ABSTRACT
Religious identities are part of a bundle of identities defining historical actors. The modern sociological imagination objects to the idea that religious formations are components of civil society on other grounds, that religious affiliations are assigned by ascription, that they are inherited identities rather than chosen ones. The relationship of religious formations to states takes place along a continuum from autonomy to incorporation. Associated with the difference between religion from below and from above is a difference between tightly held, centralized modes of transnational religious formations on the one hand and informal, loosely coupled modes on the other. The distinction is apparent in the way Catholics and Muslims organize the transnational transfer of religious resources—"charity". Religious formations have joined issue- and interest-oriented transnational epistemes and communities—human rights associations, environmentalists, public health professionals, multinationals—to constitute a transnational civil society that carries on a world politics.
