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+
+
+========== PAGE 1 ==========
+
+KARMELA LIEBKIND
+
+Antisemitism
+
+A Multi-disciplinary Perspective on a Demonology
+
+with Variations
+
+doi.org/10.30664/ar.163571
+
+he aim of this article is to synthesize exist-
+‘Ti knowledge in a novel way by looking
+
+through a social psychological lens at his-
+torical manifestations of antisemitism and its
+most recent variant, presented as a case study
+which tracks its development and compares it
+with the core demonology of antisemitism. By
+reviewing literature representing many differ-
+ent disciplines, focusing particularly on history,
+theology and social psychology, the article aims
+to bridge disciplinary gaps, making social psy-
+chological insights on inter-group relations and
+social identities accessible to scholars in other
+fields and thus foster a cross-disciplinary dia-
+logue on antisemitism. Linguistic “innovation”
+has been needed whenever an existing variety
+becomes politically incorrect, which, on the indi-
+vidual level, may give rise to a denial that the new
+variety is antisemitism. It is concluded that com-
+pared to other racisms applied research is still
+needed to fill the existing lacuna to find remedies
+for antisemitism.
+
+Introduction
+
+Antisemitism is a deeply rooted preju-
+dice. Its manifestations have changed over
+thousands of years; they include medieval
+accusations such as the blood libel, which
+falsely claimed that Jews used Christian
+blood in religious rituals (e.g. Teter 2023)
+and modern conspiracies alleging Jewish
+control over global affairs (e.g. Czimbalmos
+2025), often linked to the State of Israel
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+©)@ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
+
+\| VERTAISARVIOITU
+~ KOLLEGIALT GRANSKAD
+wy. PEER-REVIEWED
+
+www.tsv.fi/tunnus
+
+(e.g. Herf 2024). Antisemitic tropes rely
+on conspiratorial thinking, a feature which
+differentiates antisemitism from racism
+(e.g. Stégner 2025). Contemporary vari-
+ants of antisemitism can be classified into
+three main forms: Rightist, Leftist and
+Islamist (Herf 2024). The common factor
+is that Jews are portrayed as a threat that
+fuels cognitive, emotional and behavioural
+responses that constitute antisemitism.
+
+The aim of this article is to synthe-
+size existing knowledge in a novel way. By
+revisiting some definitions and historical
+manifestations of antisemitism through a
+social psychological lens, the article aims
+to bridge disciplinary gaps. Integrating a
+social-psychological perspective on inter-
+group relations with broader multi-disci-
+plinary work, focusing on how Jews and
+Judaism have been imagined in inter-group
+prejudice as opposed to how Jews have
+defined their own identity, this article also
+aims to make social psychological insights
+accessible to scholars in other fields, thus
+fostering cross-disciplinary dialogue and
+understanding of antisemitism.
+
+Some basic concepts and tenets of the
+social psychology of inter-group relations
+and social identity need to be addressed
+
+56
+
+
+========== PAGE 2 ==========
+
+in the introduction. Next, the basics of the
+social psychology of inter-group relations
+and social identities, ie. the “lens” through
+which this literature review is perceived, is
+briefly described. This is followed by a sec-
+tion discussing how to define and iden-
+tify antisemitism, while the next section
+addresses the historical roots, transforma-
+tions and core demonology of antisemitism
+as well as the role of academia in decisive
+junctions of those transformations. The
+largest section is a case study of the devel-
+opment of the latest variety of antisemitism
+and its connection to the core demonol-
+ogy of antisemitism. Before the conclusion
+drawn from all previous sections, a sepa-
+rate section discusses the consequences
+of the failed identity negotiations of Jews
+with other groups and the need for more
+research on all kinds of contemporary anti-
+semitism and on ways to curb the accelerat-
+ing increase of this hatred.
+
+On the social psychology of inter-group
+relations and social identities
+
+Intergroup behaviour occurs when individu-
+als are motivated by a salient social or collec-
+tive identity, that is, a heightened awareness
+of characteristics shared with an ingroup,
+a “we” group. This salient social iden-
+tity makes us look at ourselves and others,
+from both “we” and “they” groups, through
+that group lens and behave towards them
+accordingly. This is the basic tenet of both
+Social Categorization Theory (SCT, Turner
+et al. 1987) and Social Identity Theory (SIT,
+Tajfel and Turner, 1986). The degree of
+identification with our ingroup, but even
+more the subjective content and mean-
+ing of the salient social identity (the group
+lens) influences our intergroup attitudes, ie.
+our beliefs about, emotions and behaviour
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+towards a particular outgroup, in this case,
+the Jews, however that group is defined or
+defines itself. Prejudice is a negative attitude
+characterized by negative emotions which
+sparks negative behaviour whenever behav-
+iour follows. However, inter-group emotions
+and behaviour vary, the latter ranging from
+discrimination, confrontation/attack, avoid-
+ance and exclusion to repair of past wrongs
+or actions of support (Helkama et al. 2017;
+Mackie et al. 2016).
+
+In interpersonal behaviour, in turn, our
+personal identity is the most salient one. At
+the personal extreme of the salience con-
+tinuum Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
+are the iconic example of two individuals
+who defy the social identity they have as
+members of two warring families to enable
+their interaction as individuals only. The
+social extreme of that continuum can be
+illustrated by two enemies in combat who
+are expected to defy their own (and their
+enemies’) personal identity and thus act
+solely as soldiers fighting for their country.
+However, behaviour is seldom this “pure’,
+but rather the result of a mixture, salience
+leaning slightly towards one or the other
+end of the continuum.
+
+What is often ignored, however, is that
+everyone has more than one social iden-
+tity, creating intersecting social identities
+which are not just the sum of their parts.
+In addition, considering intergroup rela-
+tions between unequal groups such as
+minorities and majorities also disadvan-
+tage and inequality need to be addressed.
+Intersectionality Theory started with soci-
+ological research on the disadvantaged
+situation of Black women in the USA, ice.
+the intersection of class, race and gender
+1989) and
+ity research is still mostly sociological,
+
+(Crenshaw intersectional-
+
+5/
+
+
+========== PAGE 3 ==========
+
+focusing on social structures. However,
+the focus in social psychology is on the
+complexity of multiple, intersecting group
+memberships which shape each other.
+
+The political scientist and Associate
+Professor in Law David Schraub (2019)
+notes that intersectional studies rarely
+subjects, despite
+the framework’s potential to illuminate
+
+engage with Jewish
+
+Jewish experiences of marginalization. He
+attributes this absence to the widespread
+conflation of Jewishness with Whiteness,
+which leads scholars to overlook antisem-
+itism as a form of oppression (see also
+the section on the cultural roots and core
+demonology of antisemitism). Schraub
+calls for a more nuanced intersectional
+approach that recognizes Jewish identity as
+complex and distinct, rather than subsum-
+ing it under Whiteness (Schraub 2019).
+The Professor of Sociology Karin Stégner
+noted that antisemitism “does not position
+Jews unambiguously on one or the other
+side of these markers” but is characterized
+by ambivalence with regard to binary clas-
+sifications (Stogner 2023, 288), although a
+common tendency over recent decades in
+everyday language as well as in academia is
+to categorize people more or less unambig-
+uously along binary codes (e.g. black-white,
+hetero-lesbian/gay, oppressor-oppressed).
+Two social identities relevant for anti-
+semitism are ethnic identity and cultural
+identity. The former is in social psychol-
+ogy anchored in the identity process, part
+of one’s total social identity, and defined
+as identification with a group based on
+a belief in common ancestry. This belief
+makes ethnic identity distinct from other
+social identities (Verkuyten 2018). Cultural
+identity is defined in different ways within
+different disciplines, but here it will suffice
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+to note that it is a learnt relationship to the
+physical and social environment of one’s
+childhood and the result of a socialization
+process that anchors an individual to his/
+her environment. Religion is often consid-
+ered a part of culture, but in Jewish identity
+they are often separated. As culture is trans-
+mitted from early childhood on within the
+family it is partly subconscious. In addi-
+tion, culture changes with time, both his-
+torically and within an individual's lifetime.
+The subjective content and meaning of cul-
+ture vary between individuals within the
+same cultural group.
+
+Increasing the complexity of social
+identities, the content and meaning of any
+particular social or collective identity can
+individually be based on different charac-
+teristics. National identities can be based
+on shared culture (language, religion,
+values, norms), geographical anchoring
+(where one lives), and/or ethnicity (belief
+in common ancestry). One specific feature
+of antisemitism is the variety of rationali-
+ties it has applied over time. This is because
+Jewish identity is manifold at its core, a
+combination of religion, ethnicity and
+broader culture—and many other things
+on whose basis a person may call them-
+selves Jewish (e.g. Dencik 2009). At the
+beginning of Jewish history, Jewish culture,
+heritage and religion were very much inter-
+twined. This inherently manifold nature of
+Jewish identity has, unlike with some other
+religious groups, made it possible even for
+atheists to have a strong Jewish identity
+(Dencik 2009, 321), but has also offered
+several different grounds for discrimina-
+tion and persecution of Jews.
+
+An important aspect of the content and
+meaning of any identity, social or personal,
+is that people are not free to choose any
+
+58
+
+
+========== PAGE 4 ==========
+
+identity they want. Social as well as per-
+sonal identities are presented and nego-
+tiated in interaction; self-recognized and
+alter-ascribed ethnic/cultural/religious or
+any other social identities may not match
+(Liebkind 1992; 2006). Our
+are developed, changed, challenged and
+
+identities
+
+defended over time, in interaction with our
+social environment; alter-ascribed identi-
+ties reflected onto us may confirm or coun-
+ter our self-recognized ones. As we need
+positive rather than negative identities,
+we try to reach an agreement with at least
+significant others and groups on who and
+what we are. This poses special challenges
+for minority groups, whose self-recognized
+social identities may not be heard, and the
+alter-ascribed ones be tainted with preju-
+dice (Liebkind 1992; 2006). For example,
+the self-recognized Jewish identity of Soviet
+Jewry was countered when in the pre-1967
+period they began to develop what would
+become a Jewish national movement,
+where Jewish identity included both iden-
+tification with Israel and the pre-existing
+conception of all Jews as a people across
+national borders: According to Gjerde
+(2018), this “went far beyond the limits of
+what Soviet authorities considered accept-
+able Jewish identity” (Gjerde 2018, 280).
+When not conforming to approved Soviet
+Jewish identities, therefore, Jews who sub-
+scribed to national Jewish identities and
+supported Zionism were considered part of
+a vast anti-Soviet conspiracy (Gjerde 2018,
+291).
+
+On defining and identifying antisemitism
+
+While the goal of this article is not to define
+antisemitism, it is necessary to briefly
+reflect on the debate surrounding its defini-
+tion. As Czimbalmos and Pataricza (2024)
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+summarize, like other forms of discrimi-
+nation, antisemitism includes both easily
+recognizable and more subtle expressions
+(Czimbalmos and Pataricza 2024, 15). To
+cover these, several definitions of antisem-
+itism (e.g. the Jerusalem Declaration, the
+Nexus Document) have been proposed.
+Perhaps the most well-known and widely
+recognized is that of the International
+Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)
+from 2016. The IHRA definition serves as
+a guideline and is recommended by the
+European Commission in its 2022 conclu-
+sions on combating racism and antisem-
+itism, as well as in its 2018 declaration on
+countering antisemitism. Nevertheless, it
+is often regarded insufficient for scientific
+analysis (Czimbalmos and Pataricza 2024,
+15-16) and criticized for not providing an
+unchanging essence for all cases of anti-
+semitism. However, the philosopher Eve
+Garrard (2020) maintains that this is irrel-
+evant; there are too many other concepts in
+the same boat for this complaint to count.
+Another putatively moral objection is the
+claim that it represents an attack on the
+freedom of speech of critics of Israel. But
+this is simply not true, as it is full of con-
+ditional verbs: something “may’, “could” or
+“might” be antisemitic, but need not be. The
+only view which this definition threatens is
+that criticism of Israel can never, in any cir-
+cumstances, be antisemitic. Although this
+is not even remotely plausible, some crit-
+ics of the IHRA definition seem to find it
+attractive (Garrard 2020).
+
+Often used in research is Helen Fein’s
+definition of antisemitism as:
+
+a persisting latent structure of hos-
+
+tile beliefs towards Jews as a collective
+manifested in individuals as attitudes,
+
+59
+
+
+========== PAGE 5 ==========
+
+and in culture as myth, ideology, folk-
+lore and imagery, and in actions—
+social or legal discrimination, politi-
+cal mobilization against the Jews, and
+collective or state violence—which
+results in and/or is designed to dis-
+tance, displace, or destroy Jews as
+Jews. (Fein 1987, 67)
+
+Fein’s definition includes also a cultural level
+of antisemitism. As culture, often considered
+to include religion, is transmitted in early
+childhood, it becomes a part of our person-
+ality, and we may be unaware of it. The neg-
+ative, culturally transmitted alter-ascribed
+Jewish identity is very different from how
+Jews have perceived themselves over time.
+The Professor of Psychology Gordon Allport
+explained the persistence of most prejudice,
+relevant also for the stereotypical “imag-
+ined Jew”: “defeated intellectually, prejudice
+lingers emotionally” (Allport 1951, 328).
+Brekke (2021) notes that cultural models
+or schemas are widely shared but unavail-
+able to the cultural insider because they are
+taken for granted. Culturally acquired prej-
+udice, like antisemitism, influences individ-
+uals’ attitudes involuntarily. When normal-
+ized, such prejudice becomes structural, i.e.
+institutionalized (Johnson 2019). Thus, it is
+at the individual level mostly implicit, ice.
+invisible to the prejudiced (Greenwald and
+Banaji 2017).
+
+This concerns also antisemitism; on
+the basis of original material of that time,
+Gjerde (2018) claimed that most of the
+Soviet elite from 1967 onwards were “true
+believers” in conspiracy theories concern-
+ing Soviet Jews and thus may not have been
+aware of the antisemitism in their increas-
+ing antizionist rhetoric (Gjerde 2018, 291).
+The British researcher of antisemitism
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+Dave Rich has described how this unaware-
+ness is manifested:
+
+people who fall for antisemitic myths
+and conspiracies and stereotypes, who
+follow these built-in ideas about Jews,
+they are like hikers following a trail
+across an unfamiliar landscape who
+just instinctively follow the path trod-
+den into the Earth by countless people
+before them in times long forgotten
+[...] because these ideas [...] are deeply
+embedded in the mainstream of our
+culture. (Rich 2023)
+
+Regardless of what definition is employed,
+antisemitism offers Jews a negative alter-
+ascribed identity contradicting the self-
+recognized one. It manifests itself, like any
+prejudice, as negative stereotypes (gener-
+alizing beliefs) of Jews, emotions ranging
+from mild disapproval to passionate hatred
+triggered by stereotypes/beliefs
+and concomitant behavioural tendencies
+(Helkama et al. 2017).
+
+Although sharing features with racism,
+
+those
+
+antisemitism is also a form of xenopho-
+bia and has been perceived as the proto-
+type of conspiracy theories (Volli 2016;
+Czimbalmos and Pataricza 2024). The dif-
+ference between the classical concept of
+racism and antisemitism has been aptly
+illustrated by the Marxist sociologist Oliver
+Cromwell Cox:
+
+Antisemitism is an attitude directed at
+the Jews because they are Jews, while
+race prejudice is an attitude directed at
+the Negroes! because they want to be
+
+1 I recognize that the term “Negro” as used
+in historical texts like Cox’s is outdated and
+
+60
+
+
+========== PAGE 6 ==========
+
+something other than Negroes. A Jew,
+to the intolerant, is an enemy within
+society; but the Negro, to the race-prej-
+udiced, is a friend in his place. [...] the
+one condition of peace between Jews
+and Gentiles is that the Jews cease to
+be Jews. (Cox [1948]1959, 393, 395)
+
+Rather than perceiving Jews as merely infe-
+rior, antisemitism depicts Jews as an all-
+powerful collective, threatening non-Jews
+by aiming to harm them (Harrison 2019;
+Julius 2024). This has also been highlighted
+by Schraub (2019), as discussed in the sec-
+tion on the social psychology of intergroup
+relations and social identities.
+
+Despite the complexity of many key
+terms, definitions are still important as
+both conceptual under-specification and
+conceptual expansion are endemic. It is dif-
+ficult to observe, for example, if antisem-
+itism or ethnic identity is incompatible with
+observed variability without at least some
+idea about what antisemitism, ethnicity
+and identity are all about. Fragmentation
+and change can be understood only when
+it is clear what is fragmented and subject to
+change (Verkuyten 2018).
+
+The cultural roots of much of the world’s
+antisemitism and its core demonology
+Owing to its ever-changing nature, anti-
+semitism cannot be understood without
+tracing its origins in history. In Europe
+
+carries problematic connotations rooted
+in racial hierarchies and colonial legacies.
+While engaging with such language criti-
+cally is important for understanding the
+context in which it was written, it is equally
+necessary to acknowledge its offensive
+nature and avoid its use in contemporary
+discourse.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+and in a large part of the world, a system
+of antisemitic traditions has since antiquity
+been used to identify the Jewish “Other”.
+According to a number of scholars (e.g.
+Mayerhofer and Lange 2021; Rutgers 2021;
+Teter 2023), Jew-hatred also significantly
+served the construction of a Christian
+identity. Although anti-Judaism was not
+born with Christianity, Christianity was
+born as a negation of Judaism, and was,
+like Islam, formed over several hundred
+years as emerging groups breaking with
+their parent religion(s) (Rutgers 2021, 34).
+Naturally, there are geographic and cul-
+tural-historical differences in antisemitism,
+e.g. in the “Muslim world” and in Christian
+majority societies, although commonalities
+also exist (Herf 2024).
+
+From a social-psychological perspec-
+tive, what all emerging groups have in
+common is the need to recruit new mem-
+bers. Consequently, they need to stand out
+in a positive way compared to their parent
+group(s), that is, they need to acquire so-
+called positive distinctiveness (e.g. Castelli
+and Carraro 2010). A strategy often used
+for that purpose is to engage in active inter-
+group comparison and depict the new ide-
+ology, in this case Christianity or Islam,
+as superior to the old one(s). Describing
+the Old Testament Divinity as unforgiv-
+ing, vengeful and bloodthirsty compared
+to the Christian one is one example. This
+alter-ascribed characterization of Judaism
+emerged in the long, successful process of
+acquiring a positively distinct Christian
+identity. Through missionary work Chris-
+tianity and Islam became majorities, while
+Judaism remained a minority, also because
+the new religions, when in power, forbid
+Jews to proselytize. The conception of the
+superiority of Christianity culminated in
+
+6]
+
+
+========== PAGE 7 ==========
+
+Christian supersessionism, i.e. the idea that
+Christianity would finally replace Judaism.
+
+The social psychological notion of the
+need for early Christianity to acquire posi-
+tive distinctiveness is entirely theoretical.
+However, it is independently corroborated
+by original sources, although not all histo-
+rians may agree with their interpretation.
+Professor Leonard Rutgers (2021) noted
+that:
+
+Early Christian texts dealing with
+the Jews are often not about the Jews
+at all but about Christians in search
+of their own distinct identity [...]
+Having begun its life as an offspring
+of Judaism and as a Jewish sect, early
+Christianity was facing a set of major,
+almost unsurmountable challenges
+when it came to delineate its self-iden-
+tity. [...] Clearly etched boundaries
+became crucially important. Christian
+theologians needed to succeed in
+highlighting the fact that Christianity
+was something altogether different
+and new. [...] [As] they tried to sever
+all ties from the Jewish past that had
+produced them [...] [they] could do
+little but engage in a considerable
+amount of negative identity-forma-
+tion. Judaism ended up at the receiv-
+ing end of the hostile rhetoric that this
+process of dissociation, separation,
+and identity formation entailed and
+engendered. (Rutgers 2021, 34)
+
+Another historian, Professor Magda Teter
+(2023), depicts the content of the Christian
+“group lens” on Jews by showing how
+Christian theology of late Antiquity cast
+Jews as “children born to slavery’, and
+how their supposed theological inferiority
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+became inscribed into law, institutional-
+izing a sense of Christian domination and
+superiority. Teter (2023) found that, in Etsi
+Judeos of Pope Innocent III (1205), Jews
+were not allowed to have Christian serv-
+ants, because they “shall recognize them-
+selves as slaves to those whom Christ’s
+death set free. In Cum Nimis Absurdum
+(1555) of Pope Paul IV, Jews were forbid-
+den to live as neighbours to Christians or
+churches, because “Jews, whose own guilt
+has consigned them to perpetual servi-
+tude” should, “as long as they persist in
+
+>
+
+their errors’, “recognize through experi-
+ence that they have become slaves while
+Christians have been made free through
+Jesus Christ”. Jews were supposed to aban-
+don their religious identity and cease to
+exist as Jews. Interestingly, Teter shows that
+the first racist laws which were introduced
+in Virginia, USA, in “An Act concerning
+Servants and Slaves” (Section XI) in 1705
+largely mirrored the anti-Jewish laws that
+had existed for centuries.
+
+Although “antisemitism has taken on
+radically different forms and supposed
+‘rationales’ in different cultures at different
+times” (Johnson 2019, 17), research shows
+that the core of antisemitism is rooted in
+Christian theology (Brekke 2021). Many
+scholars have formulated the essence
+of antisemitic myths and _ stereotypes.
+According to Professor of Law Anthony
+Julius (2024), for example, all versions
+of antisemitism libel Jews, as libels “are
+damaging to the good name of the Jewish
+people” (Julius 2024, 11). Julius lists five
+libels as the essence of antisemitism:
+
+The blood libel supposes that Jews enter-
+tain homicidal intentions towards non-Jews
+(and specifically, non-Jewish children), and
+commit acts of murder, either in re-enact-
+
+62
+
+
+========== PAGE 8 ==========
+
+ment of the Crucifixion, or to avenge their
+continuing, collective punishment for that
+cosmic crime.
+
+¢ The economic libel supposes that Jews,
+who are self-interested, materialist, acquis-
+itive and unproductive by nature, exploit
+non-Jews when they can, and seek monop-
+oly power, the better to pursue their greater
+objectives.
+
+¢ The conspiracy libel supposes that Jews
+act in concert, in secret pursuit of goals
+inimical to the interests of non-Jews. That
+is: Jews conspire with other Jews.
+
+¢ The silencing libel supposes that Jews
+cannot tolerate truth-tellers; they fear expo-
+sure of their plots. They conspire together
+to silence their virtuous enemies.
+
+¢ The mendacity libel supposes that Jews
+proceed by deception and other forms of
+deceit. That is: Jews lie to non-Jews. (Julius
+2024, 10-1)
+
+The mendacity libel has two variants,
+Holocaust denial and Weaponization of
+Antisemitism; Julius is most concerned
+about the latter, as it claims that:
+
+the Jews deploy such evidence of anti-
+semitism as may exist for an ulte-
+rior, improper purpose, (a) to deflect
+attention, or otherwise excuse, Israel’s
+and/or (b) to
+antizionists into silence, or to dis-
+
+crimes, intimidate
+credit them. They typically overstate
+the level or seriousness of antisem-
+itism, and their own concern about it.
+(Julius 2024, 142)
+
+Julius finds that libel bizarre, as “it would
+not be difficult to identify the racism, say,
+in equivalent claims about other minority
+groups” (Julius 2024, 142). Schraub (2022)
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+broadens the mendacity libel into general
+untrustworthyness, calling it epistemic
+antisemitism, which “injures, wrongs, or
+marginalizes Jews in their capacities as
+knowers—testifiers, communicators, expo-
+nents or purveyors of knowledge” (Schraub
+2022, 153). The long-time socialist, politi-
+cal scientist and journalist Alan Johnson
+(2019), in turn, compares antisemitism to
+a piano: its core demonology—the key ste-
+reotypes and myths describing the imag-
+ined Jew—are the unchanging keys, while
+the variations across time are the melodies
+played on those keys, each telling “a differ-
+ent story about the alien, powerful, malev-
+olent and tricksy Jew” (Johnson 2019, 17).
+Although delusional, this core demonol-
+ogy shaped European Christianity in the
+Middle Ages even without Jews (Julius
+2010). The “composers” and “pianists” of
+the variants—religions, ideologies, move-
+ments and their leaders—have adapted it
+to fit their norms. Older forms exist along-
+side new ones. Jews have been accused of
+being god-killers, arch-capitalist exploit-
+ers, revolutionary communists, too tribal
+and too rootless, too poor and too rich, etc.
+(Johnson 2019), while the core demonol-
+ogy has remained unchanged.
