Ryan McGovern- Cultural Approach 3-10-09

3-10-09

In Landscapes of the Sacred, Lane talks about the Cultural approach to understanding Sacred Place and it's importance. He says that a sacred place can be defined as "a site that people are willing to fight and die over", using the cultural approach at least. This is very relavent to this day, with many conflicts being over the use of sacred place, or religion. A good example of this would be the use of Native American lands in the United States. Native Americans use their lands for sacred ceremonies, and they want to make sure that that does not change. Congress even has a committee set up to deal with Native American affairs, so that violent conflict does not erupt, because that has happened before. Another very violent example of this is the Israelis' and the Palestinians' conflict. Both of their holy lands are very close to one another, and they both want to control the same part of land. But the Israelis were given the land, and now there is constant conflict over their sacred place. So there are two examples of the cultural approach being realized.