Religious Identity Components

Abstract

“Religious identity” is a new concept as compared to “social identity” and “national identity”, but despite its high significance, less time has been allocated to it. The few articles and researches dealing with the issue are lacking in a clear definition of the concept. Instead, they have directed their attention to the components of religious identity, a situation that has negatively affected the theoretical basis of those works. This article, on the contrary, tries to offer a definition of the subject prior to answering about its components. The proposed components are as follows: 1) epistemological components, 2) emotional components, 3) social components, 4) cultural components. These are explained in their own turn in the final section of the article.

Keywords

• identity
• definition of identity
• definitions of religion
• religious identity
• religious identity components