ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the contributions and limitations of nationalism studies for understanding religions that form historically specific collective identities. The focus of nationalism studies is on the social implications of religion, but their conceptualization of modern religion, as it is and as it ought to be, has a theological rather than a sociological foundation. The concept of religious nationalism that shapes contemporary thinking about religion and collective identity emerges in theories of nationalism. Begin the discussion with Gellner's ideas as an example of a modernist approach to nationalism. Gellner's theory of nationalism was incidental to his larger quest the philosophy of history and his understanding of the progress from traditional to modern societies. The view that religion's demise is unavoidable and that nationalism replaces or employs religion in modern times put Gellner in the company of major sociological classics and most modernist theorists of nationalism.
