ABSTRACT
Religious nationalism may be a particularly effective form of mobilizing people around sentiments that join religious and national identifications. The Japanese movement Aum Shinrikyo at first resembled many other Japanese New Religions in promoting meditation and ascetic practices under the leadership of a charismatic person, in this case the blind Asahara Shoko. The conflicts and riots developed out of a modern idea of a Hindu nation-state, itself with roots in colonial constructions of religious communities and postcolonial electioneering. The Ghost Dance occupied a place in subsequent Native American religious and political life. But the revitalization movements in Melanesia were also religious movements, inspired by new religious ideas and practices. Even where something short of a millennium was prophesied, a wide variety of revitalization movements arising in colonized parts of Asia and Africa have drawn on the imagery and language of the book of Revelations, often associating it with the power and wealth of the colonizers.
