As the author views it, the desire for religious and spiritual commitment remains strong in North American and European post-Christian society, although now free to take many forms both inside and outside the churches. Drawing on the anthropological work of Ernest Becker, Liechty suggests that by understanding such desire as a result of our human ability to anticipate our own death, we can see both why this urge is unquenched by modernity and make sense of the myriad pathways and channels of expression it has taken in our time.