In general, ethnoreligious communities define their ethnic identity by their religious affiliation or a combination of religious affiliation and other factors, such as language, territorial origin etc. Sometimes, ethnoreligious communities can be defined as ethnic groups with close associations with a religion that can be practiced by other ethnicities, such as Irish Catholics and Swedish Lutherans. Some ethnoreligious groups' identities are reinforced by the experience of living within a larger community as a distinct
minority. Ethnoreligious groups can be tied to
ethnic nationalism if the ethnoreligious group possesses a historical base in a specific region. In many ethnoreligious groups emphasis is placed upon religious endogamy, and the concurrent discouragement of interfaith marriages or intercourse, as a means of preserving the stability and historical longevity of the community and culture.
Jews Prior to the
Babylonian exile in the late 7th century BC and early 6th century BC, the
Israelites had already emerged as an ethnoreligious group, probably before the time of
Hosea in 8th century BC. The ethno-religious character of the Jewish people in antiquity has been expounded upon by scholars such as
Salo W. Baron, who spoke of "the ethnoreligious unity of [the Israelite] people", This was expounded upon in 2001 by
Shaye J. D. Cohen, when describing
Jewish identity during the late
Second Temple period. Since the 19th century,
Reform Judaism has differed from
Orthodox Judaism on matters of theology and practice; however, toward the end of the 20th century and into the 21st century, the Reform movement has reoriented itself back toward certain traditions and practices it had previously relinquished (for example, wearing the
tallit and/or the
kippah; the use of Hebrew in the liturgy). In the United States, the increasing rate of mixed marriages has led to attempts to facilitate conversion of the spouse, although conversion to facilitate marriage is strongly discouraged by traditional Jewish law. If a non-Jewish woman marrying a Jewish man does not convert, then although traditional interpretations of Jewish law recognize only descent along the maternal line,
Reform Judaism will recognize a child born of the marriage as Jewish based on patrilineal descent if that child has "established through appropriate and timely public and formal acts of identification with the Jewish faith and people" that the child self-identifies as Jewish. In actual practice, most Reform Jews affirm patrilineal descent as a valid means of Jewish identification, particularly if the individual was "raised Jewish". Israeli national identity is linked with Jewish identity as a result of
Zionism. In Israel, Jewish religious courts have authority over personal status matters, which has led to friction with secular Jews who sometimes find they must leave the country in order to marry or divorce, particularly in relation to the inherited status of
mamzer, the marriage of males from the priestly line, persons not recognized as Jewish by the rabbinate, and in cases of
agunot. The Israeli rabbinate only recognizes certain approved Orthodox rabbis as legitimate, which has led to friction with Diaspora Jews who for centuries never had an overarching authority.
Anabaptists Other classical examples for ethnoreligious groups are traditional
Anabaptist groups like the
Old Order Amish, the
Hutterites, the
Old Order Mennonites and traditional groups of
Plautdietsch-speaking
Russian Mennonites, like the
Old Colony Mennonites. All these groups have a shared cultural background, a shared dialect as their everyday language (
Pennsylvania German,
Hutterisch,
Plautdietsch), a shared version of their Anabaptist faith, a shared history of several hundred years and they have accepted very few outsiders into their communities in the last 250 years. They may also share common
foods, dress, and other customs. Modern proselytizing Mennonite groups, such as the
Evangelical Mennonite Conference whose members have lost their shared ancestry, their common ethnic language Plautdietsch, their traditional dress, and other typical ethnic traditions, are no longer seen as an ethnoreligious group, although members within these groups may still identify with the term
Mennonite as an ethnic identifier.
Examples The concepts of
ethnoreligious fusion and
ethnic religion have been applied by reliable sources to the following groups: In a broader sense, the concept of a
religious ethnicity has been applied to communities—particularly
minorities living in religious borderlands, belonging to distinctive
religions or
sects, and maintaining
in-group boundaries—where religious and ethnic identities have historically reinforced one another through
endogamy, sociopolitical and cultural separation, and clear religious distinction from neighboring groups. The following is a selective, non-exhaustive list of religious ethnicities, meeting several of the aforementioned criteria:
Armenians,
Assyrians,
Baharna,
Balinese,
Bosniaks,
Croats,
Gorani,
Greeks,{{Cite web ==As a legal concept==