Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the different ways in which people are religious in practice, considering the different meanings that people attach to religion, and the social expressions of their personal understandings. It then explores 'belief' in terms of means to the individual. The book also discusses the identities and the tensions between external and internal meanings and constraints. David Bell dresses the stage theoretically by arguing that the meaning of religious identity has been clouded and ill-defined. He provides a theoretical foundation for measuring religious identity and proposes further research into types of religious institutions that promote different aspects of religious identity. Andrew Dawson explores the new religion of Santo Daime in Brazil and discusses the fabrication of religious identity by urban middle-class daimistas through their appropriation of millenarian motifs traditionally associated with Brazil's rural poor.