+
+An important shift occurred when the
+anti-Judaism became politically incorrect
+in the nineteenth century and was replaced
+with the more socially acceptable term
+antisemitism. In the seventeenth and eight-
+eenth centuries new ideas emerged, empha-
+sizing equality between citizens (Michman
+2023), which clashed with earlier notions of
+hierarchy between human groups. To deny
+equality to those deemed inferior, new
+ingroups and outgroups were needed. Jews
+were no longer compared with Christians,
+but, for example, with French or Germans
+
+63
+
+
+========== PAGE 9 ==========
+
+(Michman 2023). The aim was to show that
+they did not deserve equality, and if they
+enjoyed it, it had been “stolen” or was oth-
+erwise undeserved (Teter 2023).
+
+A primary example of how academia
+has rehabilitated Jew-hatred is the concept
+of the Aryan “race”, which emerged in sci-
+ence in the nineteenth century through
+misuse of the word Aryan. This word had
+referred only to Aryan (i.e. Indo-European)
+languages until Arthur de Gobineau (1853),
+called the father of racist ideology, started
+to misuse it to denote race. This allowed
+Jews to be classified as “Semites”. The term
+antisemitism improved the reputation of
+Jew-hatred because the prefix “anti-“ and
+the word “semitic” made it sound more
+
+«
+
+scientific and the “-ism” transformed it
+to an acceptable ideology among others
+(Michman 2023).
+
+Jew-hatred was thus rehabilitated simply
+by changing the language used to talk
+about it. However, the many dimensions
+of Jewish identity still posed a problem;
+even if Jews were in secular societies given
+a chance to emancipate without explicitly
+renouncing their Judaism, this applied only
+on an individual basis; what they had to
+abandon was their view of themselves as a
+people (Lappin 2019), ie. their ethnic iden-
+tity. Viewing the Jewish people as an illicit
+nation is deeply ingrained in both religious
+and secular European culture. Secular anti-
+semitism in Europe on both the Left and
+the Right mirrored for centuries before the
+Second World War the Christian superses-
+sionism in the view that:
+
+Jews are an illicit collectivity lacking
+any independent legitimacy. Its mem-
+bers need to be repaired and reconfig-
+
+ured. The intended result of each reply
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+[to the Jewish question] is to find an
+acceptable way of eliminating this col-
+lectivity. In the case of the right, this
+was to be through expulsion and, ulti-
+mately, physical annihilation. For the
+left, and some liberals, it would be
+achieved through a forced or a natural
+process of assimilation. (Lappin 2019,
+33)
+
+Currently, “a large part of the contempo-
+rary European left has inherited the lib-
+eral and revolutionary antipathy towards
+a Jewish collectivity, with Israel becoming
+the focus of this attitude” and, as a result,
+“a Jewish country is treated as an illegiti-
+mate entity not worthy of a people whose
+history should have taught them the folly
+of nationalism” (Lappin 2003, 23). This was
+the basis for one decisive event in the con-
+stant development of new variants of anti-
+semitism: the 2001 UN “World Conference
+against Racism”. At Durban, “the 1970s
+‘Zionism=Racism culture returned” (Hirsh
+and Miller 2022, abstract) and has grown
+ever since (see also the section on the
+cultural roots and core demonology of
+antisemitism).
+
+Western academia participates again,
+knowingly or not, in rehabilitating anti-
+semitism by using buzzwords aimed at pro-
+jecting, without proof of the validity of the
+claims, all the evil perceived to character-
+ize (the imagined) Judaism and Jews on
+Zionism and Zionists (see also the sections
+on the cultural roots and core demonology
+of antisemitism and the case study). For
+example, in Whiteness studies: “the color
+line is introduced into conflicts which have
+nothing to do neither with the American
+race relations, nor with a European type
+of colonialism” (Berkovits 2018, 88). Using
+
+64
+
+
+========== PAGE 10 ==========
+
+this frame, anti-racist ideology depicts Jews
+as “super-White’, thereby strengthening
+age-old antisemitic myths (Schraub 2019):
+
+Whiteness as a lens of analysis is
+designed to elevate or accentuate cer-
+tain aspects of experience that might
+otherwise go unnoticed [...] [T]he
+prevailing view of Jews—the view
+that subordinates Jews—is precisely
+that they are “particularly powerful,
+or privileged, or influential”. And so,
+when the Whiteness frame—which by
+design draws attention to these attrib-
+utes—is overlaid upon the White Jew
+(as a body or a concept), it serves not
+as a counterweight but as an accelerant.
+The hope in applying the Whiteness
+frame to a gentile White is to unsettle
+received understandings of the White
+experience—to make people see things
+they had not seen before. By contrast,
+the effect of applying Whiteness to
+Jewishness is confirmatory: “I always
+thought that Jews had all this power
+and privilege—and see how right I
+was!” (Schraub 2019, 393)
+
+Research on contemporary antisemitism
+faces an obstacle not encountered by
+research on earlier forms: as intergroup
+attitudes are sensitive to social norms,
+socially unacceptable ones may become
+implicit. When the “outgroup lens” on
+Jews, i.e. the content and meaning of their
+alter-ascribed identity, becomes politically
+incorrect, some new content needs to be
+created. Accordingly, antisemitism mutates
+to overcome negative connotations of ear-
+lier versions. Any new version of antisem-
+itism acquires by definition the status of
+being politically correct, thereby denying it
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+is a form of anti-Judaism. The newest vari-
+ant is discussed below.
+
+The most recent variant of antisemitism—
+
+a case study
+
+As Jew-hatred had lost its respectability
+after the Holocaust, the time was again ripe
+for its rehabilitation. Izabella Tabarovsky
+(2022), herself born in the Soviet Union
+and a researcher specialized in the history
+of Russia, characterizes the antizionism
+which was created there after the Second
+World War as grounded in antisemitic con-
+spiracy theory because it included the core
+demonology of antisemitism. Although
+another historian, Asmund Borgen Gjerde
+(2018), maintains that the antizionism of
+the Soviet elite at the time was not a con-
+scious strategy to conceal antisemitism,
+as conspiracist thinking was common in
+Soviet politics, he does not deny its anti-
+semitism or consequences:
+
+If an antisemite sincerely believes Jews
+conspire against everything that is
+good in the world, this obviously does
+not make her or him any less antise-
+mitic than if she or he merely fabri-
+cates such charges, knowing them to
+be false [...]. For it remains true that
+these attacks were directed at any Jew
+who expressed a commitment to any
+form of Jewish identity beyond an
+absolute minimum tolerated by Soviet
+authorities; and it remains true that
+these attacks often echoed ideas that
+had previously been used to justify
+violence against Jews. (Gjerde 2018,
+292)
+
+Lenin himself condemned antisemitism,
+denouncing it as fascist, but under Stalin a
+
+65
+
+
+========== PAGE 11 ==========
+
+new linguistic shape, a “permission struc-
+ture for antisemitism” as the Professor of
+Literature Dara Horn (2024) has called it,
+was created. Horn used this term primarily
+to explain the soaring statistics of antisem-
+itism after Hamas's brutal attack on Israel
+on 7 October 2023, but she aptly described
+how the core demonology of the imagined
+collective Jew has been maintained through
+all the variations:
+
+This is the permission structure for
+antisemitism [...] announce a “uni-
+versal” ideal that all good people must
+accept and then redefine Jewish col-
+lective identity as lying beyond it.
+Hating Jews thus becomes a demon-
+stration of righteousness. The key is
+to define, and redefine, and redefine
+again, the shiny new moral reasoning
+for why the Jews have failed the uni-
+versal test of humanity. (Horn 2024)
+
+The Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawn
+identified the new shapeshift in the Soviet
+Union when noting that antisemitism was
+“tolerated and sometimes encouraged [...]
+albeit now dressed up as anti-Zionism” and
+that antisemitism manifested itself after the
+establishment of the Jewish state “under the
+disguise of antizionism” (Hobsbawn 1980,
+502, 504).
+
+Soviet antizionist propaganda had
+right-wing antisemitic roots and was pro-
+duced, translated to many languages and
+disseminated to many countries from
+roughly 1967 to 1988 (Tabarovsky, 2022).
+This propaganda proclaimed, without evi-
+dence, that Zionism is Nazism, racism,
+apartheid, colonialism and _ genocide.
+So-called “Zionologists” were employed
+
+at the Soviet Academy of Sciences for the
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+purpose of producing that propaganda.
+The renowned Professor of History Robert
+Wistrich (2012) noted the crucial role of
+Soviet academics:
+
+a wide variety of classic anti-Jewish
+motifs became virtually obligatory
+in so-called academic Soviet publi-
+cations. Ostensibly concerned with
+Zionism, these writings insistently
+slandered Judaism as a creed that calls
+for genocide and the enslavement of
+non-Jews [...] Ultimately, this ideol-
+ogy [Zionism] was founded to jus-
+tify the “extermination” of Palestinian
+Arabs. (Wistrich 2012, 435)
+
+Wistrich saw the development of antise-
+mitic antizionism in the Soviet Union as an
+effort to explain away the defeat of the Arab
+allies 1967:
+
+Already in the summer of 1967 the
+Soviet media began to denounce
+Israel’s so called genocide against the
+Palestinian people. Within days of the
+Israeli victory, the Soviet press would
+brand Israeli Defense Minister Moshe
+Dayan as a “pupil of Hitler” and exe-
+crate world Zionism as a racialist,
+criminal conspiracy [...] The tone
+had been set for what would become
+a veritable tsunami of articles, lec-
+tures, broadcasts and films vilifying
+Judaism, Zionism and Israel in the
+Soviet mass media. The only compara-
+ble analogy would be the monstruous
+specter of Das Weltjudentum in Nazi
+propaganda of the 1930s and 1940’s—
+this time with the roles reversed.
+In place of the relentless Nazi myth
+about “Jewish Bolshevism’, the Soviet
+
+66
+
+
+========== PAGE 12 ==========
+
+Communists began to fabricate the
+equally mendacious “Jewish Nazism”.
+(Wistrich 2012, 433)
+
+Tabarovsky (2022) notes that Zionism and
+Zionists were demonized with the same
+core demonology with which Judaism
+and Jews had been depicted by the forged
+Protocols of the Elders of Zion and by the
+Nazis, creating an imagined Zionism which
+to a large extent was based on old antise-
+mitic myths. One pertinent example is
+from an antisemitism trial in Paris in 1973,
+where the defence quoted a right-wing
+author, who had:
+
+borrowed entire passages—typos
+included—from a 1906 pamphlet
+called The Jewish Question [...] or
+the Impossibility of Granting Full
+Rights to Jews, authored by S. Rossov,
+a member of the ultra-nationalist,
+antisemitic Black Hundreds move-
+ment which incited pogroms in pre-
+revolutionary Russia. The only dif-
+ference [...] was that whenever the
+former [Rossov] used the word “Jew’,
+the [1972 publication] used the word
+“Zionist”. (Tabarovsky 2022, 4)
+
+Discussing the link between antisemitic
+antizionism and the legacy of classical
+right-wing antisemitism in Russia, Wistrich
+(2012, 434) noted that in Soviet propa-
+ganda the virulent antisemitism of the
+Russian masses in older times was depicted
+as an understandable reaction to the eco-
+nomic exploitation by Jews. Even “the
+monarchist pogromchiks who had mobi-
+lized the ultra-reactionary Black Hundreds
+around 1905 in defense of Tsarism, were
+now being rehabilitated as precursors of a
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+new and better socialist world” (Wistrich
+2012, 434). Soviet mass media “openly
+embraced the language of the Protocols
+and did not shrink from Sturmer-like car-
+icatures which had acquired free reign
+since 1967” (Wistrich, 2012, 438). Wistrich
+(2012) noted also the journal published by
+the Russian Embassy in Paris 1972 which:
+
+contained extracts from a pamphlet
+originally published seventy years ear-
+lier by the antisemitic “Alliance of the
+Russian People”. The only significant
+divergence in the modernized Soviet
+version of Black Hundred antisem-
+itism was the substitution of the code-
+word “Zionist” for “Jew”. The article
+consisted of largely fabricated quota-
+tions from Jewish religious writings.
+(Wistrich 2012, 434-35)
+
+This pamphlet was what the defence
+had used in the Paris trial in 1973 when
+the French Communist publisher of the
+Embassy was found guilty of discrimina-
+tion, hatred and racial violence (Wistrich
+2012, 435).
+
+The transfer of the core demonology of
+antisemitism to antizionism can be exem-
+plified by a typical Nazi imagery of the Jew,
+an enormous spider with a star of David
+on his military hat, threatening innocent
+Soviet children beneath it (cf. Fig. 1). Even
+as it was endlessly repeated that this was
+not antisemitism, Soviet Jews were mer-
+cilessly persecuted (Tabarovsky 2022).
+Regrettably, however, also “contemporary
+left-wing antizionist discourse reproduces
+with stunning fidelity some of the central
+tropes of Soviet antizionist propaganda,
+which demonized Israel and Zionism”
+(Tabarovsky 2022, abstract).
+
+67
+
+
+========== PAGE 13 ==========
+
+Figure 1. The text on the spider's web reads “Zionism is a weapon for imperialism”. The image was
+taken at the parade on 1 May 1972 in Moscow by Vladimir Sichov. Image source: Huttunen 2019.
+Image: Courtesy Vladimir Sichov, all rights reserved.
+
+This antizionist narrative exempli-
+fies what Deborah Lipstadt (1994) named
+a “soft” form of Holocaust denial, also
+called Holocaust inversion (Klaff 2014).
+Despite Jews clearly qualifying globally
+as a vulnerable minority, constituting 0.2
+per cent of the world’s population, com-
+pared, for example, to Muslims at close to
+30 per cent (Illouz 2025), Holocaust inver-
+sion implies a victim-perpetrator rever-
+sal, where Israel is perceived as just as
+bad as the Nazis and denied any victim-
+hood while the Palestinians are the epito-
+mized victims. As the senior researcher at
+the Norwegian Centre for Holocaust and
+Minority Studies Vibeke Moe (2025, 10)
+has noted, most Jews in Europe and schol-
+ars of antisemitism perceive similar anal-
+ogies in connection with descriptions of
+Israel as expressions of Holocaust distor-
+tion and antisemitism.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+The Professor of Social Psychology
+Michael Billig (1987) studied the discourse
+of the British far left in the late 1970s and
+early 1980s from a social psychological per-
+spective. He noted that this narrative was
+“typical of the way the revolutionary left in
+general” wrote about Zionism:
+
+Thus, comments about “genocidal
+suppression of Palestinians” and of
+the “Hitlerite policies of the Israeli
+Zionists” exemplify a more general
+trend in which the language used to
+describe Nazi crimes against Jews is
+now appropriated to describe Zionism.
+This is part of a general ideological
+process that is equating Zionism with
+Nazism. (Billig 1987, 125)
+
+Billig found in these left-wing publications
+“themes that suggest that Jews are forever
+
+68
+
+
+========== PAGE 14 ==========
+
+complaining about non-existent persecu-
+tions” and “as with right-wing antisem-
+itism, these themes are formulated against
+a background that assumes that the world
+would be a better place if the Jew were
+made impossible” (Billig 1987, 129). The
+historian Henrik Bachner (1999) found
+similar material in Sweden, noting that “the
+motif of ‘the Jew as Nazist and racist was
+linked to and co-existed with more tradi-
+tional perceptions of Jewish vengefulness,
+‘Old Testament’ cruelty and the ‘chosen
+people’ evil, murderousness, and dreams
+of domination and supremacy” (Bachner
+1999, 473).
+
+The Marxist Professor of History
+Moishe Postone (2010) disentangled differ-
+ent historical currents of antizionism, some
+virulently antisemitic, others not. The latter
+included Jewish Communists who con-
+sidered “any expression of Jewish iden-
+tity as anathema to their own notions of
+what I would call abstract Enlightenment
+notions of humanity”. Postone noted that
+“Trotsky, in an earlier phase, referred to
+the Bund [the Jewish Socialist Party] as
+
+22
+
+‘sea-sick Zionists”, rejecting any form of
+Jewish communal self-identification. This
+“critique of Zionism [...] had nothing to
+do with Palestine or the situation of the
+Palestinians, since the Bund was focused
+entirely on autonomy within the Russian
+empire and rejected Zionism” Postone
+added, however, that “frequently, this form
+of anti-Zionism is inconsistent—it is will-
+ing to accord national self-determination
+to most peoples, but not to Jews” (Postone
+2010).
+
+Another version, in turn, aimed “to
+eradicate actually existing Jewish self-
+determination. It converges with some
+
+forms of Arab nationalism—now coded
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+as singularly progressive” (Postone 2010).
+Postone calls it “deeply antisemitic’, noting
+that it was “introduced by the Soviet Union,
+particularly in the show trials in Eastern
+Europe after World War Two”. “Because the
+Soviet Union could not officially use the
+language of antisemitism’, he notes, “they
+began to use the word ‘Zionist’ to mean
+exactly what anti-Semites mean when they
+speak of Jews.” Postone was clear about
+the roots of this antisemitic antizionism:
+“The idea that every nation other than the
+Jews should be allowed self-determination
+does come back to the Soviet Union. One
+has only to read Stalin on the nationalities
+question” (Postone 2010).
+
+More recently, the Moroccan-born
+French, Professor of Sociology Eva Illouz
+has found that “two key tropes of tradi-
+tional antisemitism ‘happen’ to be the
+same as the ones bestowed on Zionists and
+Zionism: tentacular destructive power and
+malevolent scheming to evade accountabil-
+ity. These two key antisemitic motifs have
+been cut from antisemitism and pasted
+onto Zionism” (Illouz 2025). In addition,
+she identifies the cultural roots of these
+tropes:
+
+There is a semantic continuity between
+the ways in which Jews were vilified
+in a Christian world which associ-
+ated them with deicide, the spilling
+of Gentile blood—especially children,
+and ritual murder, and the view of
+Israel as uniquely destructive and
+criminal. A secular ideology whose
+aim was to restore dignity and inde-
+pendence to the Jews has been singled
+out as the bearer of a radical guilt and
+evil as no other. No sloganeering will
+manage to hide the obvious: antisem-
+
+69
+
+
+========== PAGE 15 ==========
+
+itism gives anti-Zionism its fuel and
+passion, its semantics and archetypes.
+If ‘woke’ ideology has marked a moral
+progress, it is precisely in making us
+aware that misogyny, homophobia,
+and racism have deep structures. If it
+is true for these, it is no less true of
+antisemitism. (Illouz 2025)
+
+With its roots in the antizionist propaganda
+of the Soviet Union contemporary anti-
+semitism utilizes antisemitism’s culturally
+transmitted core demonology and is now
+so normalized throughout the political
+spectrum that it has become invisible (Herf
+2024). The core demonology of antisem-
+itism in all the “melodies” played on the
+antisemitism “piano” over time can be illus-
+trated by one typical subhuman, i.e. dehu-
+manizing, symbol of the collective Jew,
+the spider (cf. Figs. 2.1-2.4). Antizionism
+becomes antisemitic when the Zionism
+or Zionists it addresses share characteris-
+tics with imagined Judaism or Jews and/or
+when only Jews are denied self-governance
+in a state of their own.
+
+Research confirms that the antisem-
+itism of contemporary antizionist discourse
+demonizes all Jews (e.g. Allington et al.
+2023). Moe (2025) found that high dislike
+of Jews among Norwegians increased from
+4.2 per cent in 2022 to 8.6 per cent in 2024
+(Moe 2025). In addition, she notes that no
+sudden decrease of knowledge of history
+can explain the simultaneous significant
+increase (from 33 per cent in 2022 to 51
+per cent in 2024) in support for the state-
+ment “Israel treats Palestinians as badly as
+the Jews were treated during World War
+ID; and that it rather reflects “a widespread
+Israel-critical opinion and massive media
+coverage of the war in Gaza and suffering
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+of its civilian population’, indicating “a
+lack of understanding of and sensitivity to
+Holocaust distortion, and a public debate in
+which the threshold for making extremely
+negative statements about Israel appears to
+be lower than before” (Moe 2025, 10).
+
+Also ECRI (the European Commission
+against Racism and Intolerance at the
+Council of Europe) has observed that an
+increase of antisemitism in many member
+states “is also characterized by contem-
+porary forms of antisemitism and by the
+spread of antisemitic hatred online” and
+that its “manifestations have also closely
+followed contemporary world develop-
+ments” (European Commission against
+Racism and Intolerance 2021, 3-4).
+
+The Professor of Linguistics Georges-
+Elia Sarfati (2004) noted that this demoni-
+zation has been so often repeated that it
+can be used autonomously, ie. the con-
+tent no longer needs to be verified. Thus,
+one only needs to be, for instance, against
+Nazism (and who is not?) to be an antizion-
+ist. These pseudo-equations and pseudo-
+equivalences justify every initiative hos-
+tile to Zionism, framing it into an act of
+progressiveness and humanism. Ironically,
+Europe supplied all that it now reproaches
+in Zionism: Nazism, totalitarianism, racism
+and colonialism. Linguistically, this is a
+“displacement”, psychologically, it is “pro-
+jection”. Europe's historical traumas are
+redirected towards the only Jewish state.
+Theologically, this recalls the scapegoat
+mechanism; loaded with everybody’s sins
+the scapegoat was expelled (Sarfati 2004).
+
+Research across history, philosophy, the-
+ology, linguistics, semiotics, literature, law,
+political science, sociology, psychology and
+social psychology converges. Empirical evi-
+dence shows that, individually, traditional
+
+70
+
+
+========== PAGE 16 ==========
+
+Figure 2.2. German cartoon, Der Sttirmer, February 1930. Image
+source: the German Propaganda Archive, published with permis-
+
+® Prtitst30 ‘Mamas sion from the page copyright holder Randall Bytwerk. All rights
+- reserved.
+
+Dipdt 1 O. P.M,
+‘, A. naan
+Figure 2.1. Title page from the French ver-
+sion of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
+1921. Image source: Tabarovsky 2019. All
+rights reserved. y \ yo
+| Courtesy of:
+PMW.ORG.IL g, ¢,
+
+Figure 2.4. Official Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat
+Al-Jadida, 21 October 2001 as reprinted in Kill a Jew—
+Go to Heaven by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW),
+2005. Reproduced with permission from PMW. All
+rights reserved.
+
+Figure 2.3. “At his favorite work”, A. Zenin, Sovi-
+etskaya Moldavia, 29 August 1971. The cartoon is
+titled A Zionist Cobweb Spider. Image source: The
+Israeli-Arab Conflict in Soviet Caricatures, 1967-73
+by Yeshayahu Nir, Tcherikover Publishers, 1976. All Figure 2.1-2.4. The spider as a metaphor of the core
+rights reserved. demonology of antisemitism.
+
+Approaching Religion = Vol. 16, No. 1 * March 2026 7
+
+
+========== PAGE 17 ==========
+
+Jew-hatred strongly correlates in Europe
+with criticism against Israel (Kaplan and
+Small 2006). A recent large-scale study
+finds some differences between individual
+predictors of “old” and “new” (antizion-
+ist) antisemitic attitudes, but both are pre-
+dicted, at least in the UK, by ethnicity,
+conspiracist worldviews, a desire to over-
+turn the social order, and a preference for
+authoritarian government—all of which
+can be found on the right, the left and else-
+where (Allington et al. 2023).
+
+More research on antisemitism is needed
+
+to acknowledge common features of all
+variants and to curb their increase
+
+As shown above, Jews have repeatedly
+failed in their identity negotiations with
+religious and secular outgroups. The Italian
+Professor of Semiotics Ugo Volli (2016)
+discussed conspiracist antisemitism in
+Antiquity and asked: “Why the Jews?” His
+reply falls back on social psychology:
+
+Jews are a small group, often dis-
+persed among another people, but
+able to maintain its different identity,
+language, religion, habits. So they are
+perceived as different and secret. But
+they are also among “us’, indistin-
+guishable from “us’, behaving mostly
+like “us”, speaking “our” language etc.
+while keeping different, following a
+different religion and different habits
+and laws, eating other foods etc. In the
+antisemitic discourse they have collec-
+tive goals that are theirs, not ours, and
+therefore must (or just could) be evil.
+They can become a danger [...] This
+idea of the Jewish conspiracy is very
+old and widespread. (Volli 2016)
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+The process of antisemitic othering is con-
+spiracist in nature and creates the imag-
+ined Jew. Intergroup beliefs and emotions
+are socially constructed and embedded in
+the language of ideologies and worldviews
+(Billig 2002). Prejudice includes the emo-
+tion conveyed by discourse, producing hate
+speech. Group norms dictate the limits of
+prejudice expression—whether it is allowed
+or necessary to despise, discriminate, hate
+or eliminate “them” Norms define the
+politically correct forms of antisemitism;
+genocide becomes possible only with suf-
+ficient ideological importance, emotional
+investment and legitimizing norms.
