ABSTRACT
The earliest stages of anthropology as a distinct academic discipline witnessed a robust debate concerning the origins of religion. Any summation of identity theory must reckon with Hans Mol's assertion that religion is the process whereby an identity is 'sacralised'. Religion is a phenomenally broad concept, given to nearly boundless levels of both academic abstraction and cultural expression. Mol's adoption of a dialectical system for his discussion of religious identity is his ready acknowledgement of such an analytical challenge. Identity theory's originality comes as a function of its incorporation of emotion and commitment. Intuiting the fragility of identity whilst competing with potentially injurious forces of existence, the individual reacts much as other animals: aggressively. Identity theory proceeds along a particular line of argumentation, pursuing a clearer vantage of the progression from a natural drive for meaning to repose in a proven, enduringly stable socio-cultural system of symbols, behaviours and beliefs.
