Religion

Categorizing the Links

A number of researchers have tried to categorize the varied ways that ethnicity and religion can be related to each other. Sociologists have long referred to some groups as “religio-ethnic.” To fall into this category, a group would be defined in such a manner that its members' religious identity and ethnic affiliation are deeply embedded in each other, and in combination, they define the group. Whereas German immigrants to the United States would not be defined as a religio-ethnic group, Jews are often considered the paradigmatic instance of such a group.

This is a more complicated relationship than the term might suggest, however, as the Jewish case attests. Does being a Jew depend on being religiously observant, or can an atheist, freethinker, or convert to Christianity be a Jew? What about individuals who convert to Judaism?

Harold Abramson, in the most widely cited typology in the field, postulates four types of relationship between religion and ethnicity. In the first type, religion serves as the principal foundation of ethnicity, exemplified by Jews, Hutterites, and the Amish. In the [Page 1136]second type, there is generally a historical connection between a particular religion and a national identity. Examples would include Dutch Reformed, the Church of England, the Serbian Orthodox, and Scottish Presbyterianism. Implied in the effort to distinguish this type from the preceding one is the assumption that the relationship between religion and national identity is more historically circumstantial than is the relationship between religion and ethnicity. In other words, the linkage is somewhat looser and more subject to change, particularly to erosion.

The third type is, according to Abramson, the most common. It refers to a situation in which a number of distinct ethnic groups share a common religious tradition. This would include the Nordic groups and Germans who shaped U.S. Lutheranism; the Irish, Polish, Italian, Mexican, and other groups that are major constituent components of Roman Catholicism in the United States; Black and White Baptists; and more recently the many nations that together form the composite Islamic population.

The final type is considered to represent the most inconsequential of the four. Here the relationship is loose, as religion plays an insignificant part in the definition of an ethnic identity. The examples pointed to include the Romany, a tiny group in the United States, and American Indians. The latter can be debated, but it is not clear if what is meant is the traditional religions of tribal units or the fact that a sizable segment of the Native American population has over time converted to Christianity.

...