Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the dominant theoretical approaches to religion and identity. The concept of religious nationalism emerged from within the framework of theories of nationalism and, accordingly, its main focus has always been on national, rather than on religious, identity. The empirical exploration of collectivistic religions in Europe begins with Roman Catholicism in Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia. An example of a historical and sociological approach to the phenomenology of collectivistic religions, looking at the symbolic and structural differences among Bosnian, Croatian, and Slovenian Catholicism. The Bosnian and Croatian Catholicism within a broader European context, and in relation to three different cases of collectivistic Christianities Irish Catholicism, Polish Catholicism, and Greek Orthodox Christianity. The book points out the analytic and historical problems of using the concepts of 'heretical imperative' and 'religious nationalism' to analyze and evaluate all collectivistic religions.