ABSTRACT
The modern restrictive meaning of the word "secular" gave rise to secularization, a process in which a one-dimensional existence is affirmed. In its early stages secularization has referred to the gradual replacement of sacred institutions with institutions of a public, "this-worldly" origin. When the goals were either fulfilled or frustrated, secular institutions were then organized to carry on with the programs. Thirty years after William Hamilton's intonation we are sobered by the fact that the diversity of American religion has been extended by the secular model. The American landscape reveals the monuments of its religious diversity; these buildings are necessary because people must sort themselves out from the rest of their neighbors to maintain their sacred identities in a world that has been homogenized by shopping malls, television, computers, and credit cards. Sociologists, in their analyses of modernity, have called attention to differentiation, conventionalization, and demystification as characteristics of modern society and culture. Secularity accepts these characteristics as positive.