+
+Currently, right-wing, left-wing and
+Islamist antisemitism are interconnected,
+yet this is rarely addressed (Herf 2024, 237).
+Herf explains this with the polarization of
+politics, intellectual life, and scholarship;
+rightists condemn leftist antisemitism but
+ignore their own, while leftists condemn
+rightist antisemitism, yet deny their own
+and are reluctant to condemn Islamist
+antisemitism for fear of being labelled
+“Islamophobes” (Herf 2024, 237). This may
+be yet another effect of the need for positive
+distinctiveness discussed in the section on
+the cultural roots and core demonology of
+antisemitism: to maintain self-esteem, we
+compare also our political ingroups with
+outgroups to acquire positive distinctive-
+ness (Tajfel and Turner 1986; Helkama et
+al. 2017). Herf (2024) shows his high-level
+scholarship by analysing all three variants
+with equal critical rigour.
+
+However, the normalization of the latest
+variant of antisemitism has led to a striking
+scarcity of serious research on its contem-
+porary variant. Schraub (2019) has noted
+that:
+
+72
+
+
+========== PAGE 18 ==========
+
+there is a consistent worry felt
+among many Jews—progressive Jews
+included—that left-wing critics depri-
+oritize the fight against antisemitism,
+viewing it as a marginal issue, a dis-
+traction from more immediate con-
+cerns, or a fight that (but for a few
+stray cranks) has already been won.
+This fear is exacerbated by noticeable
+lacuna surrounding antisemitism in
+progressive scholarship about con-
+temporary issues of discrimination,
+oppression, and identity-based mar-
+ginalization. Vigorous theoretical
+accounts of how antisemitism cur-
+rently manifests in Western societies
+lag behind the excellent work focused
+on other oppressions. [...] Yet the the-
+oretical gap in intersectionality analy-
+ses largely overlooking the Jews is not
+fully accidental. Specifically, the asso-
+ciation of Jews with power as an anti-
+semitic trope functions to classify Jews
+not just as “White”, but as exemplify-
+ing or embodying Whiteness. Insofar
+as Jewishness is not understood as
+existing as a materially distinct cat-
+egory from Whiteness, the failure to
+consider Jews as a case of a marginal-
+ized identity is not intuitively felt as an
+absence. (Schraub 2019, 382, 384)
+
+The philosopher and sociologist Balasz
+Berkovits (2018) considers it detrimental
+to serious research on antisemitism when
+Whiteness studies which represent more
+antizionist activism than academic research
+is given academic credibility:
+
+there is an extreme variability in the
+characterization of “Jewish white-
+
+»
+
+ness’, “Jewish hegemony and suprem-
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+»
+
+acism’, “Zionist racism and coloni-
+alism’, and so on. Most of the time,
+these interpretations are contradict-
+ing one another. Still, there is a unani-
+mous intention of radical criticism,
+and total political agreement on the
+evaluation of Zionism, Israel, and
+Jews in the Middle East. A furtive look
+into these texts would be sufficient
+to conclude that whenever it comes
+to Israel, political criticism fully sub-
+ordinates any interpretation [...] in
+these works, the arbitrary usage of the
+concept of “whiteness” becomes even
+more conspicuous than in Whiteness
+Studies proper, as it encompasses
+an increasingly diverse set of phe-
+nomena. However, this fact does not
+bother totalizing critics emboldened
+by their academic prestige. (Berkovits
+2018, 101)
+
+As in the nineteenth century, academia of
+today misuses terms to demonize the col-
+lective Jew, “genocide” used in Holocaust
+inversion being only one of them (Klaff
+2014). Apart from Schraub (2019), the his-
+torian Simon Sebag Montefiore (2023) has
+also noted misapplication of the antiracist
+paradigms drawn from accounts of the
+American Black/White experience to the
+history and society of modern Israel and of
+terms like imperialism and colonialism by
+those forced by that frame to squeeze Israel
+and Palestine into a wholly inappropriate
+colonialist mould (Montefiore 2023).
+Obviously, Israel can (or should) be
+criticized like any other country and even
+accused of genocide, as long as this is done
+on the basis of impartially established facts
+and by applying existing definitions of the
+term, just as they have been applied to
+
+73
+
+
+========== PAGE 19 ==========
+
+other countries. The Professor of Holocaust
+Studies Norman J. W. Goda (2025) shows
+how the term genocide has been applied
+to Israel since its establishment, noting a
+double standard, “an effort to redefine gen-
+ocide itself so that the constitutive elements
+of the crime itself are lowered” (Goda 2025,
+4) and that
+
+the genocide libel also deploys a range
+of antisemitic tropes. One is the link-
+age of genocide to violent passages
+in the Hebrew Bible, a linkage which
+plays on the theme of Jewish chosen-
+ness at the expense of others’ existence
+and which even claims that God is
+genocidal. Another is the whitewash-
+ing of Hamas’s own genocidal intent
+in lieu of tropes concerning the out-
+sized Jewish thirst for vengeance in the
+form of disproportionate response. A
+third is the coupling of the genocide
+charge with the deliberate killing of
+children, images of whom are ubiq-
+uitous on NGO, social media, and
+other platforms that charge Israel with
+genocide. A fourth is the attribution
+of special powers to the Israeli gov-
+ernment by which it and its support-
+ers have fooled western governments
+into believing that Israel’s actions are
+legitimate and that the history of the
+Israel-Arab conflict is too complex
+for snap judgments. A fifth, and this
+is what makes the genocide libel par-
+ticularly dangerous, is the association
+of all Jews with the crime. Jews world-
+wide are all in on it, either as Zionist
+enablers, as dishonest back-room lob-
+byists, or as community leaders who,
+we are told, “weaponize” the charge
+of antisemitism to silence the truth-
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+tellers. Other genocide charges over
+time have not targeted Hutus living in
+Belgium or Serbs living in Germany.
+(Goda 2025, 4-5)
+
+Linguistic “innovation” has always been
+central in the rehabilitation of Jew-hatred.
+Illouz calls for overcoming the denial of the
+antisemitism in its most recent form:
+
+transcendental anti-Zionism is deeply
+offensive to many or most Jews and
+does not serve the Palestinian cause. It
+prevents us from achieving the urgent
+tasks ahead: stop Israel’s reckless
+destruction of Gaza, rebuild the Strip,
+give a humane future to Palestinians
+and create durable regional peace,
+and ensure a future Gazan leader-
+ship without genocidal aspirations
+against Israel. As long as our language
+is contaminated by antisemitism, and
+as long as anti-Zionism continues to
+perniciously conflate critique of Israel
+with its demonization, we can only
+drift further away from these goals.
+(Illouz 2025)
+
+Illouz notes aptly that the progressive Left
+has traditionally relied on members of
+minority groups to decide whether or not “a
+word, behaviour, or idea is discriminatory,
+sexist, racist or Islamophobic” because,
+“if discrimination or racial hatred prof-
+its one group to the detriment of another,
+we cannot let the profiting group judge
+how harmful its own behaviour is” (Illouz
+2025). This is an accepted principle for all
+other minorities, but Jews are an excep-
+tion; their experiences of antisemitism are
+a priori interpreted as false, in accordance
+with the mendacity libel identified by Julius
+
+/4
+
+
+========== PAGE 20 ==========
+
+(2024) and with epistemic antisemitism
+as described by Schraub (2022; see also
+the section on the cultural roots and core
+demonology of antisemitism).
+
+Where, and as long as a new variety of
+antisemitism, the contemporary “imagined
+Jew’, is politically correct in accordance
+with prevailing norms and values, we are
+inclined to deny it in ourselves, although
+recognizing it in others. Research on anti-
+semitism has increased also in progressive
+scholarship since the noticeable lacuna
+(Schraub 2019) but still must increase to
+cover applied studies aimed at finding rem-
+edies for it, ie. research which has long
+existed for other forms of racism (cf. e.g.
+Liebkind et al. 2014). There is an obvious
+need to prevent a contemporary, politi-
+cally correct version of antisemitism from
+accomplishing the aim of, to paraphrase
+Billig (1987) have the (collective) Jew made
+impossible.
+
+Conclusions
+Through
+tions and social identity dynamics in rela-
+
+examining inter-group _ rela-
+tion to the historical evolution of antise-
+mitic narratives, key insights emerge that
+warrant reflection and further scholarly
+engagement.
+
+First, this work shows that antisem-
+itism is rooted in intergroup and identity
+processes. Seen through key theories in
+social psychology, the portrayal of Jews as
+an outgroup threat based on some dimen-
+sion of self-recognized Jewish identity has
+evolved across centuries while maintain-
+ing core psychological structures; con-
+spiratorial thinking, threat perception
+and core demonology remain consistent
+in driving this prejudice regardless of his-
+torical period or political context. Shifting
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+manifestations of antisemitism, from medi-
+eval blood libels to contemporary claims of
+global Jewish or “Zionist” influence and the
+double standards applied when criticizing
+Israel, demonstrate the adaptation of its
+core demonology to new social and politi-
+cal circumstances.
+
+Second, the multi-dimensional char-
+acter and linguistic variety of contempo-
+rary antisemitism encompassing Rightist,
+Leftist and Islamist variants indicates the
+complexity of addressing this prejudice.
+Recognizing their shared characteristics
+offers a more coherent analytical frame-
+work and enables scholars and practition-
+ers to identify potential intervention points
+across seemingly disparate contexts.
+
+Lastly, this work highlights a critical gap
+in contemporary research: while significant
+scholarship examines how antisemitism
+manifests and transforms, further research
+is needed into mitigation strategies and
+the societal factors that either facilitate
+or inhibit its spread. Future scholarship
+should combine analytical clarity with
+empirical investigation of which interven-
+tions can effectively address the emotional,
+cognitive, and behavioral components of
+antisemitism, particularly as digital com-
+munication platforms facilitate the rapid
+dissemination and radicalization of antise-
+mitic narratives.
+
+Moving forward, fostering cross-dis-
+ciplinary dialogue remains essential. Inte-
+grating insights from social psychology
+with historical, political and cultural anal-
+ysis offers promising avenues for develop-
+ing more comprehensive understandings
+of antisemitism and more effective strate-
+gies for addressing this persistent form of
+hatred. &
+
+15
+
+
+========== PAGE 21 ==========
+
+Karmela Liebkind is Professor Emerita of Social
+Psychology at the University of Helsinki, Finland,
+and specializes in intergroup relations. Areas of
+expertise include the ethnic identity and accul-
+turation of minority members, contact and
+prejudice between minority and majority mem-
+bers and prejudice-reduction interventions for
+schools.
+
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+
+========== PAGE 24 ==========
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+79
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diff --git a/ocr-output/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary/txt/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary_page_0001.txt b/ocr-output/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary/txt/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary_page_0001.txt
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+KARMELA LIEBKIND
+
+Antisemitism
+
+A Multi-disciplinary Perspective on a Demonology
+
+with Variations
+
+doi.org/10.30664/ar.163571
+
+he aim of this article is to synthesize exist-
+‘Ti knowledge in a novel way by looking
+
+through a social psychological lens at his-
+torical manifestations of antisemitism and its
+most recent variant, presented as a case study
+which tracks its development and compares it
+with the core demonology of antisemitism. By
+reviewing literature representing many differ-
+ent disciplines, focusing particularly on history,
+theology and social psychology, the article aims
+to bridge disciplinary gaps, making social psy-
+chological insights on inter-group relations and
+social identities accessible to scholars in other
+fields and thus foster a cross-disciplinary dia-
+logue on antisemitism. Linguistic “innovation”
+has been needed whenever an existing variety
+becomes politically incorrect, which, on the indi-
+vidual level, may give rise to a denial that the new
+variety is antisemitism. It is concluded that com-
+pared to other racisms applied research is still
+needed to fill the existing lacuna to find remedies
+for antisemitism.
+
+Introduction
+
+Antisemitism is a deeply rooted preju-
+dice. Its manifestations have changed over
+thousands of years; they include medieval
+accusations such as the blood libel, which
+falsely claimed that Jews used Christian
+blood in religious rituals (e.g. Teter 2023)
+and modern conspiracies alleging Jewish
+control over global affairs (e.g. Czimbalmos
+2025), often linked to the State of Israel
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+©)@ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
+
+\| VERTAISARVIOITU
+~ KOLLEGIALT GRANSKAD
+wy. PEER-REVIEWED
+
+www.tsv.fi/tunnus
+
+(e.g. Herf 2024). Antisemitic tropes rely
+on conspiratorial thinking, a feature which
+differentiates antisemitism from racism
+(e.g. Stégner 2025). Contemporary vari-
+ants of antisemitism can be classified into
+three main forms: Rightist, Leftist and
+Islamist (Herf 2024). The common factor
+is that Jews are portrayed as a threat that
+fuels cognitive, emotional and behavioural
+responses that constitute antisemitism.
+
+The aim of this article is to synthe-
+size existing knowledge in a novel way. By
+revisiting some definitions and historical
+manifestations of antisemitism through a
+social psychological lens, the article aims
+to bridge disciplinary gaps. Integrating a
+social-psychological perspective on inter-
+group relations with broader multi-disci-
+plinary work, focusing on how Jews and
+Judaism have been imagined in inter-group
+prejudice as opposed to how Jews have
+defined their own identity, this article also
+aims to make social psychological insights
+accessible to scholars in other fields, thus
+fostering cross-disciplinary dialogue and
+understanding of antisemitism.
+
+Some basic concepts and tenets of the
+social psychology of inter-group relations
+and social identity need to be addressed
+
+56
diff --git a/ocr-output/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary/txt/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary_page_0002.txt b/ocr-output/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary/txt/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary_page_0002.txt
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--- /dev/null
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@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+in the introduction. Next, the basics of the
+social psychology of inter-group relations
+and social identities, ie. the “lens” through
+which this literature review is perceived, is
+briefly described. This is followed by a sec-
+tion discussing how to define and iden-
+tify antisemitism, while the next section
+addresses the historical roots, transforma-
+tions and core demonology of antisemitism
+as well as the role of academia in decisive
+junctions of those transformations. The
+largest section is a case study of the devel-
+opment of the latest variety of antisemitism
+and its connection to the core demonol-
+ogy of antisemitism. Before the conclusion
+drawn from all previous sections, a sepa-
+rate section discusses the consequences
+of the failed identity negotiations of Jews
+with other groups and the need for more
+research on all kinds of contemporary anti-
+semitism and on ways to curb the accelerat-
+ing increase of this hatred.
+
+On the social psychology of inter-group
+relations and social identities
+
+Intergroup behaviour occurs when individu-
+als are motivated by a salient social or collec-
+tive identity, that is, a heightened awareness
+of characteristics shared with an ingroup,
+a “we” group. This salient social iden-
+tity makes us look at ourselves and others,
+from both “we” and “they” groups, through
+that group lens and behave towards them
+accordingly. This is the basic tenet of both
+Social Categorization Theory (SCT, Turner
+et al. 1987) and Social Identity Theory (SIT,
+Tajfel and Turner, 1986). The degree of
+identification with our ingroup, but even
+more the subjective content and mean-
+ing of the salient social identity (the group
+lens) influences our intergroup attitudes, ie.
+our beliefs about, emotions and behaviour
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+towards a particular outgroup, in this case,
+the Jews, however that group is defined or
+defines itself. Prejudice is a negative attitude
+characterized by negative emotions which
+sparks negative behaviour whenever behav-
+iour follows. However, inter-group emotions
+and behaviour vary, the latter ranging from
+discrimination, confrontation/attack, avoid-
+ance and exclusion to repair of past wrongs
+or actions of support (Helkama et al. 2017;
+Mackie et al. 2016).
+
+In interpersonal behaviour, in turn, our
+personal identity is the most salient one. At
+the personal extreme of the salience con-
+tinuum Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
+are the iconic example of two individuals
+who defy the social identity they have as
+members of two warring families to enable
+their interaction as individuals only. The
+social extreme of that continuum can be
+illustrated by two enemies in combat who
+are expected to defy their own (and their
+enemies’) personal identity and thus act
+solely as soldiers fighting for their country.
+However, behaviour is seldom this “pure’,
+but rather the result of a mixture, salience
+leaning slightly towards one or the other
+end of the continuum.
+
+What is often ignored, however, is that
+everyone has more than one social iden-
+tity, creating intersecting social identities
+which are not just the sum of their parts.
+In addition, considering intergroup rela-
+tions between unequal groups such as
+minorities and majorities also disadvan-
+tage and inequality need to be addressed.
+Intersectionality Theory started with soci-
+ological research on the disadvantaged
+situation of Black women in the USA, ice.
+the intersection of class, race and gender
+1989) and
+ity research is still mostly sociological,
+
+(Crenshaw intersectional-
+
+5/
diff --git a/ocr-output/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary/txt/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary_page_0003.txt b/ocr-output/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary/txt/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary_page_0003.txt
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@@ -0,0 +1,95 @@
+focusing on social structures. However,
+the focus in social psychology is on the
+complexity of multiple, intersecting group
+memberships which shape each other.
+
+The political scientist and Associate
+Professor in Law David Schraub (2019)
+notes that intersectional studies rarely
+subjects, despite
+the framework’s potential to illuminate
+
+engage with Jewish
+
+Jewish experiences of marginalization. He
+attributes this absence to the widespread
+conflation of Jewishness with Whiteness,
+which leads scholars to overlook antisem-
+itism as a form of oppression (see also
+the section on the cultural roots and core
+demonology of antisemitism). Schraub
+calls for a more nuanced intersectional
+approach that recognizes Jewish identity as
+complex and distinct, rather than subsum-
+ing it under Whiteness (Schraub 2019).
+The Professor of Sociology Karin Stégner
+noted that antisemitism “does not position
+Jews unambiguously on one or the other
+side of these markers” but is characterized
+by ambivalence with regard to binary clas-
+sifications (Stogner 2023, 288), although a
+common tendency over recent decades in
+everyday language as well as in academia is
+to categorize people more or less unambig-
+uously along binary codes (e.g. black-white,
+hetero-lesbian/gay, oppressor-oppressed).
+Two social identities relevant for anti-
+semitism are ethnic identity and cultural
+identity. The former is in social psychol-
+ogy anchored in the identity process, part
+of one’s total social identity, and defined
+as identification with a group based on
+a belief in common ancestry. This belief
+makes ethnic identity distinct from other
+social identities (Verkuyten 2018). Cultural
+identity is defined in different ways within
+different disciplines, but here it will suffice
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+to note that it is a learnt relationship to the
+physical and social environment of one’s
+childhood and the result of a socialization
+process that anchors an individual to his/
+her environment. Religion is often consid-
+ered a part of culture, but in Jewish identity
+they are often separated. As culture is trans-
+mitted from early childhood on within the
+family it is partly subconscious. In addi-
+tion, culture changes with time, both his-
+torically and within an individual's lifetime.
+The subjective content and meaning of cul-
+ture vary between individuals within the
+same cultural group.
+
+Increasing the complexity of social
+identities, the content and meaning of any
+particular social or collective identity can
+individually be based on different charac-
+teristics. National identities can be based
+on shared culture (language, religion,
+values, norms), geographical anchoring
+(where one lives), and/or ethnicity (belief
+in common ancestry). One specific feature
+of antisemitism is the variety of rationali-
+ties it has applied over time. This is because
+Jewish identity is manifold at its core, a
+combination of religion, ethnicity and
+broader culture—and many other things
+on whose basis a person may call them-
+selves Jewish (e.g. Dencik 2009). At the
+beginning of Jewish history, Jewish culture,
+heritage and religion were very much inter-
+twined. This inherently manifold nature of
+Jewish identity has, unlike with some other
+religious groups, made it possible even for
+atheists to have a strong Jewish identity
+(Dencik 2009, 321), but has also offered
+several different grounds for discrimina-
+tion and persecution of Jews.
+
+An important aspect of the content and
+meaning of any identity, social or personal,
+is that people are not free to choose any
+
+58
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@@ -0,0 +1,95 @@
+identity they want. Social as well as per-
+sonal identities are presented and nego-
+tiated in interaction; self-recognized and
+alter-ascribed ethnic/cultural/religious or
+any other social identities may not match
+(Liebkind 1992; 2006). Our
+are developed, changed, challenged and
+
+identities
+
+defended over time, in interaction with our
+social environment; alter-ascribed identi-
+ties reflected onto us may confirm or coun-
+ter our self-recognized ones. As we need
+positive rather than negative identities,
+we try to reach an agreement with at least
+significant others and groups on who and
+what we are. This poses special challenges
+for minority groups, whose self-recognized
+social identities may not be heard, and the
+alter-ascribed ones be tainted with preju-
+dice (Liebkind 1992; 2006). For example,
+the self-recognized Jewish identity of Soviet
+Jewry was countered when in the pre-1967
+period they began to develop what would
+become a Jewish national movement,
+where Jewish identity included both iden-
+tification with Israel and the pre-existing
+conception of all Jews as a people across
+national borders: According to Gjerde
+(2018), this “went far beyond the limits of
+what Soviet authorities considered accept-
+able Jewish identity” (Gjerde 2018, 280).
+When not conforming to approved Soviet
+Jewish identities, therefore, Jews who sub-
+scribed to national Jewish identities and
+supported Zionism were considered part of
+a vast anti-Soviet conspiracy (Gjerde 2018,
+291).
+
+On defining and identifying antisemitism
+
+While the goal of this article is not to define
+antisemitism, it is necessary to briefly
+reflect on the debate surrounding its defini-
+tion. As Czimbalmos and Pataricza (2024)
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+summarize, like other forms of discrimi-
+nation, antisemitism includes both easily
+recognizable and more subtle expressions
+(Czimbalmos and Pataricza 2024, 15). To
+cover these, several definitions of antisem-
+itism (e.g. the Jerusalem Declaration, the
+Nexus Document) have been proposed.
+Perhaps the most well-known and widely
+recognized is that of the International
+Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)
+from 2016. The IHRA definition serves as
+a guideline and is recommended by the
+European Commission in its 2022 conclu-
+sions on combating racism and antisem-
+itism, as well as in its 2018 declaration on
+countering antisemitism. Nevertheless, it
+is often regarded insufficient for scientific
+analysis (Czimbalmos and Pataricza 2024,
+15-16) and criticized for not providing an
+unchanging essence for all cases of anti-
+semitism. However, the philosopher Eve
+Garrard (2020) maintains that this is irrel-
+evant; there are too many other concepts in
+the same boat for this complaint to count.
+Another putatively moral objection is the
+claim that it represents an attack on the
+freedom of speech of critics of Israel. But
+this is simply not true, as it is full of con-
+ditional verbs: something “may’, “could” or
+“might” be antisemitic, but need not be. The
+only view which this definition threatens is
+that criticism of Israel can never, in any cir-
+cumstances, be antisemitic. Although this
+is not even remotely plausible, some crit-
+ics of the IHRA definition seem to find it
+attractive (Garrard 2020).
+
+Often used in research is Helen Fein’s
+definition of antisemitism as:
+
+a persisting latent structure of hos-
+
+tile beliefs towards Jews as a collective
+manifested in individuals as attitudes,
+
+59
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+and in culture as myth, ideology, folk-
+lore and imagery, and in actions—
+social or legal discrimination, politi-
+cal mobilization against the Jews, and
+collective or state violence—which
+results in and/or is designed to dis-
+tance, displace, or destroy Jews as
+Jews. (Fein 1987, 67)
+
+Fein’s definition includes also a cultural level
+of antisemitism. As culture, often considered
+to include religion, is transmitted in early
+childhood, it becomes a part of our person-
+ality, and we may be unaware of it. The neg-
+ative, culturally transmitted alter-ascribed
+Jewish identity is very different from how
+Jews have perceived themselves over time.
+The Professor of Psychology Gordon Allport
+explained the persistence of most prejudice,
+relevant also for the stereotypical “imag-
+ined Jew”: “defeated intellectually, prejudice
+lingers emotionally” (Allport 1951, 328).
+Brekke (2021) notes that cultural models
+or schemas are widely shared but unavail-
+able to the cultural insider because they are
+taken for granted. Culturally acquired prej-
+udice, like antisemitism, influences individ-
+uals’ attitudes involuntarily. When normal-
+ized, such prejudice becomes structural, i.e.
+institutionalized (Johnson 2019). Thus, it is
+at the individual level mostly implicit, ice.
+invisible to the prejudiced (Greenwald and
+Banaji 2017).
+
+This concerns also antisemitism; on
+the basis of original material of that time,
+Gjerde (2018) claimed that most of the
+Soviet elite from 1967 onwards were “true
+believers” in conspiracy theories concern-
+ing Soviet Jews and thus may not have been
+aware of the antisemitism in their increas-
+ing antizionist rhetoric (Gjerde 2018, 291).
