Ethnic religion
{{Short description|Religion associated with a particular ethnicity}}
{{For|religions sometimes described as "folk religions or people faiths"|Folk religion}}
{{Redirect|Native religion|indigenous religious systems elsewhere also known as "native religion"|Indigenous religion}}
File:伏見稲荷５.JPG at the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto. Shinto is the ethnic religion of the Japanese people.{{cite book |last=Hardacre |first=Helen |title=Shinto: A History |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2017 |isbn=978-0-19-062171-1 |page=4}}]]
In religious studies, an ethnic religion or ethnoreligion{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iZhFEAAAQBAJ&dq=ethnoreligion&pg=PA83 | title=Religion and Democracy: A Worldwide Comparison | isbn=978-1-000-47552-4 | last1=Anckar | first1=Carsten | date=29 November 2021 | publisher=Routledge }} is a religion or belief associated with notions of heredity and a particular ethnicity. Ethnic religions are often distinguished from universal religions, such as Christianity or Islam, which are not limited in ethnic, national or racial scope.{{cite book|last1=Park|first1=Chris C.|title=Sacred Worlds: An Introduction to Geography and Religion|date=1994|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9780415090124|page=38|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NsIzwBRdmFoC&pg=PA38|access-date=2021-12-28|archive-date=2023-10-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231016053245/https://books.google.com/books?id=NsIzwBRdmFoC&pg=PA38#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}
Terminology
A number of alternative terms have been used instead of ethnic religion. Another term that is often used is folk religion. While ethnic religion and folk religion have overlapping uses, the latter term implies "the appropriation of religious beliefs and practices at a popular level."{{cite book|title=The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions|last=Bowker|first=John|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2000|isbn=978-0-191-72722-1|location=New York|chapter=Folk Religion}} The term folk religion can therefore be used to speak of certain Chinese and African religions, but can also refer to popular expressions of more multi-national and institutionalized religions such as Folk Christianity or Folk Islam.Rock, Stella (2007). [https://books.google.com/books?id=dNpcEtoAk4YC&pg=PA11 Popular religion in Russia]. Routledge {{ISBN|0-415-31771-1}}, p. 11. Last accessed July 2009.{{cite book|last=Cook|first=Chris|title=Spirituality and Psychiatry|publisher=RCPsych Publications|year=2009|page=242|isbn=978-1-904671-71-8}}
In Western contexts, a variety of terms are also employed. In the United States and Canada, a popular alternative term has been nature religion.{{cite book|last=Strmiska|first=Michael F.|title=Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives|year=2005|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=9781851096084|pages=15–16, 276}} Some neopagan movements, especially in Europe, have adopted ethnic religion as their preferred term, aligning themselves with ethnology. This notably includes the European Congress of Ethnic Religions,{{sfn|Strmiska|2005|p=14}} which chose its name after a day-long discussion in 1998, where the majority of the participants expressed that pagan contained too many negative connotations and ethnic better described the root of their traditions in particular nations. In the English-language popular and scholarly discourse Paganism, with a capital P, has become an accepted term.{{cite journal|last=Ivakhiv|first=Adrian|title=In Search of Deeper Identities: Neopaganism and "Native Faith" in Contemporary Ukraine|journal=Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions|volume=8|number=3|year=2005|pages=30|doi=10.1525/nr.2005.8.3.7 |url=http://www.uvm.edu/~aivakhiv/Insearch.pdf|jstor=10.1525/nr.2005.8.3.7|access-date=2019-06-29|archive-date=2021-08-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210814193521/http://www.uvm.edu/~aivakhiv/Insearch.pdf|url-status=live}}
Usage
Ethnic religions are defined as religions which are related to a particular ethnic group, and often seen as a defining part of that ethnicity's culture, language, and customs. Diasporic groups often maintain ethnic religions as a means of maintaining a distinct ethnic identity such as the role of African traditional religion and African diaspora religions among the African diaspora in the Americas.{{cite web|url=http://thegrio.com/2011/10/19/african-religions-gain-following-among-black-christians/|title=Are blacks abandoning Christianity for African faiths?|last=Oduah|first=Chika|date=19 October 2011|website=theGrio|access-date=27 May 2016|archive-date=9 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211109043244/https://thegrio.com/2011/10/19/african-religions-gain-following-among-black-christians/|url-status=live}}
Some ancient ethnic religions, such as those historically found in pre-modern Europe, have found new vitality in neopaganism.{{cite book|title=The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements|last=Lewis|first=James R.|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2004|isbn=978-0-195-36964-9|location=New York}} Moreover, non-ethnic religions, such as Christianity, have been known to assume ethnic traits to an extent that they serve a role as an important ethnic identity marker,{{cite journal|doi=10.2307/3711911|last=Chong|first=Kelly H.|year=1997|title=What It Means to Be Christian: The Role of Religion in the Construction of Ethnic Identity and Boundary Among Second- Generation Korean Americans |journal=Sociology of Religion|volume=59|issue=3|pages=259–286|jstor=3711911}} a notable example of this is the Serbian "Saint-Savianism" of the Serbian Orthodox Church,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UxDRgBAOKLAC&q=serbian+nationalism+st+sava&pg=PA158|title=Fundamentalism in the Modern World Vol 1: Fundamentalism, Politics and History: The State, Globalisation and Political Ideologies|first1=Ulrika|last1=Martensson|first2=Jennifer|last2=Bailey|first3=Priscilla|last3=Ringrose|first4=Asbjorn|last4=Dyrendal|date=15 August 2011|publisher=I. B.Tauris|via=Google Books|isbn=9781848853300|access-date=17 October 2020|archive-date=16 October 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231016053238/https://books.google.com/books?id=UxDRgBAOKLAC&q=serbian+nationalism+st+sava&pg=PA158|url-status=live}} and the religious and cultural heritage of Syriac Christianity branch of the Assyrian people.{{cite book|title=Assyrians in Yonkers: Reminiscences of a Community: Harvard College Library Assyrian collection|first=John|last=Pierre Ameer|year=2008|isbn=9781593337452|page=125|publisher=University of Michigan Press}}{{cite book|title=Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: A-C|first=James|last= Minahan|year= 2002|isbn=9780313321092|page =206|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group}}{{cite book|title=Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures and Contemporary Issues|first=Steven|last=L. Danver|year=2002|isbn=9781317464006|page=517|publisher=Routledge}}
List of ethnic religions
{{Further|List of ethnic religions|List of modern pagan movements}}