Book excerpt: In this book, Henry Idema has developed a theory of religion and culture indebted to the psychological work of Sigmund Freud and the sociological work of Weinstein and Platt, and he has shown the validity of his theory through illustrations from the life and times and work of Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, and F.Scott Fitzgerald. Idema brings a psychoanalytic perspective to his analysis of religion and culture. He starts out by developing a theory of religion focusing on early relationships with the mother and father, and then shows how social forces such as urbanization, industrialization etc. weakened religion in the institutional church, especially in its function of helping men and women to cope with anxiety.