+The British researcher of antisemitism
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+Dave Rich has described how this unaware-
+ness is manifested:
+
+people who fall for antisemitic myths
+and conspiracies and stereotypes, who
+follow these built-in ideas about Jews,
+they are like hikers following a trail
+across an unfamiliar landscape who
+just instinctively follow the path trod-
+den into the Earth by countless people
+before them in times long forgotten
+[...] because these ideas [...] are deeply
+embedded in the mainstream of our
+culture. (Rich 2023)
+
+Regardless of what definition is employed,
+antisemitism offers Jews a negative alter-
+ascribed identity contradicting the self-
+recognized one. It manifests itself, like any
+prejudice, as negative stereotypes (gener-
+alizing beliefs) of Jews, emotions ranging
+from mild disapproval to passionate hatred
+triggered by stereotypes/beliefs
+and concomitant behavioural tendencies
+(Helkama et al. 2017).
+
+Although sharing features with racism,
+
+those
+
+antisemitism is also a form of xenopho-
+bia and has been perceived as the proto-
+type of conspiracy theories (Volli 2016;
+Czimbalmos and Pataricza 2024). The dif-
+ference between the classical concept of
+racism and antisemitism has been aptly
+illustrated by the Marxist sociologist Oliver
+Cromwell Cox:
+
+Antisemitism is an attitude directed at
+the Jews because they are Jews, while
+race prejudice is an attitude directed at
+the Negroes! because they want to be
+
+1 I recognize that the term “Negro” as used
+in historical texts like Cox’s is outdated and
+
+60
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@@ -0,0 +1,92 @@
+something other than Negroes. A Jew,
+to the intolerant, is an enemy within
+society; but the Negro, to the race-prej-
+udiced, is a friend in his place. [...] the
+one condition of peace between Jews
+and Gentiles is that the Jews cease to
+be Jews. (Cox [1948]1959, 393, 395)
+
+Rather than perceiving Jews as merely infe-
+rior, antisemitism depicts Jews as an all-
+powerful collective, threatening non-Jews
+by aiming to harm them (Harrison 2019;
+Julius 2024). This has also been highlighted
+by Schraub (2019), as discussed in the sec-
+tion on the social psychology of intergroup
+relations and social identities.
+
+Despite the complexity of many key
+terms, definitions are still important as
+both conceptual under-specification and
+conceptual expansion are endemic. It is dif-
+ficult to observe, for example, if antisem-
+itism or ethnic identity is incompatible with
+observed variability without at least some
+idea about what antisemitism, ethnicity
+and identity are all about. Fragmentation
+and change can be understood only when
+it is clear what is fragmented and subject to
+change (Verkuyten 2018).
+
+The cultural roots of much of the world’s
+antisemitism and its core demonology
+Owing to its ever-changing nature, anti-
+semitism cannot be understood without
+tracing its origins in history. In Europe
+
+carries problematic connotations rooted
+in racial hierarchies and colonial legacies.
+While engaging with such language criti-
+cally is important for understanding the
+context in which it was written, it is equally
+necessary to acknowledge its offensive
+nature and avoid its use in contemporary
+discourse.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+and in a large part of the world, a system
+of antisemitic traditions has since antiquity
+been used to identify the Jewish “Other”.
+According to a number of scholars (e.g.
+Mayerhofer and Lange 2021; Rutgers 2021;
+Teter 2023), Jew-hatred also significantly
+served the construction of a Christian
+identity. Although anti-Judaism was not
+born with Christianity, Christianity was
+born as a negation of Judaism, and was,
+like Islam, formed over several hundred
+years as emerging groups breaking with
+their parent religion(s) (Rutgers 2021, 34).
+Naturally, there are geographic and cul-
+tural-historical differences in antisemitism,
+e.g. in the “Muslim world” and in Christian
+majority societies, although commonalities
+also exist (Herf 2024).
+
+From a social-psychological perspec-
+tive, what all emerging groups have in
+common is the need to recruit new mem-
+bers. Consequently, they need to stand out
+in a positive way compared to their parent
+group(s), that is, they need to acquire so-
+called positive distinctiveness (e.g. Castelli
+and Carraro 2010). A strategy often used
+for that purpose is to engage in active inter-
+group comparison and depict the new ide-
+ology, in this case Christianity or Islam,
+as superior to the old one(s). Describing
+the Old Testament Divinity as unforgiv-
+ing, vengeful and bloodthirsty compared
+to the Christian one is one example. This
+alter-ascribed characterization of Judaism
+emerged in the long, successful process of
+acquiring a positively distinct Christian
+identity. Through missionary work Chris-
+tianity and Islam became majorities, while
+Judaism remained a minority, also because
+the new religions, when in power, forbid
+Jews to proselytize. The conception of the
+superiority of Christianity culminated in
+
+6]
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@@ -0,0 +1,95 @@
+Christian supersessionism, i.e. the idea that
+Christianity would finally replace Judaism.
+
+The social psychological notion of the
+need for early Christianity to acquire posi-
+tive distinctiveness is entirely theoretical.
+However, it is independently corroborated
+by original sources, although not all histo-
+rians may agree with their interpretation.
+Professor Leonard Rutgers (2021) noted
+that:
+
+Early Christian texts dealing with
+the Jews are often not about the Jews
+at all but about Christians in search
+of their own distinct identity [...]
+Having begun its life as an offspring
+of Judaism and as a Jewish sect, early
+Christianity was facing a set of major,
+almost unsurmountable challenges
+when it came to delineate its self-iden-
+tity. [...] Clearly etched boundaries
+became crucially important. Christian
+theologians needed to succeed in
+highlighting the fact that Christianity
+was something altogether different
+and new. [...] [As] they tried to sever
+all ties from the Jewish past that had
+produced them [...] [they] could do
+little but engage in a considerable
+amount of negative identity-forma-
+tion. Judaism ended up at the receiv-
+ing end of the hostile rhetoric that this
+process of dissociation, separation,
+and identity formation entailed and
+engendered. (Rutgers 2021, 34)
+
+Another historian, Professor Magda Teter
+(2023), depicts the content of the Christian
+“group lens” on Jews by showing how
+Christian theology of late Antiquity cast
+Jews as “children born to slavery’, and
+how their supposed theological inferiority
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+became inscribed into law, institutional-
+izing a sense of Christian domination and
+superiority. Teter (2023) found that, in Etsi
+Judeos of Pope Innocent III (1205), Jews
+were not allowed to have Christian serv-
+ants, because they “shall recognize them-
+selves as slaves to those whom Christ’s
+death set free. In Cum Nimis Absurdum
+(1555) of Pope Paul IV, Jews were forbid-
+den to live as neighbours to Christians or
+churches, because “Jews, whose own guilt
+has consigned them to perpetual servi-
+tude” should, “as long as they persist in
+
+>
+
+their errors’, “recognize through experi-
+ence that they have become slaves while
+Christians have been made free through
+Jesus Christ”. Jews were supposed to aban-
+don their religious identity and cease to
+exist as Jews. Interestingly, Teter shows that
+the first racist laws which were introduced
+in Virginia, USA, in “An Act concerning
+Servants and Slaves” (Section XI) in 1705
+largely mirrored the anti-Jewish laws that
+had existed for centuries.
+
+Although “antisemitism has taken on
+radically different forms and supposed
+‘rationales’ in different cultures at different
+times” (Johnson 2019, 17), research shows
+that the core of antisemitism is rooted in
+Christian theology (Brekke 2021). Many
+scholars have formulated the essence
+of antisemitic myths and _ stereotypes.
+According to Professor of Law Anthony
+Julius (2024), for example, all versions
+of antisemitism libel Jews, as libels “are
+damaging to the good name of the Jewish
+people” (Julius 2024, 11). Julius lists five
+libels as the essence of antisemitism:
+
+The blood libel supposes that Jews enter-
+tain homicidal intentions towards non-Jews
+(and specifically, non-Jewish children), and
+commit acts of murder, either in re-enact-
+
+62
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+ment of the Crucifixion, or to avenge their
+continuing, collective punishment for that
+cosmic crime.
+
+¢ The economic libel supposes that Jews,
+who are self-interested, materialist, acquis-
+itive and unproductive by nature, exploit
+non-Jews when they can, and seek monop-
+oly power, the better to pursue their greater
+objectives.
+
+¢ The conspiracy libel supposes that Jews
+act in concert, in secret pursuit of goals
+inimical to the interests of non-Jews. That
+is: Jews conspire with other Jews.
+
+¢ The silencing libel supposes that Jews
+cannot tolerate truth-tellers; they fear expo-
+sure of their plots. They conspire together
+to silence their virtuous enemies.
+
+¢ The mendacity libel supposes that Jews
+proceed by deception and other forms of
+deceit. That is: Jews lie to non-Jews. (Julius
+2024, 10-1)
+
+The mendacity libel has two variants,
+Holocaust denial and Weaponization of
+Antisemitism; Julius is most concerned
+about the latter, as it claims that:
+
+the Jews deploy such evidence of anti-
+semitism as may exist for an ulte-
+rior, improper purpose, (a) to deflect
+attention, or otherwise excuse, Israel’s
+and/or (b) to
+antizionists into silence, or to dis-
+
+crimes, intimidate
+credit them. They typically overstate
+the level or seriousness of antisem-
+itism, and their own concern about it.
+(Julius 2024, 142)
+
+Julius finds that libel bizarre, as “it would
+not be difficult to identify the racism, say,
+in equivalent claims about other minority
+groups” (Julius 2024, 142). Schraub (2022)
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+broadens the mendacity libel into general
+untrustworthyness, calling it epistemic
+antisemitism, which “injures, wrongs, or
+marginalizes Jews in their capacities as
+knowers—testifiers, communicators, expo-
+nents or purveyors of knowledge” (Schraub
+2022, 153). The long-time socialist, politi-
+cal scientist and journalist Alan Johnson
+(2019), in turn, compares antisemitism to
+a piano: its core demonology—the key ste-
+reotypes and myths describing the imag-
+ined Jew—are the unchanging keys, while
+the variations across time are the melodies
+played on those keys, each telling “a differ-
+ent story about the alien, powerful, malev-
+olent and tricksy Jew” (Johnson 2019, 17).
+Although delusional, this core demonol-
+ogy shaped European Christianity in the
+Middle Ages even without Jews (Julius
+2010). The “composers” and “pianists” of
+the variants—religions, ideologies, move-
+ments and their leaders—have adapted it
+to fit their norms. Older forms exist along-
+side new ones. Jews have been accused of
+being god-killers, arch-capitalist exploit-
+ers, revolutionary communists, too tribal
+and too rootless, too poor and too rich, etc.
+(Johnson 2019), while the core demonol-
+ogy has remained unchanged.
+
+An important shift occurred when the
+anti-Judaism became politically incorrect
+in the nineteenth century and was replaced
+with the more socially acceptable term
+antisemitism. In the seventeenth and eight-
+eenth centuries new ideas emerged, empha-
+sizing equality between citizens (Michman
+2023), which clashed with earlier notions of
+hierarchy between human groups. To deny
+equality to those deemed inferior, new
+ingroups and outgroups were needed. Jews
+were no longer compared with Christians,
+but, for example, with French or Germans
+
+63
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@@ -0,0 +1,96 @@
+(Michman 2023). The aim was to show that
+they did not deserve equality, and if they
+enjoyed it, it had been “stolen” or was oth-
+erwise undeserved (Teter 2023).
+
+A primary example of how academia
+has rehabilitated Jew-hatred is the concept
+of the Aryan “race”, which emerged in sci-
+ence in the nineteenth century through
+misuse of the word Aryan. This word had
+referred only to Aryan (i.e. Indo-European)
+languages until Arthur de Gobineau (1853),
+called the father of racist ideology, started
+to misuse it to denote race. This allowed
+Jews to be classified as “Semites”. The term
+antisemitism improved the reputation of
+Jew-hatred because the prefix “anti-“ and
+the word “semitic” made it sound more
+
+«
+
+scientific and the “-ism” transformed it
+to an acceptable ideology among others
+(Michman 2023).
+
+Jew-hatred was thus rehabilitated simply
+by changing the language used to talk
+about it. However, the many dimensions
+of Jewish identity still posed a problem;
+even if Jews were in secular societies given
+a chance to emancipate without explicitly
+renouncing their Judaism, this applied only
+on an individual basis; what they had to
+abandon was their view of themselves as a
+people (Lappin 2019), ie. their ethnic iden-
+tity. Viewing the Jewish people as an illicit
+nation is deeply ingrained in both religious
+and secular European culture. Secular anti-
+semitism in Europe on both the Left and
+the Right mirrored for centuries before the
+Second World War the Christian superses-
+sionism in the view that:
+
+Jews are an illicit collectivity lacking
+any independent legitimacy. Its mem-
+bers need to be repaired and reconfig-
+
+ured. The intended result of each reply
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+[to the Jewish question] is to find an
+acceptable way of eliminating this col-
+lectivity. In the case of the right, this
+was to be through expulsion and, ulti-
+mately, physical annihilation. For the
+left, and some liberals, it would be
+achieved through a forced or a natural
+process of assimilation. (Lappin 2019,
+33)
+
+Currently, “a large part of the contempo-
+rary European left has inherited the lib-
+eral and revolutionary antipathy towards
+a Jewish collectivity, with Israel becoming
+the focus of this attitude” and, as a result,
+“a Jewish country is treated as an illegiti-
+mate entity not worthy of a people whose
+history should have taught them the folly
+of nationalism” (Lappin 2003, 23). This was
+the basis for one decisive event in the con-
+stant development of new variants of anti-
+semitism: the 2001 UN “World Conference
+against Racism”. At Durban, “the 1970s
+‘Zionism=Racism culture returned” (Hirsh
+and Miller 2022, abstract) and has grown
+ever since (see also the section on the
+cultural roots and core demonology of
+antisemitism).
+
+Western academia participates again,
+knowingly or not, in rehabilitating anti-
+semitism by using buzzwords aimed at pro-
+jecting, without proof of the validity of the
+claims, all the evil perceived to character-
+ize (the imagined) Judaism and Jews on
+Zionism and Zionists (see also the sections
+on the cultural roots and core demonology
+of antisemitism and the case study). For
+example, in Whiteness studies: “the color
+line is introduced into conflicts which have
+nothing to do neither with the American
+race relations, nor with a European type
+of colonialism” (Berkovits 2018, 88). Using
+
+64
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+this frame, anti-racist ideology depicts Jews
+as “super-White’, thereby strengthening
+age-old antisemitic myths (Schraub 2019):
+
+Whiteness as a lens of analysis is
+designed to elevate or accentuate cer-
+tain aspects of experience that might
+otherwise go unnoticed [...] [T]he
+prevailing view of Jews—the view
+that subordinates Jews—is precisely
+that they are “particularly powerful,
+or privileged, or influential”. And so,
+when the Whiteness frame—which by
+design draws attention to these attrib-
+utes—is overlaid upon the White Jew
+(as a body or a concept), it serves not
+as a counterweight but as an accelerant.
+The hope in applying the Whiteness
+frame to a gentile White is to unsettle
+received understandings of the White
+experience—to make people see things
+they had not seen before. By contrast,
+the effect of applying Whiteness to
+Jewishness is confirmatory: “I always
+thought that Jews had all this power
+and privilege—and see how right I
+was!” (Schraub 2019, 393)
+
+Research on contemporary antisemitism
+faces an obstacle not encountered by
+research on earlier forms: as intergroup
+attitudes are sensitive to social norms,
+socially unacceptable ones may become
+implicit. When the “outgroup lens” on
+Jews, i.e. the content and meaning of their
+alter-ascribed identity, becomes politically
+incorrect, some new content needs to be
+created. Accordingly, antisemitism mutates
+to overcome negative connotations of ear-
+lier versions. Any new version of antisem-
+itism acquires by definition the status of
+being politically correct, thereby denying it
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+is a form of anti-Judaism. The newest vari-
+ant is discussed below.
+
+The most recent variant of antisemitism—
+
+a case study
+
+As Jew-hatred had lost its respectability
+after the Holocaust, the time was again ripe
+for its rehabilitation. Izabella Tabarovsky
+(2022), herself born in the Soviet Union
+and a researcher specialized in the history
+of Russia, characterizes the antizionism
+which was created there after the Second
+World War as grounded in antisemitic con-
+spiracy theory because it included the core
+demonology of antisemitism. Although
+another historian, Asmund Borgen Gjerde
+(2018), maintains that the antizionism of
+the Soviet elite at the time was not a con-
+scious strategy to conceal antisemitism,
+as conspiracist thinking was common in
+Soviet politics, he does not deny its anti-
+semitism or consequences:
+
+If an antisemite sincerely believes Jews
+conspire against everything that is
+good in the world, this obviously does
+not make her or him any less antise-
+mitic than if she or he merely fabri-
+cates such charges, knowing them to
+be false [...]. For it remains true that
+these attacks were directed at any Jew
+who expressed a commitment to any
+form of Jewish identity beyond an
+absolute minimum tolerated by Soviet
+authorities; and it remains true that
+these attacks often echoed ideas that
+had previously been used to justify
+violence against Jews. (Gjerde 2018,
+292)
+
+Lenin himself condemned antisemitism,
+denouncing it as fascist, but under Stalin a
+
+65
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+new linguistic shape, a “permission struc-
+ture for antisemitism” as the Professor of
+Literature Dara Horn (2024) has called it,
+was created. Horn used this term primarily
+to explain the soaring statistics of antisem-
+itism after Hamas's brutal attack on Israel
+on 7 October 2023, but she aptly described
+how the core demonology of the imagined
+collective Jew has been maintained through
+all the variations:
+
+This is the permission structure for
+antisemitism [...] announce a “uni-
+versal” ideal that all good people must
+accept and then redefine Jewish col-
+lective identity as lying beyond it.
+Hating Jews thus becomes a demon-
+stration of righteousness. The key is
+to define, and redefine, and redefine
+again, the shiny new moral reasoning
+for why the Jews have failed the uni-
+versal test of humanity. (Horn 2024)
+
+The Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawn
+identified the new shapeshift in the Soviet
+Union when noting that antisemitism was
+“tolerated and sometimes encouraged [...]
+albeit now dressed up as anti-Zionism” and
+that antisemitism manifested itself after the
+establishment of the Jewish state “under the
+disguise of antizionism” (Hobsbawn 1980,
+502, 504).
+
+Soviet antizionist propaganda had
+right-wing antisemitic roots and was pro-
+duced, translated to many languages and
+disseminated to many countries from
+roughly 1967 to 1988 (Tabarovsky, 2022).
+This propaganda proclaimed, without evi-
+dence, that Zionism is Nazism, racism,
+apartheid, colonialism and _ genocide.
+So-called “Zionologists” were employed
+
+at the Soviet Academy of Sciences for the
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+purpose of producing that propaganda.
+The renowned Professor of History Robert
+Wistrich (2012) noted the crucial role of
+Soviet academics:
+
+a wide variety of classic anti-Jewish
+motifs became virtually obligatory
+in so-called academic Soviet publi-
+cations. Ostensibly concerned with
+Zionism, these writings insistently
+slandered Judaism as a creed that calls
+for genocide and the enslavement of
+non-Jews [...] Ultimately, this ideol-
+ogy [Zionism] was founded to jus-
+tify the “extermination” of Palestinian
+Arabs. (Wistrich 2012, 435)
+
+Wistrich saw the development of antise-
+mitic antizionism in the Soviet Union as an
+effort to explain away the defeat of the Arab
+allies 1967:
+
+Already in the summer of 1967 the
+Soviet media began to denounce
+Israel’s so called genocide against the
+Palestinian people. Within days of the
+Israeli victory, the Soviet press would
+brand Israeli Defense Minister Moshe
+Dayan as a “pupil of Hitler” and exe-
+crate world Zionism as a racialist,
+criminal conspiracy [...] The tone
+had been set for what would become
+a veritable tsunami of articles, lec-
+tures, broadcasts and films vilifying
+Judaism, Zionism and Israel in the
+Soviet mass media. The only compara-
+ble analogy would be the monstruous
+specter of Das Weltjudentum in Nazi
+propaganda of the 1930s and 1940’s—
+this time with the roles reversed.
+In place of the relentless Nazi myth
+about “Jewish Bolshevism’, the Soviet
+
+66
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+Communists began to fabricate the
+equally mendacious “Jewish Nazism”.
+(Wistrich 2012, 433)
+
+Tabarovsky (2022) notes that Zionism and
+Zionists were demonized with the same
+core demonology with which Judaism
+and Jews had been depicted by the forged
+Protocols of the Elders of Zion and by the
+Nazis, creating an imagined Zionism which
+to a large extent was based on old antise-
+mitic myths. One pertinent example is
+from an antisemitism trial in Paris in 1973,
+where the defence quoted a right-wing
+author, who had:
+
+borrowed entire passages—typos
+included—from a 1906 pamphlet
+called The Jewish Question [...] or
+the Impossibility of Granting Full
+Rights to Jews, authored by S. Rossov,
+a member of the ultra-nationalist,
+antisemitic Black Hundreds move-
+ment which incited pogroms in pre-
+revolutionary Russia. The only dif-
+ference [...] was that whenever the
+former [Rossov] used the word “Jew’,
+the [1972 publication] used the word
+“Zionist”. (Tabarovsky 2022, 4)
+
+Discussing the link between antisemitic
+antizionism and the legacy of classical
+right-wing antisemitism in Russia, Wistrich
+(2012, 434) noted that in Soviet propa-
+ganda the virulent antisemitism of the
+Russian masses in older times was depicted
+as an understandable reaction to the eco-
+nomic exploitation by Jews. Even “the
+monarchist pogromchiks who had mobi-
+lized the ultra-reactionary Black Hundreds
+around 1905 in defense of Tsarism, were
+now being rehabilitated as precursors of a
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+new and better socialist world” (Wistrich
+2012, 434). Soviet mass media “openly
+embraced the language of the Protocols
+and did not shrink from Sturmer-like car-
+icatures which had acquired free reign
+since 1967” (Wistrich, 2012, 438). Wistrich
+(2012) noted also the journal published by
+the Russian Embassy in Paris 1972 which:
+
+contained extracts from a pamphlet
+originally published seventy years ear-
+lier by the antisemitic “Alliance of the
+Russian People”. The only significant
+divergence in the modernized Soviet
+version of Black Hundred antisem-
+itism was the substitution of the code-
+word “Zionist” for “Jew”. The article
+consisted of largely fabricated quota-
+tions from Jewish religious writings.
+(Wistrich 2012, 434-35)
+
+This pamphlet was what the defence
+had used in the Paris trial in 1973 when
+the French Communist publisher of the
+Embassy was found guilty of discrimina-
+tion, hatred and racial violence (Wistrich
+2012, 435).
+
+The transfer of the core demonology of
+antisemitism to antizionism can be exem-
+plified by a typical Nazi imagery of the Jew,
+an enormous spider with a star of David
+on his military hat, threatening innocent
+Soviet children beneath it (cf. Fig. 1). Even
+as it was endlessly repeated that this was
+not antisemitism, Soviet Jews were mer-
+cilessly persecuted (Tabarovsky 2022).
+Regrettably, however, also “contemporary
+left-wing antizionist discourse reproduces
+with stunning fidelity some of the central
+tropes of Soviet antizionist propaganda,
+which demonized Israel and Zionism”
+(Tabarovsky 2022, abstract).
+
+67
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+Figure 1. The text on the spider's web reads “Zionism is a weapon for imperialism”. The image was
+taken at the parade on 1 May 1972 in Moscow by Vladimir Sichov. Image source: Huttunen 2019.
+Image: Courtesy Vladimir Sichov, all rights reserved.
+
+This antizionist narrative exempli-
+fies what Deborah Lipstadt (1994) named
+a “soft” form of Holocaust denial, also
+called Holocaust inversion (Klaff 2014).
+Despite Jews clearly qualifying globally
+as a vulnerable minority, constituting 0.2
+per cent of the world’s population, com-
+pared, for example, to Muslims at close to
+30 per cent (Illouz 2025), Holocaust inver-
+sion implies a victim-perpetrator rever-
+sal, where Israel is perceived as just as
+bad as the Nazis and denied any victim-
+hood while the Palestinians are the epito-
+mized victims. As the senior researcher at
+the Norwegian Centre for Holocaust and
+Minority Studies Vibeke Moe (2025, 10)
+has noted, most Jews in Europe and schol-
+ars of antisemitism perceive similar anal-
+ogies in connection with descriptions of
+Israel as expressions of Holocaust distor-
+tion and antisemitism.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+The Professor of Social Psychology
+Michael Billig (1987) studied the discourse
+of the British far left in the late 1970s and
+early 1980s from a social psychological per-
+spective. He noted that this narrative was
+“typical of the way the revolutionary left in
+general” wrote about Zionism:
+
+Thus, comments about “genocidal
+suppression of Palestinians” and of
+the “Hitlerite policies of the Israeli
+Zionists” exemplify a more general
+trend in which the language used to
+describe Nazi crimes against Jews is
+now appropriated to describe Zionism.
