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In religious studies, an ethnic religion or ethnoreligion is a religion or belief associated with notions of heredity and a particular ethnicity. Ethnic religions are often distinguished from universal religions, such as Christianity or Islam, which are not limited in ethnic, national or racial scope.
In Western contexts, a variety of terms are also employed. In the United States and Canada, a popular alternative term has been nature religion. Some neopagan movements, especially in Europe, have adopted ethnic religion as their preferred term, aligning themselves with ethnology. This notably includes the European Congress of Ethnic Religions, which chose its name after a day-long discussion in 1998, where the majority of the participants expressed that pagan contained too many negative connotations and ethnic better described the root of their traditions in particular nations. In the English-language popular and scholarly discourse Paganism, with a capital P, has become an accepted term.
Some ancient ethnic religions, such as those historically found in pre-modern Europe, have found new vitality in Modern Paganism. Moreover, non-ethnic religions, such as Christianity, have been known to assume ethnic traits to an extent that they serve a role as an important ethnic identity marker; a notable example of this is the Serbian "Saint-Savianism" of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and the religious and cultural heritage of Syriac Christianity branch of the Assyrian people.
One example involves Sámi religion in northern Fennoscandia. Unlike in the past, when missions had specially concentrated there, Sámi ritual traditions have in the long run proven to endure as well as evolve. Archaeological studies of sieidi sacrificial sites show both the lasting significance of these spaces and their evolving role in modern ritual and environmental symbolism.
Rain rituals in Israel, Haiti, and China are another such adaptation. Gerald Murray and Haiyan Xing examine how ethnic religious groups respond to climate-related crises. Their study compares Haitian Vodouists, Tu villagers in China, and Jewish communities, all of whom turn to ritual during times of drought or environmental hardship.
Gender also plays a pivotal role in the negotiation and persistence of ethnic religions under pressure. In their ethnographic study of the Tu ethnic group in Western China, Haiyan Xing and Gerald Murray show that while female spirits are recognized as powerful within the Tu pantheon, women are often restricted from ritual leadership and temple participation. This gender asymmetry reveals how traditional religious systems respond selectively to broader forces such as state policy, tourism, and cultural revival.
Resurgence of ethnic religion is also noted in the name of Rangfraism, an institutionalized contemporary religion adopted by Northeast Indian Tangsa. Rangfraism takes some elements of the Christian and Hindu traditions against conversion and for group identity. It is not tradition but conscious reconstruction in new languages. It can also be used as an instrument in maintaining the boundaries of ethnicity.
For the Guatemalan Maya, the saints are not inserted into prior indigenous use—they are reimagined as beings in and of themselves, as Maya. John Watanabe charts the labor by which saints are made meaningful as indigenous instructors of ethics rooted in cosmology and social order in the region but as non-colonizers. This refashioning of meaning focuses syncretism as something agency-centered rather than passive.
History contacts between missionaries and Native Americans equally show religious contact nuances. Cases in colonial North America, as in *Ethnographies and Exchanges*, show how religious life of the natives persisted and transformed through contacts with Catholic and Moravian templates, and what they produced were syncretic practices rather than replacement outright.
Together, these studies complicate easy visions about ethnic religion as motionless or positively traditional. Rather, they highlight how ethnic religions serve as adaptable frameworks for expressing identity, asserting agency, and responding to both internal and external challenges.
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