In the previous chapter I tried to establish two things. The first and more obvious one is that the gap between religious and secular realms, which became increasingly apparent as modernity progressed, stands before us now largely devoid of bridges relating the two sides to one another. Assumptions that such connections are obviously beneficial and should be retained have ceased to mark not only academic but also the wider culture. In contrast to the preceding culture, the secular side became the shared or common realm, and the religious side became personal, optional, and separate. Some sociologists of religion argue that the depiction of contemporary societies as secular is overstated because large portions of the population, especially in the Americas, self-identify as religious. If so, their lives and identities are divided between two unrelated realms. People who treat the two realms as equally important will have difficulty relating the one side to the other. Consequently, many people respond to this situation by treating one of the realms as more important than the other. Those who identify more with the religious side will view the secular side as at best necessary and useful but, as to value and significance, relatively empty. Those who identify primarily with the secular side will, at best, treat religion as an inherited or traditional realm offering some people, and themselves occasionally, personal or group alternatives to the shared situation. People who identify fully with only one side will tend to view those on the other as not only different but also as faulty or foreign.

The principal character of late modern culture is this sharp and deep divide, and this raises the question of the viability of such a culture. A divided or conflicted culture counters one of the principal roles of a culture, namely, to provide differing people with the basis for a common or shared life. While the secular or practical realm has assumed this role, it has grown increasingly detached from traditional or religious sources of value. This raises a second question about the viability of late modernity as a culture because a major role of a culture is not only to grant people a shared life but also to grant differing people shared values, norms, and goals.