+This is part of a general ideological
+process that is equating Zionism with
+Nazism. (Billig 1987, 125)
+
+Billig found in these left-wing publications
+“themes that suggest that Jews are forever
+
+68
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+complaining about non-existent persecu-
+tions” and “as with right-wing antisem-
+itism, these themes are formulated against
+a background that assumes that the world
+would be a better place if the Jew were
+made impossible” (Billig 1987, 129). The
+historian Henrik Bachner (1999) found
+similar material in Sweden, noting that “the
+motif of ‘the Jew as Nazist and racist was
+linked to and co-existed with more tradi-
+tional perceptions of Jewish vengefulness,
+‘Old Testament’ cruelty and the ‘chosen
+people’ evil, murderousness, and dreams
+of domination and supremacy” (Bachner
+1999, 473).
+
+The Marxist Professor of History
+Moishe Postone (2010) disentangled differ-
+ent historical currents of antizionism, some
+virulently antisemitic, others not. The latter
+included Jewish Communists who con-
+sidered “any expression of Jewish iden-
+tity as anathema to their own notions of
+what I would call abstract Enlightenment
+notions of humanity”. Postone noted that
+“Trotsky, in an earlier phase, referred to
+the Bund [the Jewish Socialist Party] as
+
+22
+
+‘sea-sick Zionists”, rejecting any form of
+Jewish communal self-identification. This
+“critique of Zionism [...] had nothing to
+do with Palestine or the situation of the
+Palestinians, since the Bund was focused
+entirely on autonomy within the Russian
+empire and rejected Zionism” Postone
+added, however, that “frequently, this form
+of anti-Zionism is inconsistent—it is will-
+ing to accord national self-determination
+to most peoples, but not to Jews” (Postone
+2010).
+
+Another version, in turn, aimed “to
+eradicate actually existing Jewish self-
+determination. It converges with some
+
+forms of Arab nationalism—now coded
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+as singularly progressive” (Postone 2010).
+Postone calls it “deeply antisemitic’, noting
+that it was “introduced by the Soviet Union,
+particularly in the show trials in Eastern
+Europe after World War Two”. “Because the
+Soviet Union could not officially use the
+language of antisemitism’, he notes, “they
+began to use the word ‘Zionist’ to mean
+exactly what anti-Semites mean when they
+speak of Jews.” Postone was clear about
+the roots of this antisemitic antizionism:
+“The idea that every nation other than the
+Jews should be allowed self-determination
+does come back to the Soviet Union. One
+has only to read Stalin on the nationalities
+question” (Postone 2010).
+
+More recently, the Moroccan-born
+French, Professor of Sociology Eva Illouz
+has found that “two key tropes of tradi-
+tional antisemitism ‘happen’ to be the
+same as the ones bestowed on Zionists and
+Zionism: tentacular destructive power and
+malevolent scheming to evade accountabil-
+ity. These two key antisemitic motifs have
+been cut from antisemitism and pasted
+onto Zionism” (Illouz 2025). In addition,
+she identifies the cultural roots of these
+tropes:
+
+There is a semantic continuity between
+the ways in which Jews were vilified
+in a Christian world which associ-
+ated them with deicide, the spilling
+of Gentile blood—especially children,
+and ritual murder, and the view of
+Israel as uniquely destructive and
+criminal. A secular ideology whose
+aim was to restore dignity and inde-
+pendence to the Jews has been singled
+out as the bearer of a radical guilt and
+evil as no other. No sloganeering will
+manage to hide the obvious: antisem-
+
+69
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+itism gives anti-Zionism its fuel and
+passion, its semantics and archetypes.
+If ‘woke’ ideology has marked a moral
+progress, it is precisely in making us
+aware that misogyny, homophobia,
+and racism have deep structures. If it
+is true for these, it is no less true of
+antisemitism. (Illouz 2025)
+
+With its roots in the antizionist propaganda
+of the Soviet Union contemporary anti-
+semitism utilizes antisemitism’s culturally
+transmitted core demonology and is now
+so normalized throughout the political
+spectrum that it has become invisible (Herf
+2024). The core demonology of antisem-
+itism in all the “melodies” played on the
+antisemitism “piano” over time can be illus-
+trated by one typical subhuman, i.e. dehu-
+manizing, symbol of the collective Jew,
+the spider (cf. Figs. 2.1-2.4). Antizionism
+becomes antisemitic when the Zionism
+or Zionists it addresses share characteris-
+tics with imagined Judaism or Jews and/or
+when only Jews are denied self-governance
+in a state of their own.
+
+Research confirms that the antisem-
+itism of contemporary antizionist discourse
+demonizes all Jews (e.g. Allington et al.
+2023). Moe (2025) found that high dislike
+of Jews among Norwegians increased from
+4.2 per cent in 2022 to 8.6 per cent in 2024
+(Moe 2025). In addition, she notes that no
+sudden decrease of knowledge of history
+can explain the simultaneous significant
+increase (from 33 per cent in 2022 to 51
+per cent in 2024) in support for the state-
+ment “Israel treats Palestinians as badly as
+the Jews were treated during World War
+ID; and that it rather reflects “a widespread
+Israel-critical opinion and massive media
+coverage of the war in Gaza and suffering
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+of its civilian population’, indicating “a
+lack of understanding of and sensitivity to
+Holocaust distortion, and a public debate in
+which the threshold for making extremely
+negative statements about Israel appears to
+be lower than before” (Moe 2025, 10).
+
+Also ECRI (the European Commission
+against Racism and Intolerance at the
+Council of Europe) has observed that an
+increase of antisemitism in many member
+states “is also characterized by contem-
+porary forms of antisemitism and by the
+spread of antisemitic hatred online” and
+that its “manifestations have also closely
+followed contemporary world develop-
+ments” (European Commission against
+Racism and Intolerance 2021, 3-4).
+
+The Professor of Linguistics Georges-
+Elia Sarfati (2004) noted that this demoni-
+zation has been so often repeated that it
+can be used autonomously, ie. the con-
+tent no longer needs to be verified. Thus,
+one only needs to be, for instance, against
+Nazism (and who is not?) to be an antizion-
+ist. These pseudo-equations and pseudo-
+equivalences justify every initiative hos-
+tile to Zionism, framing it into an act of
+progressiveness and humanism. Ironically,
+Europe supplied all that it now reproaches
+in Zionism: Nazism, totalitarianism, racism
+and colonialism. Linguistically, this is a
+“displacement”, psychologically, it is “pro-
+jection”. Europe's historical traumas are
+redirected towards the only Jewish state.
+Theologically, this recalls the scapegoat
+mechanism; loaded with everybody’s sins
+the scapegoat was expelled (Sarfati 2004).
+
+Research across history, philosophy, the-
+ology, linguistics, semiotics, literature, law,
+political science, sociology, psychology and
+social psychology converges. Empirical evi-
+dence shows that, individually, traditional
+
+70
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@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+Figure 2.2. German cartoon, Der Sttirmer, February 1930. Image
+source: the German Propaganda Archive, published with permis-
+
+® Prtitst30 ‘Mamas sion from the page copyright holder Randall Bytwerk. All rights
+- reserved.
+
+Dipdt 1 O. P.M,
+‘, A. naan
+Figure 2.1. Title page from the French ver-
+sion of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
+1921. Image source: Tabarovsky 2019. All
+rights reserved. y \ yo
+| Courtesy of:
+PMW.ORG.IL g, ¢,
+
+Figure 2.4. Official Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat
+Al-Jadida, 21 October 2001 as reprinted in Kill a Jew—
+Go to Heaven by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW),
+2005. Reproduced with permission from PMW. All
+rights reserved.
+
+Figure 2.3. “At his favorite work”, A. Zenin, Sovi-
+etskaya Moldavia, 29 August 1971. The cartoon is
+titled A Zionist Cobweb Spider. Image source: The
+Israeli-Arab Conflict in Soviet Caricatures, 1967-73
+by Yeshayahu Nir, Tcherikover Publishers, 1976. All Figure 2.1-2.4. The spider as a metaphor of the core
+rights reserved. demonology of antisemitism.
+
+Approaching Religion = Vol. 16, No. 1 * March 2026 7
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@@ -0,0 +1,91 @@
+Jew-hatred strongly correlates in Europe
+with criticism against Israel (Kaplan and
+Small 2006). A recent large-scale study
+finds some differences between individual
+predictors of “old” and “new” (antizion-
+ist) antisemitic attitudes, but both are pre-
+dicted, at least in the UK, by ethnicity,
+conspiracist worldviews, a desire to over-
+turn the social order, and a preference for
+authoritarian government—all of which
+can be found on the right, the left and else-
+where (Allington et al. 2023).
+
+More research on antisemitism is needed
+
+to acknowledge common features of all
+variants and to curb their increase
+
+As shown above, Jews have repeatedly
+failed in their identity negotiations with
+religious and secular outgroups. The Italian
+Professor of Semiotics Ugo Volli (2016)
+discussed conspiracist antisemitism in
+Antiquity and asked: “Why the Jews?” His
+reply falls back on social psychology:
+
+Jews are a small group, often dis-
+persed among another people, but
+able to maintain its different identity,
+language, religion, habits. So they are
+perceived as different and secret. But
+they are also among “us’, indistin-
+guishable from “us’, behaving mostly
+like “us”, speaking “our” language etc.
+while keeping different, following a
+different religion and different habits
+and laws, eating other foods etc. In the
+antisemitic discourse they have collec-
+tive goals that are theirs, not ours, and
+therefore must (or just could) be evil.
+They can become a danger [...] This
+idea of the Jewish conspiracy is very
+old and widespread. (Volli 2016)
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+The process of antisemitic othering is con-
+spiracist in nature and creates the imag-
+ined Jew. Intergroup beliefs and emotions
+are socially constructed and embedded in
+the language of ideologies and worldviews
+(Billig 2002). Prejudice includes the emo-
+tion conveyed by discourse, producing hate
+speech. Group norms dictate the limits of
+prejudice expression—whether it is allowed
+or necessary to despise, discriminate, hate
+or eliminate “them” Norms define the
+politically correct forms of antisemitism;
+genocide becomes possible only with suf-
+ficient ideological importance, emotional
+investment and legitimizing norms.
+
+Currently, right-wing, left-wing and
+Islamist antisemitism are interconnected,
+yet this is rarely addressed (Herf 2024, 237).
+Herf explains this with the polarization of
+politics, intellectual life, and scholarship;
+rightists condemn leftist antisemitism but
+ignore their own, while leftists condemn
+rightist antisemitism, yet deny their own
+and are reluctant to condemn Islamist
+antisemitism for fear of being labelled
+“Islamophobes” (Herf 2024, 237). This may
+be yet another effect of the need for positive
+distinctiveness discussed in the section on
+the cultural roots and core demonology of
+antisemitism: to maintain self-esteem, we
+compare also our political ingroups with
+outgroups to acquire positive distinctive-
+ness (Tajfel and Turner 1986; Helkama et
+al. 2017). Herf (2024) shows his high-level
+scholarship by analysing all three variants
+with equal critical rigour.
+
+However, the normalization of the latest
+variant of antisemitism has led to a striking
+scarcity of serious research on its contem-
+porary variant. Schraub (2019) has noted
+that:
+
+72
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+there is a consistent worry felt
+among many Jews—progressive Jews
+included—that left-wing critics depri-
+oritize the fight against antisemitism,
+viewing it as a marginal issue, a dis-
+traction from more immediate con-
+cerns, or a fight that (but for a few
+stray cranks) has already been won.
+This fear is exacerbated by noticeable
+lacuna surrounding antisemitism in
+progressive scholarship about con-
+temporary issues of discrimination,
+oppression, and identity-based mar-
+ginalization. Vigorous theoretical
+accounts of how antisemitism cur-
+rently manifests in Western societies
+lag behind the excellent work focused
+on other oppressions. [...] Yet the the-
+oretical gap in intersectionality analy-
+ses largely overlooking the Jews is not
+fully accidental. Specifically, the asso-
+ciation of Jews with power as an anti-
+semitic trope functions to classify Jews
+not just as “White”, but as exemplify-
+ing or embodying Whiteness. Insofar
+as Jewishness is not understood as
+existing as a materially distinct cat-
+egory from Whiteness, the failure to
+consider Jews as a case of a marginal-
+ized identity is not intuitively felt as an
+absence. (Schraub 2019, 382, 384)
+
+The philosopher and sociologist Balasz
+Berkovits (2018) considers it detrimental
+to serious research on antisemitism when
+Whiteness studies which represent more
+antizionist activism than academic research
+is given academic credibility:
+
+there is an extreme variability in the
+characterization of “Jewish white-
+
+»
+
+ness’, “Jewish hegemony and suprem-
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+»
+
+acism’, “Zionist racism and coloni-
+alism’, and so on. Most of the time,
+these interpretations are contradict-
+ing one another. Still, there is a unani-
+mous intention of radical criticism,
+and total political agreement on the
+evaluation of Zionism, Israel, and
+Jews in the Middle East. A furtive look
+into these texts would be sufficient
+to conclude that whenever it comes
+to Israel, political criticism fully sub-
+ordinates any interpretation [...] in
+these works, the arbitrary usage of the
+concept of “whiteness” becomes even
+more conspicuous than in Whiteness
+Studies proper, as it encompasses
+an increasingly diverse set of phe-
+nomena. However, this fact does not
+bother totalizing critics emboldened
+by their academic prestige. (Berkovits
+2018, 101)
+
+As in the nineteenth century, academia of
+today misuses terms to demonize the col-
+lective Jew, “genocide” used in Holocaust
+inversion being only one of them (Klaff
+2014). Apart from Schraub (2019), the his-
+torian Simon Sebag Montefiore (2023) has
+also noted misapplication of the antiracist
+paradigms drawn from accounts of the
+American Black/White experience to the
+history and society of modern Israel and of
+terms like imperialism and colonialism by
+those forced by that frame to squeeze Israel
+and Palestine into a wholly inappropriate
+colonialist mould (Montefiore 2023).
+Obviously, Israel can (or should) be
+criticized like any other country and even
+accused of genocide, as long as this is done
+on the basis of impartially established facts
+and by applying existing definitions of the
+term, just as they have been applied to
+
+73
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@@ -0,0 +1,89 @@
+other countries. The Professor of Holocaust
+Studies Norman J. W. Goda (2025) shows
+how the term genocide has been applied
+to Israel since its establishment, noting a
+double standard, “an effort to redefine gen-
+ocide itself so that the constitutive elements
+of the crime itself are lowered” (Goda 2025,
+4) and that
+
+the genocide libel also deploys a range
+of antisemitic tropes. One is the link-
+age of genocide to violent passages
+in the Hebrew Bible, a linkage which
+plays on the theme of Jewish chosen-
+ness at the expense of others’ existence
+and which even claims that God is
+genocidal. Another is the whitewash-
+ing of Hamas’s own genocidal intent
+in lieu of tropes concerning the out-
+sized Jewish thirst for vengeance in the
+form of disproportionate response. A
+third is the coupling of the genocide
+charge with the deliberate killing of
+children, images of whom are ubiq-
+uitous on NGO, social media, and
+other platforms that charge Israel with
+genocide. A fourth is the attribution
+of special powers to the Israeli gov-
+ernment by which it and its support-
+ers have fooled western governments
+into believing that Israel’s actions are
+legitimate and that the history of the
+Israel-Arab conflict is too complex
+for snap judgments. A fifth, and this
+is what makes the genocide libel par-
+ticularly dangerous, is the association
+of all Jews with the crime. Jews world-
+wide are all in on it, either as Zionist
+enablers, as dishonest back-room lob-
+byists, or as community leaders who,
+we are told, “weaponize” the charge
+of antisemitism to silence the truth-
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+tellers. Other genocide charges over
+time have not targeted Hutus living in
+Belgium or Serbs living in Germany.
+(Goda 2025, 4-5)
+
+Linguistic “innovation” has always been
+central in the rehabilitation of Jew-hatred.
+Illouz calls for overcoming the denial of the
+antisemitism in its most recent form:
+
+transcendental anti-Zionism is deeply
+offensive to many or most Jews and
+does not serve the Palestinian cause. It
+prevents us from achieving the urgent
+tasks ahead: stop Israel’s reckless
+destruction of Gaza, rebuild the Strip,
+give a humane future to Palestinians
+and create durable regional peace,
+and ensure a future Gazan leader-
+ship without genocidal aspirations
+against Israel. As long as our language
+is contaminated by antisemitism, and
+as long as anti-Zionism continues to
+perniciously conflate critique of Israel
+with its demonization, we can only
+drift further away from these goals.
+(Illouz 2025)
+
+Illouz notes aptly that the progressive Left
+has traditionally relied on members of
+minority groups to decide whether or not “a
+word, behaviour, or idea is discriminatory,
+sexist, racist or Islamophobic” because,
+“if discrimination or racial hatred prof-
+its one group to the detriment of another,
+we cannot let the profiting group judge
+how harmful its own behaviour is” (Illouz
+2025). This is an accepted principle for all
+other minorities, but Jews are an excep-
+tion; their experiences of antisemitism are
+a priori interpreted as false, in accordance
+with the mendacity libel identified by Julius
+
+/4
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+(2024) and with epistemic antisemitism
+as described by Schraub (2022; see also
+the section on the cultural roots and core
+demonology of antisemitism).
+
+Where, and as long as a new variety of
+antisemitism, the contemporary “imagined
+Jew’, is politically correct in accordance
+with prevailing norms and values, we are
+inclined to deny it in ourselves, although
+recognizing it in others. Research on anti-
+semitism has increased also in progressive
+scholarship since the noticeable lacuna
+(Schraub 2019) but still must increase to
+cover applied studies aimed at finding rem-
+edies for it, ie. research which has long
+existed for other forms of racism (cf. e.g.
+Liebkind et al. 2014). There is an obvious
+need to prevent a contemporary, politi-
+cally correct version of antisemitism from
+accomplishing the aim of, to paraphrase
+Billig (1987) have the (collective) Jew made
+impossible.
+
+Conclusions
+Through
+tions and social identity dynamics in rela-
+
+examining inter-group _ rela-
+tion to the historical evolution of antise-
+mitic narratives, key insights emerge that
+warrant reflection and further scholarly
+engagement.
+
+First, this work shows that antisem-
+itism is rooted in intergroup and identity
+processes. Seen through key theories in
+social psychology, the portrayal of Jews as
+an outgroup threat based on some dimen-
+sion of self-recognized Jewish identity has
+evolved across centuries while maintain-
+ing core psychological structures; con-
+spiratorial thinking, threat perception
+and core demonology remain consistent
+in driving this prejudice regardless of his-
+torical period or political context. Shifting
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+manifestations of antisemitism, from medi-
+eval blood libels to contemporary claims of
+global Jewish or “Zionist” influence and the
+double standards applied when criticizing
+Israel, demonstrate the adaptation of its
+core demonology to new social and politi-
+cal circumstances.
+
+Second, the multi-dimensional char-
+acter and linguistic variety of contempo-
+rary antisemitism encompassing Rightist,
+Leftist and Islamist variants indicates the
+complexity of addressing this prejudice.
+Recognizing their shared characteristics
+offers a more coherent analytical frame-
+work and enables scholars and practition-
+ers to identify potential intervention points
+across seemingly disparate contexts.
+
+Lastly, this work highlights a critical gap
+in contemporary research: while significant
+scholarship examines how antisemitism
+manifests and transforms, further research
+is needed into mitigation strategies and
+the societal factors that either facilitate
+or inhibit its spread. Future scholarship
+should combine analytical clarity with
+empirical investigation of which interven-
+tions can effectively address the emotional,
+cognitive, and behavioral components of
+antisemitism, particularly as digital com-
+munication platforms facilitate the rapid
+dissemination and radicalization of antise-
+mitic narratives.
+
+Moving forward, fostering cross-dis-
+ciplinary dialogue remains essential. Inte-
+grating insights from social psychology
+with historical, political and cultural anal-
+ysis offers promising avenues for develop-
+ing more comprehensive understandings
+of antisemitism and more effective strate-
+gies for addressing this persistent form of
+hatred. &
+
+15
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@@ -0,0 +1,122 @@
+Karmela Liebkind is Professor Emerita of Social
+Psychology at the University of Helsinki, Finland,
+and specializes in intergroup relations. Areas of
+expertise include the ethnic identity and accul-
+turation of minority members, contact and
+prejudice between minority and majority mem-
+bers and prejudice-reduction interventions for
+schools.
+
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/ocr-output/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary/txt/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary_page_0022.txt	
@@ -0,0 +1,126 @@
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+//
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@@ -0,0 +1,123 @@
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+book of Acculturation Psychology, edited by
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diff --git a/ocr-output/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary/txt/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary_page_0024.txt b/ocr-output/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary/txt/Antisemitism A Multidisciplinary_page_0024.txt
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diff --git a/ocr-output/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self.txt b/ocr-output/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self.txt
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@@ -0,0 +1,1701 @@
+
+
+========== PAGE 1 ==========
+
+ANOO NISKANEN
+
+Leaving the Faith, Preserving the Self
+
+Identity Processes among Former Sweden-Finnish Conservative
+
+Laestadian Siblings
+
+doi.org/10.30664/ar.163854
+
+his article examines how identity motives
+[sis siblings’ disaffiliation from the Con-
+
+servative Laestadian revival movement in
+a Sweden-Finnish context, highlighting apos-
+tasy as a multifaceted identity process marked
+by renegotiation between inherited and emerg-
+ing identities. Drawing on life-story interviews,
+the study shows that religious exit is influenced
+by age, motivational structures and family rela-
+tions: adolescent departures were accompanied
+by destructive behaviour, while adult apostasy
+involved reflection and negotiation within the
+family. Although the siblings left Conservative
+Laestadianism, some retained elements of Chris-
+tian faith, suggesting reformulation rather than
+outright rejection. By situating these narratives
+within Identity Process Theory and Motivated
+Identity Construction Theory, the article demon-
+strates how motives such as continuity, belong-
+ing and psychological coherence shape religious
+identity processes. The findings also reveal the
+risks of marginalization and the vacuum state
+described in role-exit theory, where individuals
+feel suspended between identities and struggle
+to establish new roles. By foregrounding sibling
+dynamics and motivational structures, this arti-
+cle contributes new insights into how religious
+disaffiliation unfolds as an ongoing negotiation
+of continuity and belonging.
+
+Introduction
+Building on previous research on Sweden-
+Finnish Conservative Laestadians (Nis-
+
+kanen 2025), this article explores how
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+©)@ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
+
+\| VERTAISARVIOITU
+~ KOLLEGIALT GRANSKAD
+wy. PEER-REVIEWED
+
+www.tsv.fi/tunnus
+
+identity motives shape siblings’ religious
+disaffiliation and highlights apostasy as a
+multifaceted identity process.
+
+Laestadianism is a Lutheran revival-
+ist tradition within the Church of Sweden
+that originated in Karesuando in the mid-
+nineteenth century under the leadership
+of Dean Lars Levi Laestadius. The move-
+ment spread to Norway, Finland and the
+United States (Andreassen 2020, 92). It was
+marked by strict sobriety, confession and
+absolution, and ecstatic religious experi-
+ences. Over time, the movement devel-
+oped an exclusive ecclesiology, emphasis-
+ing salvation only within its fellowship, and
+remains characterized by large families,
+a familycentred lifestyle and devotional
+meetings led by lay preachers (Niskanen
+2025, 42-43). In Sweden, it has been par-
+ticularly influential in the northern regions,
+shaping both religious and social life (SOU
+2023:68, 195-96). In Finland, it is the larg-
+est revivalist movement (van den Brandt
+and Rantala 2024, 227). The Conservative
+Laestadian branch, historically linked
+to the SRK (Suomen Rauhanyhdistysten
+Keskusyhdistys), is distinguished by a fam-
+ilyoriented and theologically conservative
+profile (Andreassen 2020, 92).
+
+24
+
+
+========== PAGE 2 ==========
+
+Recent scholarship has highlighted
+the scarcity of Swedish research on
+Laestadianism compared to the extensive
+Finnish literature (Andreassen et al. 2020).
+By focusing on Sweden-Finnish experiences,
+this article seeks to address this gap and
+contribute to a more comprehensive under-
+standing of Laestadianism as a Lutheran
+revival movement, particularly in relation
+to processes of disaffiliation. By examining
+sibling dynamics and motivational struc-
+tures, the study demonstrates how individ-
+uals negotiate continuity, belonging and
+psychological coherence when leaving the
+religious group. Specifically, it investigates
+how siblings differ in their identity motives
+and in the consequences they experience
+following disafhliation, thereby illuminat-
+ing the layered and individualized nature of
+religious exit.
