Publisher's Note John Updike has called religion one of "the three great secret things" in human experience. This new volume is the first to thoroughly probe the religious dimension of Updike's prodigious literary vision. Fifteen international scholars explore the breadth of Updike's oeuvre and offer penetrating analyses of his view of religion in twentieth-century American culture. Included together with a poem and an introductory essay on the subject by Updike himself these studies shed important light on one of the most significant and celebrated authors of our generation.