every religion expresses itself in the forms of its cultural setting, and every culture reflects a "religious substance," that is, exists out of an ultimate point of view or set of beliefs. Thus a cultural analysis is relevant to the understanding of any given religious tradition, and correspondingly a theological analysis is relevant to the understanding of any given culture. That these assertions apply to and illuminate modern culture as well as ancient and premodern cultures is demonstrated in this book, which may thus be regarded as a "theology of culture."

Society and the Sacred exemplifies the broad learning, the theological acuity, and the commitment to human liberation which have made the author's Naming the Whirlwind and Reaping the Whirlwind — classics of religious thought in our time. In the first part of the present volume, Langdon Gilkey analyzes from a wide range of perspectives modern culture as an historical entity facing the thread of its own imminent demise, hence the subtitle "Toward a Theology of Culture in Decline." He then examines the scientific, technological, industrial "heart" of contemporary culture and exposes the dilemmas which these new aspects of modern life have engendered. In the last section he explores the interface of different cultures and the different religious traditions which have animated them.