+
+Theory
+
+Identity motives are explored within the
+frameworks of Identity Process Theory
+(IPT) (Jaspal and Breakwell 2014) and
+Motivated Identity Construction Theory
+(MICT) (Vignoles 2011; 2018). According
+to Vignoles, there are at least six universal
+identity motives (2011, 412): self-esteem,
+distinctiveness, continuity, meaning, effi-
+cacy and belonging. Jaspal and Cinnirella
+propose a seventh motive, psychological
+coherence, defined as the experience of
+one’s interconnected identities as compat-
+ible (Jaspal and Breakwell 2014, 176). This
+complements the six universal motives
+by emphasizing the importance of inter-
+nal consistency across different aspects of
+the self. According to MICT, these motives
+are culturally universal and guide identity
+construction. They share three core prop-
+erties (Vignoles 2011, 405): first, satisfac-
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+tion of these motives typically has a posi-
+tive impact, while frustration tends to
+negatively affect psychological well-being;
+second, people generally desire and strive
+for identities that satisfy these motives and
+typically avoid those that frustrate them;
+and third, situations that temporarily or
+chronically frustrate these motives often
+lead to intensified efforts to fulfil them.
+
+In this study, the interview material has
+been analysed through the combined lens of
+IPT and MICT, which facilitates a nuanced
+examination of how siblings negotiate their
+sense of self when leaving a tightly knit reli-
+gious community. This analytical frame-
+work demonstrates that apostasy is not
+merely a rejection of belief, but a complex
+identity process shaped by motivational
+structures such as continuity, belonging
+and psychological coherence. Drawing on
+my previous study about Sweden-Finnish
+Conservative Laestadians (Niskanen 2025),
+the article introduces a distinct analytical
+focus on sibling dynamics and differenti-
+ated experiences of religious disaffiliation.
+Rather than framing religious exit as rup-
+ture, the article highlights how inherited
+beliefs and emerging perspectives coexist
+and evolve. In line with Streib’s (2021, 139)
+view of deconversion as a dynamic life pro-
+cess, the narratives of the interviewed sib-
+lings demonstrate that religious exit often
+unfolds gradually through emotional and
+relational renegotiations. This perspec-
+tive challenges binary notions of belief and
+non-belief and instead foregrounds the lay-
+ered and biographical nature of identity
+transformation.
+
+Method and data collection
+In the preceding study, a novel method
+in religious studies, Faith Q-Sort, was
+
+25
+
+
+========== PAGE 3 ==========
+
+employed alongside 26 life-story inter-
+views. Faith Q-Sort (FQS) is a qualitative
+tool that allows participants to rank state-
+ments about religion and spirituality along
+a continuum of agreement. FQS captures
+subjective viewpoints on religion, spiritual-
+ity and life views (Wulff 2019; Nynas et al.
+2021; Nynas 2022).
+
+The analysis in the previous study sug-
+gested that close relationships significantly
+shaped participants’ subjective viewpoints
+(Niskanen 2025, 139). However, the results
+from the FQS are not presented in this
+article, which instead focuses on identity
+motives rather than life views.
+
+Life-story interviews were conducted
+between 2020 and 2022, with participants
+recruited through snowball sampling. One
+family, comprising four siblings, one in-law
+and two parents, was featured in a dedi-
+cated chapter of my dissertation (Niskanen
+2025, 138-68). This article focuses spe-
+cifically on the siblings and the in-law,
+all of whom have left the Conservative
+Laestadian revival movement. It extends
+the analysis of the interviews by examin-
+ing the consequences of religious disaffili-
+ation through the lens of identity motives
+and age-related differences.
+
+Ethical considerations were central
+to the study design. All participants pro-
+vided informed consent, and pseudonyms
+are used throughout the article to protect
+anonymity.
+
+The siblings: narratives of exit
+
+During data collection, efforts were made
+to select closely related participants to
+explore whether kinship influenced reli-
+gious perspectives. The findings suggested
+that siblings and married couples often
+expressed similar views (Niskanen 2025,
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+139), which may reflect shared experiences
+and relational dynamics.
+
+This article focuses on a family
+where most of the siblings had left the
+Conservative Laestadian movement. Four
+siblings and the husband of one of them
+participated in the study. The parents, who
+remain members of the religious group,
+were also interviewed in the previous study
+but are not included in this article. The sib-
+lings’ pseudonyms are Anne, Piia, Aki and
+Petri, and Piia’s husband is referred to as
+Erkki.
+
+Anne: continuity and rediscovered faith
+Anne was the first to be interviewed. Her
+responses indicated a continued engage-
+ment with personal faith, while her siblings
+expressed more critical perspectives on reli-
+gion. During the interview, Anne described
+how she gradually rediscovered her per-
+sonal faith after stepping away from it fol-
+lowing her departure from Conservative
+Laestadianism:
+
+Anne: And to discover my own con-
+viction, my personal belief, really, and
+then to reconnect with God again, the
+connection I’ve always had, though
+it was on hold at the time. (Niskanen
+2025, 140)
+
+Although Anne left Laestadianism as a
+young adult, she retained the Christian
+faith from her childhood:
+
+Anne: Mm, I am, I still have my inher-
+ited faith. I believe that if I hadn't been
+born into the family I was, it’s hard
+to imagine I would have become a
+believer, a Christian believer.
+(Niskanen 2025, 141)
+
+26
+
+
+========== PAGE 4 ==========
+
+She was critical of the Conservative
+Laestadian revival movement. Nevertheless,
+her interview statements indicate that con-
+tinuity remained essential to her, as shown
+by her claim that she still holds onto her
+innate faith. Even after pausing her spirit-
+ual engagement and despite a shift in per-
+spective, she retained the core beliefs of
+her childhood, even outside the Laestadian
+movement. This suggests that the continu-
+ity motive (Vignoles 2011, 412) was sig-
+nificant for her. The motive of belonging,
+however, seemed less prominent. Still, she
+did seek out another religious community
+after leaving the Conservative Laestadian
+congregation, indicating that belonging
+remained relevant.
+
+Piia and Erkki: the impact of family
+
+Among the siblings, Anne was the one who
+most clearly self-identified as a religious
+believer. Her brothers Aki and Petri also
+expressed some form of religious belief,
+even though all the siblings interviewed
+had left the movement. Her sister Piia and
+Piia’s husband Erkki were the most vocal
+in rejecting Conservative Laestadianism,
+despite Erkki showing a need for continu-
+ity and belonging through maintaining ties
+with his family and attending events hosted
+by the congregation. In contrast to Piia,
+who left first, Erkki comes from a family
+in which most siblings remain within the
+movement. This may have made it more
+difficult for him to follow Piia (Niskanen
+2025, 142):
+
+Piia: Yes. I was... I was more... I was
+more... or rather, I dared to take the
+step before my husband. He stayed,
+even though I left.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+Erkki stated that his decision to leave was
+due to no longer living in accordance
+with Conservative Laestadian teachings
+(Niskanen 2025, 144-45):
+
+Erkki: No, it was that I didn't live as
+a Laestadian, and then I thought...
+I was cowardly for not leaving ear-
+lier, I don’t know why I was afraid or
+what I was thinking, but I didn’t live
+as a Laestadian and thought it was just
+better not to be involved.
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. How do you feel
+about it now, a few years later?
+
+Erkki: It feels good, absolutely.
+Interviewer: What feels good about it?
+
+Erkki: You don't feel that pressure, that
+you have to go to meetings and please
+everyone. How do I explain it? But I
+still go sometimes, to bazaars and
+things like that.
+
+Interviewer: Do you keep in touch
+with your parents and siblings who are
+still involved?
+
+Erkki: Yes.
+
+Interviewer: So you still see each
+other?
+
+Erkki: Yes, absolutely.
+
+Erkki had told his parents directly that he
+was leaving the religious group. They were
+not surprised, as his wife had left earlier.
+Later in the interview, he reflected on their
+reaction (Niskanen 2025, 146):
+
+2]
+
+
+========== PAGE 5 ==========
+
+Interviewer: How did your parents
+react?
+
+Erkki: They were sad, but they
+accepted me too.
+
+Piia comes from a family in which most sib-
+lings have left Conservative Laestadianism.
+This probably made it easier for her than
+for Erkki to leave. But even among her
+siblings, not everyone found it easy. Her
+brother Aki, who left as a teenager, had
+a much more difficult experience, as did
+Anne and Petri, who also left early.
+
+Aki: distinctiveness and identity enactment
+through rebellion
+
+In the interview, Aki described what it was
+like when he left Conservative Laestadianism
+as a teenager. Most interviewees referred to
+it simply as “Laestadianism’, particularly
+those who had left the movement (Niskanen
+2025, 147).
+
+Aki: I left, I consider that I left fairly
+early, around age thirteen.
+
+Interviewer: Thirteen. Was it a con-
+scious decision?
+
+Aki: Yeah, I'd say so. It was really a
+lot of conflicts in the family... And
+I absolutely didn’t want to remain
+in Laestadianism, so it turned into
+a huge conflict. I think part of the
+reason I started using drugs was just
+to show, in every possible way, that I
+didn’t want that life.
+
+Interviewer: So it was a kind of
+protest?
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+Aki: Yeah. Drinking, drugs, fighting.
+Doing everything the opposite way,
+basically.
+
+Interviewer: Like defiance?
+
+Aki: Yes, exactly. Today I'm outspo-
+ken, but back then I couldn't express
+things in words.
+
+Aki was not the first in his family to leave;
+two older siblings had left before him. Still,
+his parents seemed particularly affected by
+his rejection, perhaps out of concern for
+him. After middle school, he attended a
+Laestadian folk high school in Finland for a
+year. He described that time positively:
+
+Aki: Yeah, I mean, it was kind of excit-
+ing and stuff like that, but I didn't
+get any schooling at all, really. I liked
+being there, though I’m not sure why,
+maybe because I didn't feel at home
+back where I lived either.
+
+Upon returning to Sweden for high school,
+things escalated. He began using drugs,
+social services got involved and he was
+placed in treatment facilities, with little
+success. Eventually, Aki himself asked for
+help and entered a 12-step programme. He
+became drug-free around age 20 (Niskanen
+2025, 148).
+
+In the interview, Aki said his rebellious
+behaviour was a form of identity expres-
+sion, trying to show that he did not want to
+be a Conservative Laestadian. This reflects
+identity enactment (Vignoles 2011, 412)
+and a public rejection of a former identity
+(Ebaugh 1988, 123). When I asked about
+his current faith, he said (Niskanen 2025,
+148-49):
+
+28
+
+
+========== PAGE 6 ==========
+
+Aki: I think some of it came from
+my addiction and the treatment pro-
+grammes, especially the 12-step pro-
+gramme. I don't know the founda-
+tions, but I believe a lot of it draws
+on Christianity somehow. They talk
+a lot about higher powers. At first,
+when they said “higher power, I
+wanted to throw chairs at them. Not
+again! So they really had to explain
+a higher power as you understand it.
+And somehow, I feel that the Christian
+higher power is mine, that I identify
+with it. To the level that I person-
+ally feel. That it can come to a certain
+point, but then I think it goes too far.
+And that’s where it kind of, if I got
+some of it back, in a way, like I started
+to believe in my own way anyway. That
+it was connected to that.
+
+Interviewer: What does that belief
+mean to you today?
+
+Aki: It means quite a lot. I can abso-
+lutely talk about Christian things with
+my kids. I don't feel ashamed any-
+more, but earlier, I felt deep shame. If
+someone said the word “God”, Td turn
+and walk away. Now I feel secure in it,
+on my own terms. It feels good.
+
+Interviewer: What about your sib-
+lings? How do they view faith now?
+
+Aki: Among us who have rejected it?
+Most (of them) probably feel the same,
+when someone says “God’, they walk
+away. But my younger brother has
+gone through a similar journey to the
+one I have. We've talked and we think
+pretty similarly.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+Aki explained that he now regards the
+Christian higher power as his own and
+that he has come to terms with it and
+feels secure in it in his own way. That may
+be interpreted as an indication that the
+continuity motive holds significance for
+him. Although he distanced himself from
+Conservative Laestadianism in every con-
+ceivable way during his youth, he is now
+able to express Christian ideas to his own
+children. This indicates a desire to pass on
+the Christian tradition, but in his own way,
+outside the religious movement, which
+suggests that the distinctiveness motive
+(Vignoles 2011, 415) has also played a role
+for Aki.
+
+Petri: marginalization
+
+The brother (Petri) whom Aki refers to in
+the quotation above has also been inter-
+viewed. This took place at their sister Piia’s
+home. It happened after the interview
+with Aki, who had told his siblings about
+it (Niskanen 2025, 149). Participants talk-
+ing to one another about the interviews
+was something that could not be avoided
+during the data-collection process. It is also
+inevitable in studies where participants are
+in some way related to each other.
+
+Petri’s views aligned more closely with
+Piias than with Anne’s or Aki’s, which is
+not particularly surprising given their close
+relationship and the fact that the interview
+was conducted at Piia’s home. These sib-
+lings appeared to have a strong bond, and
+Piia was the one who suggested that Petri
+participate in the study (Niskanen 2025,
+149).
+
+Aki mentions in his interview that Petri
+also holds a personal form of belief, which
+is confirmed when Petri describes his
+experiences of beginning to work within
+
+29
+
+
+========== PAGE 7 ==========
+
+a congregation of the Church of Sweden
+(Niskanen 2025, 150-51):
+
+Petri: Then I suppose I realised, well, I
+gradually noticed that it’s just an ordi-
+nary church, not like the one I grew up
+with. So no, I felt that it’s... it’s a health-
+ier relationship to faith and religion, at
+least.
+
+Interviewer: In what way is it different?
+Petri: It’s more everyday.
+Interviewer: More everyday?
+
+Petri: No... no finger-wagging, and
+you're allowed to have your faith just
+the way you want, I think.
+
+Interviewer: Right. So no one tells
+you how you're supposed to believe or
+anything like that?
+
+Petri: Yeah, well, I suppose they do...
+in principle, in the Church of Sweden,
+they encourage you to try to lL... live
+as a Christian, but it’s not like... no, I
+don't really know. I... I mostly just sit
+there... in the church during services
+and things, so yeah.
+
+Interviewer: Okay, okay, okay. So...
+you dont really take part in that way?
+
+Petri: Not actively, no.
+
+Interviewer: No, not actively. But you
+listen?
+
+Petri: Yes, I do. I mean, I find it a bit...
+quite... or well, it’s interesting to... no, I
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+suppose I’m still trying to understand
+[laughs] ... still trying to understand
+what religion’s all about, really. I don't
+think I... I think I had blinkers, or ear-
+plugs, on when I was little, at least
+[laughs].
+
+Interviewer: Okay. Do you remember
+having to listen to sermons when you
+were a child or teenager?
+
+Petri: Yeah, no, I just remember it as a
+kind of mumbling that was filled with
+anxiety.
+
+Petri was highly critical of the Conservative
+Laestadian Association for Peace, of which
+he was a member in his youth. Nevertheless,
+the quotation above suggests that he does
+not reject religion entirely; rather, he is
+seeking to grasp its meaning. He perceives
+the congregation in which he works as
+healthier, with less moralising and greater
+scope for forming one’s own view of faith
+(Niskanen 2025, 150-51).
+
+The older brother, Aki, said that Petri
+has had more or less the same journey in
+life as himself. Yet what Petri shared differs
+in part from his brother’s life story. While
+Aki claims that he tried in every possi-
+ble way to show that he did not want to
+be a Laestadian, including drug use, Petri
+described a different experience when he
+left the movement as a teenager (Niskanen
+2025, 151-53):
+
+Petri: I mean, it hasn't exactly been
+easy leaving the church. It’s been... I
+mean, you believed certain things, like
+if you're not religious, then you'll burn
+in hell for all eternity and stuff like
+that. And then you've just had to... I
+
+30
+
+
+========== PAGE 8 ==========
+
+mean, I’ve realised that’s not actually
+true, but somehow you did believe it.
+
+[...]
+
+Interviewer: Did it take a long time to
+get rid of that thought?
+
+Petri: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I don’t
+know. I tried... I did other things to
+maybe avoid it.
+
+Interviewer: Okay.
+
+Petri: Yeah, it ... I mean, it ended up
+being way too much alcohol and,
+yeah. I mean, things pretty much spi-
+ralled out of control straight away,
+really... a... after that.
+
+Bjérkmark et al. describe how alcohol
+use may increase after leaving a religious
+group: “Some mentioned that they had
+tried to suppress their pain with alcohol
+and ended up drinking excessively, for a
+period of time” (2022, 4729). When asked
+what might have caused the excessive
+drinking, Petri answered it was because of
+frustration:
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. About what?
+
+Petri: Well, it was like... even though it
+was bad, it was still a kind of security.
+And then when you didn't have that, it
+felt like you were just floating out into
+the air.
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. A sense of security...
+Petri: I mean, you... you completely
+
+lost your stable foundation [...] I
+mean, I didnt really have a solid
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+ground to stand on, I think.
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. Was it hard to
+know who you were, like in terms of
+identity and all that?
+
+Petri: Yeah, I think so. I wasn't
+Laestadian any more, and I wasn't like
+other Swedes either, so... I was some-
+
+thing entirely my own.
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. How... how do you
+feel today, who are you today?
+
+Petri: ’'m much calmer and more
+secure in myself at least, but I still
+dont really know who I am [laughs].
+
+Petri’s response suggests a marginal-
+ized identity: he describes himself as nei-
+ther Laestadian nor like other Swedes, but
+rather as something entirely different. He
+does not appear to have adopted any alter-
+native identity after leaving the movement,
+which may have contributed to a sense of
+disconnection and rootlessness.
+
+His sister Piia and her husband Erkki,
+by contrast, became members of a secu-
+lar Finnish cultural association after leav-
+ing the revival movement (Niskanen 2025,
+268). This suggests that they were able to
+adopt a secular Sweden-Finnish identity as
+a replacement for their previous identity as
+Conservative Laestadians with a Finnish
+background:
+
+Interviewer: And are you both active
+members of the Finnish association in
+
+[...]?
+
+Piia: Yes. And as I said, all our children
+were involved too.
+
+
+========== PAGE 9 ==========
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. Is it easier to feel a
+sense of belonging with other Sweden-
+Finns who aren‘ Laestadian than with
+Swedes?
+
+Piia: Yes.
+
+Interviewer: What do you think that’s
+due to?
+
+Piia: I think it’s the Finnish language,
+there's something about it that makes
+you... you feel a connection in a
+strange way.
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. Exactly.
+
+Piia: Because the people we sing with,
+were the youngest, and they're all 70
+to 80 plus. And what do we really have
+in common with them? [laughs] But
+it’s the Finnish language and yeah.
+
+Piia stated that it was easier to feel con-
+nected to other Sweden-Finns who were
+not Laestadian than to Swedes, which indi-
+cates that the identity of “Swede” was not
+available to her as an alternative. This may
+help explain why Petri described himself
+as “not like other Swedes” in the quote
+above. Former cult members who have
+left a minority culture can be described as
+migrants or strangers in their own country,
+as the culture within the cult often differs
+markedly from mainstream society across
+multiple areas of life (Hadding 2023, 12).
+Since Petri and his siblings are part of the
+national minority of Sweden Finns, their
+sense of difference may be heightened.
+
+Piia and Erkki were able to connect with
+others in the secular cultural association,
+suggesting that their Finnish background
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+and language were crucial to their sense of
+belonging. Petri, by contrast, may not have
+found a similar group where he could feel
+connected, which could have contributed
+to a marginalized identity (Niskanen 2025,
+151-53).
+
+Hadding suggests that
+facing marginalization are at greater risk
+
+individuals
+
+of poor mental health. When someone
+leaves a context shaped by a specific cul-
+ture, certain aspects of that culture may no
+longer be accessible or may lose their sig-
+nificance and meaning. This can lead to a
+disruption in the individual's worldview. If
+the exit is linked to difficult experiences or
+trauma, the person becomes more vulner-
+able. Certain patterns of thought may also
+be deeply tied to identity, making change
+more difficult (Hadding 2023, 12-13).
+
+Exiting the movement and the vacuum state
+In Becoming an Ex: The Process of Role
+Exit, Helen Rose Ebaugh (1988) writes that
+three-quarters of the exiters in her study
+experienced a sense of being in a vacuum,
+suspended in mid-air, or in a rootless state.
+The interviewees had left various roles,
+both secular and religious, but many shared
+similar experiences (Ebaugh 1988, 148).
+What Petri described as “it felt like you
+were just floating out into the air” and “you
+completely lost your stable foundation”
+aligns closely with the feelings expressed
+by Ebaugh’s interviewees. This suggests that
+the experience is not solely about leaving a
+religious group, but rather about exiting a
+role without having found another.
+Interviewees in Ebaugh’s study who had
+built bridges to new roles before leaving the
+old one, such as a new job or new friends,
+found it easier to emerge from the vacuum
+state and form a new identity, compared
+
+32
+
+
+========== PAGE 10 ==========
+
+to those who lacked such connections.
+However, all those who entered the ex-role
+state faced similar challenges in establish-
+ing a new role identity that also acknowl-
+edged their status as an “ex” from the previ-
+ous role (Ebaugh 1988, 148).
+
+Petri stated, “I wasn't Laestadian any
+more, and I wasn't like other Swedes either,
+so ... | was something entirely my own” and
+“T still don't really know who I am.” This
+suggests that he has struggled to establish
+a new role identity, as no alternative identi-
+ties appeared to be available in the context
+in which he found himself. In contrast, Piia
+and Erkki seemed to have found a new role
+as secular Sweden Finns within a Finnish
+cultural association.
+
+According to Bjérkmark et al. (2021),
+feelings of having lost one’s identity can
+arise when someone leaves a religious con-
+gregation, especially if they have grown up
+within it since childhood. Letting go of a
+deeply rooted identity can bring about a
+profound sense of disconnection and inner
+confusion. It may feel as though one’s very
+sense of self has vanished, leaving a person
+adrift and uncertain. In the beginning, life
+is often marked by insecurity and a lack of
+orientation (Bjérkmark et al., 2021, 5-6).
+
+Ebaugh argues that the experience of a
+stable identity can be disrupted when an
+individual leaves a role that has been incor-
+porated into the self-structure, or when a
+new identity is adopted. She suggests that
+self-identity is gradually built through
+internalized meanings and expectations of
+the roles people occupy. Leaving a role or
+entering a new one is closely related to self-
+identity, as the roles people play in society
+become part of their self-definition. When
+a role is exited, self-identity is threatened
+and elements from the new or previous role
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+must be negotiated and reintegrated into
+the self-concept before stability and secu-
+rity can be re-established (Ebaugh 1988,
+22). This reflects the uncertainty and inse-
+curity described by Bjorkmark et al. (2021)
+and concerns the limbo state that arises
+after an internalized role identity has been
+abandoned, regardless of whether the role
+is religious or secular. If no alternative role
+identity is available, the uncertainty per-
+sists and may result in marginalization
+(Niskanen 2025, 153).
+
+The experience of leaving the Laestadian
+congregation that Petri describes also corre-
+sponds with what is outlined in Bjorkmark
+
+«ce
+
+et al’s article “Living between Two Different
+Worlds’: Experiences of Leaving a High-
+Cost Religious Group” (2022). The study
+explores the experiences of individuals who
+have left religious groups in Finland that
+are considered “high-cost religious groups’,
+including Laestadianism. These groups
+are defined as demanding and costly, both
+theologically and culturally exclusive. The
+article describes how, for example, alcohol
+use may increase after leaving the religious
+group, and how those who leave may expe-
+rience feelings of emptiness and emotional
+numbness (Bjorkmark et al. 2022, 4729).
+Petri’s account offers a poignant insight
+into the emotional consequences of leaving
+the Conservative Laestadian community.
+He describes a profound sense of empti-
+ness and the loss of a stable foundation,
+experiences that closely mirror Ebaugh’s
+(1988) concept of the vacuum state, in
+which individuals feel suspended between
+identities after exiting a deeply internal-
+ised role. His narrative also reflects several
+dimensions of deconversion identified by
+Streib and Keller, including emotional suf-
+fering, the loss of religious experience and
+
+33
+
+
+========== PAGE 11 ==========
+
+disaffiliation from a tightly knit community
+(2004, 191). Rather than a purely intellec-
+tual shift, Petri’s experience underscores
+the complexity of deconversion as a pro-
+cess that disrupts existential orientation,
+fractures relational bonds and destabilises
+one’s sense of self.
