The Sacred Is the Profane: The Political Nature of ReligionThe Sacred Is the Profane collects nine essays written over several years by William Arnal and Russell T. McCutcheon that share a convergent perspective: not simply that both the category and concept religion is a construct, something that we cannot assume to be natural or universal, but also that the ability to think and act religiously is, quite specifically, a modern, political category in its origins and effects, the mere by product of the modern