As humans spread across the globe, they formed cultural identities related to their surroundings. An essential element of these identities was and still is religion. The purpose of those earliest religions was to organize and codify spirituality; stories and legends provided abstract explanations for the natural world and people’s relationship to it, while rituals, behavioral practices, and edifices helped reinforce a sense of shared identity. These religions, so inherently tied to particular cultures, are known as ethnic religions.
Ethnic Religions Definition
Ethnic religions are usually practiced by a particular ethnic identity. Adherents usually don’t feel the need to convert people of a different ethnic group to their faith, though many ethnic religions may still welcome interested outsiders.
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Most religions that have come and gone in human history were ethnic religions. Religious beliefs typically developed within communities of people striving to make sense of their own particular landscape and their role in it. What we now call Greek myths were once the religious beliefs of the Greeks, just as Egyptian myths were once the religious beliefs of the Egyptian people.
Difference Between Universalizing and Ethnic Religions
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Ethnic religions contrast with universalizing religions, faiths meant to be universally applicable to all people, regardless of their ethnicity or cultural heritage. Thus, adherents of universalizing religions may actively attempt to convert non-believers, a practice less common within ethnic religions.
Today, the largest universalizing religions are Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Other prominent universalizing religions are Taoism, Confucianism, the Baháʼí Faith, Sikhism, and Jainism.
It is perhaps important to note that universalizing religions often become incorporated into ethnic identities, especially if, through conversion, a universalizing religion supplants an ethnic religion. For example, over 90% of Filipinos identify as Christians. At the same time, the historical relationship between Punjabi Indians and Sikhism is so strong that the United States classified “Sikh” as its own ethnic group in 2020.
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Fig. 1 – A Roman Catholic Mass is held at a cathedral in Palawan, Philippines
Ethnic religions and universalizing religions sometimes intermingle in a process called syncretism. Historically, this was common with Buddhism, because the nature of its theological and metaphysical tenets allowed it to easily mesh with pre-existing indigenous belief systems throughout Asia.
Examples of Ethnic Religions
There are thousands of ethnic religions. Some are widespread; others are confined to just one town or village. The table below shows the most prominent ethnic religions.
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