+
+Petri described how he continued to
+experience emotional numbness, a linger-
+ing effect that he associates with having left
+the congregation (Niskanen 2025, 154-55):
+
+Interviewer: Do you think it has
+affected your identity in some way?
+
+Petri: I think so, absolutely. Mm. No,
+I dont know if it’s that, but I think
+maybe it comes from there, yeah, I
+mean from this whole process, maybe
+I've become a bit more... what’s the
+word? Indifferent.
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. Indifferent to what?
+Petri: Things in general. I mean, what
+can you say? Yeah, a bit emotionally
+cold, I think. At least I believe it came
+from there.
+
+Interviewer: Okay. What do you think
+caused that? Or what might have
+made it happen?
+
+Petri: Hm. Hard to say really.
+
+Interviewer: Did you have to shut off
+certain feelings?
+
+Petri: I have.
+
+This enduring numbness suggests that the
+psychological consequences of role exit
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+are not confined to the immediate after-
+math but can persist over time, particularly
+when the exited role was deeply embed-
+ded in one’s identity from childhood. Petri’s
+experience aligns with Bjorkmark et al’s
+(2021, 6) findings that individuals raised
+within religious congregations may face a
+profound sense of disconnection and inner
+fragmentation upon leaving. The absence
+of a clear alternative identity, coupled with
+the exclusivity of high-cost religious groups
+like Conservative Laestadianism, may con-
+tribute to prolonged marginalization and
+emotional detachment.
+
+Different identity motives
+
+Petri had to shut off his emotions and had
+tried to cope with the emptiness he expe-
+rienced after leaving the congregation,
+most notably through heavy drinking. In
+contrast, Aki more actively demonstrated
+his rejection of Conservative Laestadian
+norms by deliberately doing the opposite
+of what was expected. He also used alcohol
+and drugs, but likely not out of a sense of
+inner void. Rather, his substance use seems
+to have been a way to create distance from
+the Conservative Laestadian lifestyle. They
+seem to have had different motivations,
+and it may be that Petri had a greater need
+for belonging and/or continuity than Aki,
+which made it harder for him to leave the
+movement. When asked whether it might
+be harder to leave Laestadianism if many
+siblings remain in the movement, Petri
+responded (Niskanen 2025, 155):
+
+Petri: I definitely think so, because... I
+don't know how it is for others, but for
+me, family is really important. I think
+they’re the ones I’m closest to. So I def-
+initely think it can be really hard... you
+
+34
+
+
+========== PAGE 12 ==========
+
+might hear little digs and things.
+Interviewer: Yeah. Could that make it
+harder to leave as well?
+
+Petri: I think so.
+
+The belonging motive (Vignoles, 2011, 412)
+seems particularly strong in Petri, and it is
+possible that his decision to leave was influ-
+enced by the fact that most of his siblings
+had already left. In a family where all or
+most siblings remain within the movement,
+Petri might not have made the decision to
+leave. Aki, by contrast, does not appear
+to be driven as strongly by the motive of
+belonging and might have left regardless
+of his siblings’ choices. He seems more
+influenced by the distinctiveness motive
+(Vignoles, 2011, 412), which became espe-
+cially clear during the interview when he
+described his behaviour at a confirmation
+camp in Finland (Niskanen 2025, 156):
+
+Aki: Back then, I had already started
+to rebel a bit, so I dressed completely
+differently, for example. Some looked
+at me with maybe a bit of contempt,
+and some looked at me with curiosity,
+that I really stood out from the crowd.
+
+Interviewer: How did you dress?
+
+Aki: If you think of today’s youth,
+maybe those who live in a suburb
+or want to express themselves more
+through clothing, yeah, it was like that.
+
+It is possible that Aki adopted the role
+of “the before he left
+Laestadianism and therefore did not expe-
+
+different one”
+
+rience the same level of emptiness or iden-
+tity loss as Petri. In contrast, Piia’s decision
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+to leave the congregation may be explained
+by the motives of self-efficacy and psycho-
+logical coherence. She stated clearly that
+she was not living as a Laestadian: “Why
+should I pretend to be something I’m not?”
+(Niskanen 2025, 143).
+
+According to Jaspal and Cinnirella, the
+psychological coherence motive refers to
+the experience of interconnected identi-
+ties as compatible. Identity is perceived as
+threatened when the social context pre-
+vents the satisfaction of identity motives.
+One way of managing such an identity
+threat is to deny an identity element that
+is incompatible with another, more cen-
+tral identity element (Bardi et al. 2014, 176;
+Niskanen 2025, 156).
+
+When Piia chose to leave Conservative
+Laestadianism, she had already recognised
+that she was not truly part of the movement
+but had merely pretended to be. This may
+explain why her departure was easier com-
+pared to Petri’s, who expressed greater emo-
+tional difficulty, possibly because he lacked
+a bridge to a new role identity at the time
+of his exit. His younger age may also have
+contributed to the emotional hardship. Piia
+left the movement later in adulthood and
+appears to have done so after reflecting on
+her identity (Niskanen 2025, 156).
+
+Piias husband Erkki may have left for
+similar reasons, guided by the psycho-
+logical coherence motive. However, his
+stronger need for belonging may explain
+why he found it more difficult to leave the
+congregation (Niskanen 2025, 156-57):
+
+And what does RY
+(Rauhanyhdistys/The Peace Associ-
+
+Interviewer:
+
+ation) mean to you... or what did RY
+mean to you?
+
+35
+
+
+========== PAGE 13 ==========
+
+Erkki: Well, meeting friends.
+
+Interviewer: So you were involved
+mostly for the social aspect?
+
+Erkki: Yeah. I mostly got tired of the
+preaching [laughs].
+
+Interviewer: So would you say that
+being involved for so long was really
+about meeting people, or...
+
+Erkki: Yeah... yeah, exactly. And then
+there was not wanting to let mum and
+dad down, and just... a whole bunch of
+stuff like that on your mind.
+
+Erkki seems to have been involved in the
+congregation primarily for social reasons
+and out of a desire to please his parents.
+This suggests that relationships are impor-
+tant to him and can be interpreted as a
+strong belonging motive. He has shown a
+need to be included and accepted by those
+who matter to him (Vignoles 2011, 412).
+His greater difficulty in leaving may also be
+linked to challenges in establishing a new
+role identity (Ebaugh 1988, 148).
+
+As for Anne, although she left the con-
+gregation, she stated that she did not want
+to say she had renounced her faith:
+
+Anne: And I didn’t want to say that
+I had denied the faith, because I’ve
+never denied my faith. I've only denied
+the way of “practising my faith’, but
+Ive never denied my belief.
+
+During the interview, Anne mentions sev-
+eral reasons for leaving the congregation, but
+what recurs is that she did not want or was
+not able to live according to Laestadian rules:
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+Anne: In my opinion, it was so diffi-
+cult, such pressure to be Laestadian.
+Almost like torture, sometimes it felt
+that way.
+
+Anne believed that it has now become
+easier and more flexible to be Laestadian,
+for example, regarding contraception,
+as fewer children are being born among
+members. She is critical of this shift, as
+she is accustomed to a more rigid frame-
+work where there was no middle ground
+
+(Niskanen 2025, 158):
+
+Anne: In my view, or I’m used to it
+being either you're Laestadian or
+youre not... That there are no in-
+betweens... Or we always said, either
+youre a believer or a non-believer.
+That there are no middle grounds.
+
+Anne’s sister Piia did not live according to
+Conservative Laestadian rules during part
+of her teenage years. She recalls facing a
+choice when she met her husband, who
+also had a background in the congregation:
+the choice between marrying and having
+children or living a different life. She ulti-
+mately chose to marry him, which may
+explain why she remained in the congrega-
+tion for so long. The fact that Piia chose to
+marry young to a man with a Conservative
+Laestadian background, even though both
+had experimented with different lifestyles
+in their youth, suggests that the continu-
+ity motive may have been stronger in Piia
+than in Anne, who did not make the same
+choice. Piia explained her decision this way
+(Niskanen 2025, 159):
+
+Piia: I think I had a... a moment before
+I got married. Like, “Yeah, should I
+
+36
+
+
+========== PAGE 14 ==========
+
+go into this?” and then yeah, I kind of
+chose which direction my life would
+go, roughly.
+
+And_ what
+
+Interviewer: did you
+
+choose?
+
+Piia: That I would... that I married...
+I broke up three times and thought,
+“Maybe I should go to Finland for a
+bit or travel and just live life” [laughs].
+Mm. Because it... yeah, it was almost
+like, “Should I become a mum... a
+mum even?’ like have... have kids or
+something, and I did want that.
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. How old were you
+when you... when you got married?
+
+Piia: 20, I think.
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. And that’s when
+you made the choice to stay, so to
+speak, was that it?
+
+Piia: Stay in the faith?
+
+Interviewer: Yeah, exactly. Was that
+the choice you think you made?
+
+Piia: Yeah, kind of.
+
+The continuity motive seems to have influ-
+enced Piia’s decision to marry young and
+remain in the congregation, even though
+the family may not have lived a strictly
+Conservative Laestadian life. This may be
+because both Piia and her husband had
+lived differently before marriage. They
+inhabited a middle ground that, according
+to Piia’s sister Anne, does not exist. Perhaps
+the ambivalence about not living “the right
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+way” eventually led Piia to want to leave the
+congregation, an example of the psycho-
+logical coherence motive (Niskanen 2025,
+159).
+
+Anne, Petri and Aki have not verbally
+renounced their faith, unlike Piia, who
+declared she no longer believes. Petri and
+Aki “drifted away” from faith during their
+teenage years but did not claim to have
+explicitly renounced it, even though Aki
+expressed his rejection in other ways. Anne
+says she never wanted to say she renounced
+her faith, as she has never denied her belief
+in God. She has therefore opposed the idea
+of renouncing faith (Niskanen 2025, 159-
+60). This supports the view of apostasy as a
+fluid and sequential process without a pre-
+determined destination (Enstedt 2020, 300).
+Apostasy does not necessarily mean reject-
+ing belief; it can instead involve distancing
+oneself from religious practice, as Anne
+said she did when she left Conservative
+Laestadianism. Likewise, for her brothers
+Aki and Petri, the endpoint has not been
+non-religiosity, as both express some form
+of religious belief despite distancing them-
+selves from the Conservative Laestadian
+revival movement (Niskanen 2025, 160).
+
+For the siblings, the consequences right
+after leaving varied, possibly depending
+on age. For Aki and Petri, breaking away
+from the Laestadian movement during
+their teenage years had destructive conse-
+quences, such as family conflicts and sub-
+stance abuse. Piia, who left later in life,
+reports that she did not receive any reac-
+tions at all, at least not from her own par-
+ents, although her mother-in-law ques-
+tioned the decision (Niskanen 2025,
+142-43). Anne, who left the movement as
+a young adult, did receive reactions from
+those around her, which may have been
+
+37
+
+
+========== PAGE 15 ==========
+
+because she openly demonstrated her exit
+from the Conservative Laestadian lifestyle
+(Niskanen 2025, 160):
+
+Anne: But I was open about leaving.
+And I know, for a fact, that many lived
+like I did, but they hadn't openly left
+Laestadianism, and they were greeted
+in shops and invited home, and they
+were considered good people, even
+though we were the same...
+
+Those who did not publicly declare their
+exit were not perceived as non-members,
+which suggests that public disclosure plays
+a significant role in leaving a role identity
+(Ebaugh 1988, 123). Vignoles argues that
+presenting one’s identity to a real or imag-
+ined audience is a key part of the social
+process through which individuals claim a
+particular kind of identity (Vignoles 2011,
+412). Although Anne did not verbally
+renounce Conservative Laestadianism, she
+did so through her lifestyle, and was there-
+fore perceived as non-Laestadian, unlike
+those who did not openly demonstrate
+that they lived outside Laestadian norms
+(Niskanen 2025, 160-61).
+There are also notable differences
+between the siblings in terms of identity
+motives. Aki appears to have been driven by
+the distinctiveness motive and possibly also
+the self-efficacy motive, while Petri seems to
+have had a stronger need for belonging. It is
+possible that Petri wanted to feel connected
+to his older siblings and that this influenced
+his decision to leave, since several of them
+had already exited the movement. He may
+have experienced an emotional conflict in
+deciding which side to feel aligned with:
+the religious group or the non-Laestadian
+friends and the siblings who had left.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+For Piia, the psychological coherence
+and self-efficacy motives seem to have
+guided her decision to leave the movement.
+This may also be true for Anne, although it
+is more difficult to assess, as she left a long
+time ago. Anne was clear that she did not
+want to renounce her faith, a stance that
+some found problematic, given that faith
+and the practice of faith were perceived as
+synonymous within the group (Niskanen
+2025, 161):
+
+Anne: And that, mm, many wondered
+about, why I didn’t say it. But I said,
+I don't deny my faith. I believe, but I
+don't want ... I don’t want those ways,
+those behaviours, that, I want to get
+rid of that. And that, they couldn't
+understand, because to them it’s the
+same thing.
+
+Interviewer: Mm. That they’re kind of
+inseparable?
+
+Anne: Yes, it was one and the same.
+
+Anne’s distinction between personal faith
+and communal religious practice reflects
+a desire to maintain agency over her own
+beliefs. This aligns with the self-efficacy
+motive: she sought to define her faith on
+her own terms, rather than conform to
+externally imposed behaviours that no
+longer resonated with her. Her stance sug-
+gests a need to feel competent and in con-
+trol of her identity, even in the face of social
+pressure. The distinctiveness motive, which
+involves a desire to maintain a unique iden-
+tity, is also evident in Anne's insistence on
+retaining her faith while rejecting behav-
+ioural expectations, an effort to resist being
+absorbed into a singular group identity.
+
+38
+
+
+========== PAGE 16 ==========
+
+The quote above illustrates that the
+Conservative Laestadian lifestyle appears
+to be central to belonging within the move-
+ment. What happens when an individual
+cannot, or does not wish to, live accord-
+ing to the lifestyle promoted by the move-
+ment, yet remains driven by the motives of
+continuity and belonging? In Anne's case,
+she sought out another religious context.
+Piia and her husband Erkki, by contrast,
+became members of a secular Sweden-
+Finnish cultural association after leaving
+the movement (Niskanen 2025, 268). The
+brothers Aki and Petri, however, ended up
+in destructive environments involving sub-
+stance abuse right after leaving the religious
+revival movement in their youth, high-
+lighting the importance of understanding
+identity processes not only on an individ-
+ual level but also within broader societal
+structures.
+
+Conclusion
+
+This article has explored how Sweden-
+Finnish Conservative Laestadian siblings
+manage religious disaffiliation as a gradual
+process of identity renegotiation. While
+distancing themselves from doctrinal
+norms, they maintain cultural and familial
+ties, reflecting a complex interplay between
+tradition and transformation.
+
+Identity motives such as continuity, dis-
+tinctiveness and psychological coherence
+shaped how the siblings redefined them-
+selves. Petri’s need for belonging, Aki’s
+drive for distinctiveness, Piia’s pursuit of
+coherence and Anne’s emphasis on self-
+efficacy illustrate how individual trajecto-
+ries vary within the same family context.
+
+This study has explored how former
+Conservative Laestadian siblings navi-
+gate the psychological and _ relational
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+complexities of religious disaffiliation.
+Their narratives reveal that leaving the
+faith is not merely an act of rejection, but
+a gradual reformulation of self in response
+to conflicting identity motives. As Streib
+emphasises, deconversion should be under-
+stood as a process of biographical change,
+involving emotional suffering, loss of reli-
+gious experience and disaffiliation from
+community (2021, 139). This perspective
+aligns with the findings presented here,
+where apostasy emerges not as a moment
+of rupture, but as an unfolding negotia-
+tion of belonging. By situating these indi-
+vidual trajectories within a broader theo-
+retical framework, the study contributes
+to a more nuanced understanding of reli-
+gious exit as a dynamic and identity-driven
+transformation.
+
+While the empirical focus of this arti-
+cle is on one Sweden-Finnish family, the
+findings have broader implications for the
+study of religious disaffiliation. The case
+illustrates how identity motives operate in
+contexts where religious identity is deeply
+intertwined with ethnic and cultural herit-
+age. Thus, the article contributes to a more
+general understanding of religious exit as a
+dynamic and identity-driven transforma-
+tion, relevant to scholars of religion, psy-
+chology and minority studies.
+
+The siblings’ narratives illustrate that
+religious disaffiliation is best understood
+as a layered identity process shaped by
+motivational structures, family dynamics
+and cultural contexts. Among the identity
+motives, continuity emerges as particu-
+larly decisive: even when individuals reject
+Conservative Laestadianism, some retain
+elements of inherited faith or cultural
+belonging that provide a thread of stability
+across time. This underscores that apostasy
+
+39
+
+
+========== PAGE 17 ==========
+
+is not merely a rupture but a reconfigura-
+tion, in which old and new aspects of iden-
+tity coexist. Ultimately, continuity stands
+out as the crucial motive, enabling individ-
+uals to preserve a stable sense of self while
+renegotiating belonging beyond religious
+
+boundaries. ™
+
+Anoo Niskanen, Doctor
+of Theology (Study of
+Religions, Abo Akademi
+University), specialises
+in minority studies with
+a focus on Sweden's
+national minorities. Her
+research explores iden-
+tity motives and_ reli-
+gious life choices among
+Sweden-Finnish Conser-
+vative Laestadians. She works as a Language
+Promoter for Finnish at the Institute for Language
+and Folklore (lsof) in Sweden and coordinates
+the Finnish administrative area in Sk6vde munici-
+pality. She also has professional experience as an
+interpreter and translator between Finnish, Bur-
+mese/Myanmar and Swedish.
+
+References
+
+Andreassen, Bengt-Ove, Roald E. Kristiansen
+and Rolf Inge Larsen. 2020. “Approaching
+Laestadianism.” Approaching Religion 10
+(1): 1-3. https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.95047.
+
+Andreassen, Bengt-Ove. 2020. “Doctoral The-
+ses on Laestadius and the Laestadian Move-
+ment 1937-2018” Approaching Religion
+10 (1): 91-109. https://doi.org/10.30664/
+ar.86819.
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+Bardi, Anat, Rusi Jaspal, Ela Polek and Shalom
+H. Schwartz. 2014. “Values and Identity
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+Ebaugh, Helen Rose Fuchs. 1988. Becoming an
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+
+Nynas, Peter, Janne Kontala and Mika Las-
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+
+Nynas, Peter. 2022. “Putting a Q into the Study
+of Religions: Observations from a Global
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+
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+
+========== PAGE 18 ==========
+
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+org/10.1163/0084672053598030.
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+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
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diff --git a/ocr-output/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self/txt/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self_page_0001.txt b/ocr-output/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self/txt/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self_page_0001.txt
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+ANOO NISKANEN
+
+Leaving the Faith, Preserving the Self
+
+Identity Processes among Former Sweden-Finnish Conservative
+
+Laestadian Siblings
+
+doi.org/10.30664/ar.163854
+
+his article examines how identity motives
+[sis siblings’ disaffiliation from the Con-
+
+servative Laestadian revival movement in
+a Sweden-Finnish context, highlighting apos-
+tasy as a multifaceted identity process marked
+by renegotiation between inherited and emerg-
+ing identities. Drawing on life-story interviews,
+the study shows that religious exit is influenced
+by age, motivational structures and family rela-
+tions: adolescent departures were accompanied
+by destructive behaviour, while adult apostasy
+involved reflection and negotiation within the
+family. Although the siblings left Conservative
+Laestadianism, some retained elements of Chris-
+tian faith, suggesting reformulation rather than
+outright rejection. By situating these narratives
+within Identity Process Theory and Motivated
+Identity Construction Theory, the article demon-
+strates how motives such as continuity, belong-
+ing and psychological coherence shape religious
+identity processes. The findings also reveal the
+risks of marginalization and the vacuum state
+described in role-exit theory, where individuals
+feel suspended between identities and struggle
+to establish new roles. By foregrounding sibling
+dynamics and motivational structures, this arti-
+cle contributes new insights into how religious
+disaffiliation unfolds as an ongoing negotiation
+of continuity and belonging.
+
+Introduction
+Building on previous research on Sweden-
+Finnish Conservative Laestadians (Nis-
+
+kanen 2025), this article explores how
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+©)@ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
+
+\| VERTAISARVIOITU
+~ KOLLEGIALT GRANSKAD
+wy. PEER-REVIEWED
+
+www.tsv.fi/tunnus
+
+identity motives shape siblings’ religious
+disaffiliation and highlights apostasy as a
+multifaceted identity process.
+
+Laestadianism is a Lutheran revival-
+ist tradition within the Church of Sweden
+that originated in Karesuando in the mid-
+nineteenth century under the leadership
+of Dean Lars Levi Laestadius. The move-
+ment spread to Norway, Finland and the
+United States (Andreassen 2020, 92). It was
+marked by strict sobriety, confession and
+absolution, and ecstatic religious experi-
+ences. Over time, the movement devel-
+oped an exclusive ecclesiology, emphasis-
+ing salvation only within its fellowship, and
+remains characterized by large families,
+a familycentred lifestyle and devotional
+meetings led by lay preachers (Niskanen
+2025, 42-43). In Sweden, it has been par-
+ticularly influential in the northern regions,
+shaping both religious and social life (SOU
+2023:68, 195-96). In Finland, it is the larg-
+est revivalist movement (van den Brandt
+and Rantala 2024, 227). The Conservative
+Laestadian branch, historically linked
+to the SRK (Suomen Rauhanyhdistysten
+Keskusyhdistys), is distinguished by a fam-
+ilyoriented and theologically conservative
+profile (Andreassen 2020, 92).
+
+24
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+Recent scholarship has highlighted
+the scarcity of Swedish research on
+Laestadianism compared to the extensive
+Finnish literature (Andreassen et al. 2020).
+By focusing on Sweden-Finnish experiences,
+this article seeks to address this gap and
+contribute to a more comprehensive under-
+standing of Laestadianism as a Lutheran
+revival movement, particularly in relation
+to processes of disaffiliation. By examining
+sibling dynamics and motivational struc-
+tures, the study demonstrates how individ-
+uals negotiate continuity, belonging and
+psychological coherence when leaving the
+religious group. Specifically, it investigates
+how siblings differ in their identity motives
+and in the consequences they experience
+following disafhliation, thereby illuminat-
+ing the layered and individualized nature of
+religious exit.
+
+Theory
+
+Identity motives are explored within the
+frameworks of Identity Process Theory
+(IPT) (Jaspal and Breakwell 2014) and
+Motivated Identity Construction Theory
+(MICT) (Vignoles 2011; 2018). According
+to Vignoles, there are at least six universal
+identity motives (2011, 412): self-esteem,
+distinctiveness, continuity, meaning, effi-
+cacy and belonging. Jaspal and Cinnirella
+propose a seventh motive, psychological
+coherence, defined as the experience of
+one’s interconnected identities as compat-
+ible (Jaspal and Breakwell 2014, 176). This
+complements the six universal motives
+by emphasizing the importance of inter-
+nal consistency across different aspects of
+the self. According to MICT, these motives
+are culturally universal and guide identity
+construction. They share three core prop-
+erties (Vignoles 2011, 405): first, satisfac-
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+tion of these motives typically has a posi-
+tive impact, while frustration tends to
+negatively affect psychological well-being;
+second, people generally desire and strive
+for identities that satisfy these motives and
+typically avoid those that frustrate them;
+and third, situations that temporarily or
+chronically frustrate these motives often
+lead to intensified efforts to fulfil them.
+
+In this study, the interview material has
+been analysed through the combined lens of
+IPT and MICT, which facilitates a nuanced
+examination of how siblings negotiate their
+sense of self when leaving a tightly knit reli-
+gious community. This analytical frame-
+work demonstrates that apostasy is not
+merely a rejection of belief, but a complex
+identity process shaped by motivational
+structures such as continuity, belonging
+and psychological coherence. Drawing on
+my previous study about Sweden-Finnish
+Conservative Laestadians (Niskanen 2025),
+the article introduces a distinct analytical
+focus on sibling dynamics and differenti-
+ated experiences of religious disaffiliation.
+Rather than framing religious exit as rup-
+ture, the article highlights how inherited
+beliefs and emerging perspectives coexist
+and evolve. In line with Streib’s (2021, 139)
+view of deconversion as a dynamic life pro-
+cess, the narratives of the interviewed sib-
+lings demonstrate that religious exit often
+unfolds gradually through emotional and
+relational renegotiations. This perspec-
+tive challenges binary notions of belief and
+non-belief and instead foregrounds the lay-
+ered and biographical nature of identity
+transformation.
