This article focuses on religion and the embeddedness in civil society. We examine the relationship between religion and national identity (ethnic and civic). Our findings show that individual religiosity continues to play an important role in sustaining both forms of national identity. In addition to other studies, we examine the relationship between religion as a societal phenomenon and individual national identity and find the following: The stronger the relationship between state and religion, the stronger the ethnic identity; the more the religious homogeneity, the stronger the ethnic identity; and there is no relationship between aggregated degree of religious organizations and identity. We conclude that religion continues to play a major role in the making of civil society, but the specific circumstances vary according to the religious representation. In other words, religion can both make and unmake national identity.
The associational life of civil society is the actual ground where all versions of the good are worked out and tested . . . and proven to be partial, incomplete, ultimately unsatisfying. It can’t be the case that living on this ground is good-in-itself; there isn’t any other place to live. What is true is that the quality of our political and economic activity and of our national culture is intimately connected to the strength and vitality of our associations. Ideally, civil society is a setting of settings: all are included, none is preferred.