+
+Method and data collection
+In the preceding study, a novel method
+in religious studies, Faith Q-Sort, was
+
+25
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+employed alongside 26 life-story inter-
+views. Faith Q-Sort (FQS) is a qualitative
+tool that allows participants to rank state-
+ments about religion and spirituality along
+a continuum of agreement. FQS captures
+subjective viewpoints on religion, spiritual-
+ity and life views (Wulff 2019; Nynas et al.
+2021; Nynas 2022).
+
+The analysis in the previous study sug-
+gested that close relationships significantly
+shaped participants’ subjective viewpoints
+(Niskanen 2025, 139). However, the results
+from the FQS are not presented in this
+article, which instead focuses on identity
+motives rather than life views.
+
+Life-story interviews were conducted
+between 2020 and 2022, with participants
+recruited through snowball sampling. One
+family, comprising four siblings, one in-law
+and two parents, was featured in a dedi-
+cated chapter of my dissertation (Niskanen
+2025, 138-68). This article focuses spe-
+cifically on the siblings and the in-law,
+all of whom have left the Conservative
+Laestadian revival movement. It extends
+the analysis of the interviews by examin-
+ing the consequences of religious disaffili-
+ation through the lens of identity motives
+and age-related differences.
+
+Ethical considerations were central
+to the study design. All participants pro-
+vided informed consent, and pseudonyms
+are used throughout the article to protect
+anonymity.
+
+The siblings: narratives of exit
+
+During data collection, efforts were made
+to select closely related participants to
+explore whether kinship influenced reli-
+gious perspectives. The findings suggested
+that siblings and married couples often
+expressed similar views (Niskanen 2025,
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+139), which may reflect shared experiences
+and relational dynamics.
+
+This article focuses on a family
+where most of the siblings had left the
+Conservative Laestadian movement. Four
+siblings and the husband of one of them
+participated in the study. The parents, who
+remain members of the religious group,
+were also interviewed in the previous study
+but are not included in this article. The sib-
+lings’ pseudonyms are Anne, Piia, Aki and
+Petri, and Piia’s husband is referred to as
+Erkki.
+
+Anne: continuity and rediscovered faith
+Anne was the first to be interviewed. Her
+responses indicated a continued engage-
+ment with personal faith, while her siblings
+expressed more critical perspectives on reli-
+gion. During the interview, Anne described
+how she gradually rediscovered her per-
+sonal faith after stepping away from it fol-
+lowing her departure from Conservative
+Laestadianism:
+
+Anne: And to discover my own con-
+viction, my personal belief, really, and
+then to reconnect with God again, the
+connection I’ve always had, though
+it was on hold at the time. (Niskanen
+2025, 140)
+
+Although Anne left Laestadianism as a
+young adult, she retained the Christian
+faith from her childhood:
+
+Anne: Mm, I am, I still have my inher-
+ited faith. I believe that if I hadn't been
+born into the family I was, it’s hard
+to imagine I would have become a
+believer, a Christian believer.
+(Niskanen 2025, 141)
+
+26
diff --git a/ocr-output/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self/txt/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self_page_0004.txt b/ocr-output/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self/txt/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self_page_0004.txt
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@@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
+She was critical of the Conservative
+Laestadian revival movement. Nevertheless,
+her interview statements indicate that con-
+tinuity remained essential to her, as shown
+by her claim that she still holds onto her
+innate faith. Even after pausing her spirit-
+ual engagement and despite a shift in per-
+spective, she retained the core beliefs of
+her childhood, even outside the Laestadian
+movement. This suggests that the continu-
+ity motive (Vignoles 2011, 412) was sig-
+nificant for her. The motive of belonging,
+however, seemed less prominent. Still, she
+did seek out another religious community
+after leaving the Conservative Laestadian
+congregation, indicating that belonging
+remained relevant.
+
+Piia and Erkki: the impact of family
+
+Among the siblings, Anne was the one who
+most clearly self-identified as a religious
+believer. Her brothers Aki and Petri also
+expressed some form of religious belief,
+even though all the siblings interviewed
+had left the movement. Her sister Piia and
+Piia’s husband Erkki were the most vocal
+in rejecting Conservative Laestadianism,
+despite Erkki showing a need for continu-
+ity and belonging through maintaining ties
+with his family and attending events hosted
+by the congregation. In contrast to Piia,
+who left first, Erkki comes from a family
+in which most siblings remain within the
+movement. This may have made it more
+difficult for him to follow Piia (Niskanen
+2025, 142):
+
+Piia: Yes. I was... I was more... I was
+more... or rather, I dared to take the
+step before my husband. He stayed,
+even though I left.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+Erkki stated that his decision to leave was
+due to no longer living in accordance
+with Conservative Laestadian teachings
+(Niskanen 2025, 144-45):
+
+Erkki: No, it was that I didn't live as
+a Laestadian, and then I thought...
+I was cowardly for not leaving ear-
+lier, I don’t know why I was afraid or
+what I was thinking, but I didn’t live
+as a Laestadian and thought it was just
+better not to be involved.
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. How do you feel
+about it now, a few years later?
+
+Erkki: It feels good, absolutely.
+Interviewer: What feels good about it?
+
+Erkki: You don't feel that pressure, that
+you have to go to meetings and please
+everyone. How do I explain it? But I
+still go sometimes, to bazaars and
+things like that.
+
+Interviewer: Do you keep in touch
+with your parents and siblings who are
+still involved?
+
+Erkki: Yes.
+
+Interviewer: So you still see each
+other?
+
+Erkki: Yes, absolutely.
+
+Erkki had told his parents directly that he
+was leaving the religious group. They were
+not surprised, as his wife had left earlier.
+Later in the interview, he reflected on their
+reaction (Niskanen 2025, 146):
+
+2]
diff --git a/ocr-output/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self/txt/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self_page_0005.txt b/ocr-output/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self/txt/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self_page_0005.txt
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@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+Interviewer: How did your parents
+react?
+
+Erkki: They were sad, but they
+accepted me too.
+
+Piia comes from a family in which most sib-
+lings have left Conservative Laestadianism.
+This probably made it easier for her than
+for Erkki to leave. But even among her
+siblings, not everyone found it easy. Her
+brother Aki, who left as a teenager, had
+a much more difficult experience, as did
+Anne and Petri, who also left early.
+
+Aki: distinctiveness and identity enactment
+through rebellion
+
+In the interview, Aki described what it was
+like when he left Conservative Laestadianism
+as a teenager. Most interviewees referred to
+it simply as “Laestadianism’, particularly
+those who had left the movement (Niskanen
+2025, 147).
+
+Aki: I left, I consider that I left fairly
+early, around age thirteen.
+
+Interviewer: Thirteen. Was it a con-
+scious decision?
+
+Aki: Yeah, I'd say so. It was really a
+lot of conflicts in the family... And
+I absolutely didn’t want to remain
+in Laestadianism, so it turned into
+a huge conflict. I think part of the
+reason I started using drugs was just
+to show, in every possible way, that I
+didn’t want that life.
+
+Interviewer: So it was a kind of
+protest?
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+Aki: Yeah. Drinking, drugs, fighting.
+Doing everything the opposite way,
+basically.
+
+Interviewer: Like defiance?
+
+Aki: Yes, exactly. Today I'm outspo-
+ken, but back then I couldn't express
+things in words.
+
+Aki was not the first in his family to leave;
+two older siblings had left before him. Still,
+his parents seemed particularly affected by
+his rejection, perhaps out of concern for
+him. After middle school, he attended a
+Laestadian folk high school in Finland for a
+year. He described that time positively:
+
+Aki: Yeah, I mean, it was kind of excit-
+ing and stuff like that, but I didn't
+get any schooling at all, really. I liked
+being there, though I’m not sure why,
+maybe because I didn't feel at home
+back where I lived either.
+
+Upon returning to Sweden for high school,
+things escalated. He began using drugs,
+social services got involved and he was
+placed in treatment facilities, with little
+success. Eventually, Aki himself asked for
+help and entered a 12-step programme. He
+became drug-free around age 20 (Niskanen
+2025, 148).
+
+In the interview, Aki said his rebellious
+behaviour was a form of identity expres-
+sion, trying to show that he did not want to
+be a Conservative Laestadian. This reflects
+identity enactment (Vignoles 2011, 412)
+and a public rejection of a former identity
+(Ebaugh 1988, 123). When I asked about
+his current faith, he said (Niskanen 2025,
+148-49):
+
+28
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@@ -0,0 +1,92 @@
+Aki: I think some of it came from
+my addiction and the treatment pro-
+grammes, especially the 12-step pro-
+gramme. I don't know the founda-
+tions, but I believe a lot of it draws
+on Christianity somehow. They talk
+a lot about higher powers. At first,
+when they said “higher power, I
+wanted to throw chairs at them. Not
+again! So they really had to explain
+a higher power as you understand it.
+And somehow, I feel that the Christian
+higher power is mine, that I identify
+with it. To the level that I person-
+ally feel. That it can come to a certain
+point, but then I think it goes too far.
+And that’s where it kind of, if I got
+some of it back, in a way, like I started
+to believe in my own way anyway. That
+it was connected to that.
+
+Interviewer: What does that belief
+mean to you today?
+
+Aki: It means quite a lot. I can abso-
+lutely talk about Christian things with
+my kids. I don't feel ashamed any-
+more, but earlier, I felt deep shame. If
+someone said the word “God”, Td turn
+and walk away. Now I feel secure in it,
+on my own terms. It feels good.
+
+Interviewer: What about your sib-
+lings? How do they view faith now?
+
+Aki: Among us who have rejected it?
+Most (of them) probably feel the same,
+when someone says “God’, they walk
+away. But my younger brother has
+gone through a similar journey to the
+one I have. We've talked and we think
+pretty similarly.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+Aki explained that he now regards the
+Christian higher power as his own and
+that he has come to terms with it and
+feels secure in it in his own way. That may
+be interpreted as an indication that the
+continuity motive holds significance for
+him. Although he distanced himself from
+Conservative Laestadianism in every con-
+ceivable way during his youth, he is now
+able to express Christian ideas to his own
+children. This indicates a desire to pass on
+the Christian tradition, but in his own way,
+outside the religious movement, which
+suggests that the distinctiveness motive
+(Vignoles 2011, 415) has also played a role
+for Aki.
+
+Petri: marginalization
+
+The brother (Petri) whom Aki refers to in
+the quotation above has also been inter-
+viewed. This took place at their sister Piia’s
+home. It happened after the interview
+with Aki, who had told his siblings about
+it (Niskanen 2025, 149). Participants talk-
+ing to one another about the interviews
+was something that could not be avoided
+during the data-collection process. It is also
+inevitable in studies where participants are
+in some way related to each other.
+
+Petri’s views aligned more closely with
+Piias than with Anne’s or Aki’s, which is
+not particularly surprising given their close
+relationship and the fact that the interview
+was conducted at Piia’s home. These sib-
+lings appeared to have a strong bond, and
+Piia was the one who suggested that Petri
+participate in the study (Niskanen 2025,
+149).
+
+Aki mentions in his interview that Petri
+also holds a personal form of belief, which
+is confirmed when Petri describes his
+experiences of beginning to work within
+
+29
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+a congregation of the Church of Sweden
+(Niskanen 2025, 150-51):
+
+Petri: Then I suppose I realised, well, I
+gradually noticed that it’s just an ordi-
+nary church, not like the one I grew up
+with. So no, I felt that it’s... it’s a health-
+ier relationship to faith and religion, at
+least.
+
+Interviewer: In what way is it different?
+Petri: It’s more everyday.
+Interviewer: More everyday?
+
+Petri: No... no finger-wagging, and
+you're allowed to have your faith just
+the way you want, I think.
+
+Interviewer: Right. So no one tells
+you how you're supposed to believe or
+anything like that?
+
+Petri: Yeah, well, I suppose they do...
+in principle, in the Church of Sweden,
+they encourage you to try to lL... live
+as a Christian, but it’s not like... no, I
+don't really know. I... I mostly just sit
+there... in the church during services
+and things, so yeah.
+
+Interviewer: Okay, okay, okay. So...
+you dont really take part in that way?
+
+Petri: Not actively, no.
+
+Interviewer: No, not actively. But you
+listen?
+
+Petri: Yes, I do. I mean, I find it a bit...
+quite... or well, it’s interesting to... no, I
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+suppose I’m still trying to understand
+[laughs] ... still trying to understand
+what religion’s all about, really. I don't
+think I... I think I had blinkers, or ear-
+plugs, on when I was little, at least
+[laughs].
+
+Interviewer: Okay. Do you remember
+having to listen to sermons when you
+were a child or teenager?
+
+Petri: Yeah, no, I just remember it as a
+kind of mumbling that was filled with
+anxiety.
+
+Petri was highly critical of the Conservative
+Laestadian Association for Peace, of which
+he was a member in his youth. Nevertheless,
+the quotation above suggests that he does
+not reject religion entirely; rather, he is
+seeking to grasp its meaning. He perceives
+the congregation in which he works as
+healthier, with less moralising and greater
+scope for forming one’s own view of faith
+(Niskanen 2025, 150-51).
+
+The older brother, Aki, said that Petri
+has had more or less the same journey in
+life as himself. Yet what Petri shared differs
+in part from his brother’s life story. While
+Aki claims that he tried in every possi-
+ble way to show that he did not want to
+be a Laestadian, including drug use, Petri
+described a different experience when he
+left the movement as a teenager (Niskanen
+2025, 151-53):
+
+Petri: I mean, it hasn't exactly been
+easy leaving the church. It’s been... I
+mean, you believed certain things, like
+if you're not religious, then you'll burn
+in hell for all eternity and stuff like
+that. And then you've just had to... I
+
+30
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@@ -0,0 +1,91 @@
+mean, I’ve realised that’s not actually
+true, but somehow you did believe it.
+
+[...]
+
+Interviewer: Did it take a long time to
+get rid of that thought?
+
+Petri: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I don’t
+know. I tried... I did other things to
+maybe avoid it.
+
+Interviewer: Okay.
+
+Petri: Yeah, it ... I mean, it ended up
+being way too much alcohol and,
+yeah. I mean, things pretty much spi-
+ralled out of control straight away,
+really... a... after that.
+
+Bjérkmark et al. describe how alcohol
+use may increase after leaving a religious
+group: “Some mentioned that they had
+tried to suppress their pain with alcohol
+and ended up drinking excessively, for a
+period of time” (2022, 4729). When asked
+what might have caused the excessive
+drinking, Petri answered it was because of
+frustration:
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. About what?
+
+Petri: Well, it was like... even though it
+was bad, it was still a kind of security.
+And then when you didn't have that, it
+felt like you were just floating out into
+the air.
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. A sense of security...
+Petri: I mean, you... you completely
+
+lost your stable foundation [...] I
+mean, I didnt really have a solid
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+ground to stand on, I think.
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. Was it hard to
+know who you were, like in terms of
+identity and all that?
+
+Petri: Yeah, I think so. I wasn't
+Laestadian any more, and I wasn't like
+other Swedes either, so... I was some-
+
+thing entirely my own.
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. How... how do you
+feel today, who are you today?
+
+Petri: ’'m much calmer and more
+secure in myself at least, but I still
+dont really know who I am [laughs].
+
+Petri’s response suggests a marginal-
+ized identity: he describes himself as nei-
+ther Laestadian nor like other Swedes, but
+rather as something entirely different. He
+does not appear to have adopted any alter-
+native identity after leaving the movement,
+which may have contributed to a sense of
+disconnection and rootlessness.
+
+His sister Piia and her husband Erkki,
+by contrast, became members of a secu-
+lar Finnish cultural association after leav-
+ing the revival movement (Niskanen 2025,
+268). This suggests that they were able to
+adopt a secular Sweden-Finnish identity as
+a replacement for their previous identity as
+Conservative Laestadians with a Finnish
+background:
+
+Interviewer: And are you both active
+members of the Finnish association in
+
+[...]?
+
+Piia: Yes. And as I said, all our children
+were involved too.
diff --git a/ocr-output/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self/txt/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self_page_0009.txt b/ocr-output/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self/txt/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self_page_0009.txt
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@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+Interviewer: Yeah. Is it easier to feel a
+sense of belonging with other Sweden-
+Finns who aren‘ Laestadian than with
+Swedes?
+
+Piia: Yes.
+
+Interviewer: What do you think that’s
+due to?
+
+Piia: I think it’s the Finnish language,
+there's something about it that makes
+you... you feel a connection in a
+strange way.
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. Exactly.
+
+Piia: Because the people we sing with,
+were the youngest, and they're all 70
+to 80 plus. And what do we really have
+in common with them? [laughs] But
+it’s the Finnish language and yeah.
+
+Piia stated that it was easier to feel con-
+nected to other Sweden-Finns who were
+not Laestadian than to Swedes, which indi-
+cates that the identity of “Swede” was not
+available to her as an alternative. This may
+help explain why Petri described himself
+as “not like other Swedes” in the quote
+above. Former cult members who have
+left a minority culture can be described as
+migrants or strangers in their own country,
+as the culture within the cult often differs
+markedly from mainstream society across
+multiple areas of life (Hadding 2023, 12).
+Since Petri and his siblings are part of the
+national minority of Sweden Finns, their
+sense of difference may be heightened.
+
+Piia and Erkki were able to connect with
+others in the secular cultural association,
+suggesting that their Finnish background
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+and language were crucial to their sense of
+belonging. Petri, by contrast, may not have
+found a similar group where he could feel
+connected, which could have contributed
+to a marginalized identity (Niskanen 2025,
+151-53).
+
+Hadding suggests that
+facing marginalization are at greater risk
+
+individuals
+
+of poor mental health. When someone
+leaves a context shaped by a specific cul-
+ture, certain aspects of that culture may no
+longer be accessible or may lose their sig-
+nificance and meaning. This can lead to a
+disruption in the individual's worldview. If
+the exit is linked to difficult experiences or
+trauma, the person becomes more vulner-
+able. Certain patterns of thought may also
+be deeply tied to identity, making change
+more difficult (Hadding 2023, 12-13).
+
+Exiting the movement and the vacuum state
+In Becoming an Ex: The Process of Role
+Exit, Helen Rose Ebaugh (1988) writes that
+three-quarters of the exiters in her study
+experienced a sense of being in a vacuum,
+suspended in mid-air, or in a rootless state.
+The interviewees had left various roles,
+both secular and religious, but many shared
+similar experiences (Ebaugh 1988, 148).
+What Petri described as “it felt like you
+were just floating out into the air” and “you
+completely lost your stable foundation”
+aligns closely with the feelings expressed
+by Ebaugh’s interviewees. This suggests that
+the experience is not solely about leaving a
+religious group, but rather about exiting a
+role without having found another.
+Interviewees in Ebaugh’s study who had
+built bridges to new roles before leaving the
+old one, such as a new job or new friends,
+found it easier to emerge from the vacuum
+state and form a new identity, compared
+
+32
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@@ -0,0 +1,96 @@
+to those who lacked such connections.
+However, all those who entered the ex-role
+state faced similar challenges in establish-
+ing a new role identity that also acknowl-
+edged their status as an “ex” from the previ-
+ous role (Ebaugh 1988, 148).
+
+Petri stated, “I wasn't Laestadian any
+more, and I wasn't like other Swedes either,
+so ... | was something entirely my own” and
+“T still don't really know who I am.” This
+suggests that he has struggled to establish
+a new role identity, as no alternative identi-
+ties appeared to be available in the context
+in which he found himself. In contrast, Piia
+and Erkki seemed to have found a new role
+as secular Sweden Finns within a Finnish
+cultural association.
+
+According to Bjérkmark et al. (2021),
+feelings of having lost one’s identity can
+arise when someone leaves a religious con-
+gregation, especially if they have grown up
+within it since childhood. Letting go of a
+deeply rooted identity can bring about a
+profound sense of disconnection and inner
+confusion. It may feel as though one’s very
+sense of self has vanished, leaving a person
+adrift and uncertain. In the beginning, life
+is often marked by insecurity and a lack of
+orientation (Bjérkmark et al., 2021, 5-6).
+
+Ebaugh argues that the experience of a
+stable identity can be disrupted when an
+individual leaves a role that has been incor-
+porated into the self-structure, or when a
+new identity is adopted. She suggests that
+self-identity is gradually built through
+internalized meanings and expectations of
+the roles people occupy. Leaving a role or
+entering a new one is closely related to self-
+identity, as the roles people play in society
+become part of their self-definition. When
+a role is exited, self-identity is threatened
+and elements from the new or previous role
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+must be negotiated and reintegrated into
+the self-concept before stability and secu-
+rity can be re-established (Ebaugh 1988,
+22). This reflects the uncertainty and inse-
+curity described by Bjorkmark et al. (2021)
+and concerns the limbo state that arises
+after an internalized role identity has been
+abandoned, regardless of whether the role
+is religious or secular. If no alternative role
+identity is available, the uncertainty per-
+sists and may result in marginalization
+(Niskanen 2025, 153).
+
+The experience of leaving the Laestadian
+congregation that Petri describes also corre-
+sponds with what is outlined in Bjorkmark
+
+«ce
+
+et al’s article “Living between Two Different
+Worlds’: Experiences of Leaving a High-
+Cost Religious Group” (2022). The study
+explores the experiences of individuals who
+have left religious groups in Finland that
+are considered “high-cost religious groups’,
+including Laestadianism. These groups
+are defined as demanding and costly, both
+theologically and culturally exclusive. The
+article describes how, for example, alcohol
+use may increase after leaving the religious
+group, and how those who leave may expe-
+rience feelings of emptiness and emotional
+numbness (Bjorkmark et al. 2022, 4729).
+Petri’s account offers a poignant insight
+into the emotional consequences of leaving
+the Conservative Laestadian community.
+He describes a profound sense of empti-
+ness and the loss of a stable foundation,
+experiences that closely mirror Ebaugh’s
+(1988) concept of the vacuum state, in
+which individuals feel suspended between
+identities after exiting a deeply internal-
+ised role. His narrative also reflects several
+dimensions of deconversion identified by
+Streib and Keller, including emotional suf-
+fering, the loss of religious experience and
+
+33
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@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+disaffiliation from a tightly knit community
+(2004, 191). Rather than a purely intellec-
+tual shift, Petri’s experience underscores
+the complexity of deconversion as a pro-
+cess that disrupts existential orientation,
+fractures relational bonds and destabilises
+one’s sense of self.
+
+Petri described how he continued to
+experience emotional numbness, a linger-
+ing effect that he associates with having left
+the congregation (Niskanen 2025, 154-55):
+
+Interviewer: Do you think it has
+affected your identity in some way?
+
+Petri: I think so, absolutely. Mm. No,
+I dont know if it’s that, but I think
+maybe it comes from there, yeah, I
+mean from this whole process, maybe
+I've become a bit more... what’s the
+word? Indifferent.
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. Indifferent to what?
+Petri: Things in general. I mean, what
+can you say? Yeah, a bit emotionally
+cold, I think. At least I believe it came
+from there.
+
+Interviewer: Okay. What do you think
+caused that? Or what might have
+made it happen?
+
+Petri: Hm. Hard to say really.
+
+Interviewer: Did you have to shut off
+certain feelings?
+
+Petri: I have.
+
+This enduring numbness suggests that the
+psychological consequences of role exit
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+are not confined to the immediate after-
+math but can persist over time, particularly
+when the exited role was deeply embed-
+ded in one’s identity from childhood. Petri’s
+experience aligns with Bjorkmark et al’s
+(2021, 6) findings that individuals raised
+within religious congregations may face a
+profound sense of disconnection and inner
+fragmentation upon leaving. The absence
+of a clear alternative identity, coupled with
+the exclusivity of high-cost religious groups
+like Conservative Laestadianism, may con-
+tribute to prolonged marginalization and
+emotional detachment.
+
+Different identity motives
+
+Petri had to shut off his emotions and had
+tried to cope with the emptiness he expe-
+rienced after leaving the congregation,
+most notably through heavy drinking. In
+contrast, Aki more actively demonstrated
+his rejection of Conservative Laestadian
+norms by deliberately doing the opposite
+of what was expected. He also used alcohol
+and drugs, but likely not out of a sense of
+inner void. Rather, his substance use seems
+to have been a way to create distance from
+the Conservative Laestadian lifestyle. They
+seem to have had different motivations,
+and it may be that Petri had a greater need
+for belonging and/or continuity than Aki,
+which made it harder for him to leave the
+movement. When asked whether it might
+be harder to leave Laestadianism if many
+siblings remain in the movement, Petri
+responded (Niskanen 2025, 155):
+
+Petri: I definitely think so, because... I
+don't know how it is for others, but for
+me, family is really important. I think
+they’re the ones I’m closest to. So I def-
+initely think it can be really hard... you
+
+34
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@@ -0,0 +1,97 @@
+might hear little digs and things.
+Interviewer: Yeah. Could that make it
+harder to leave as well?
+
+Petri: I think so.
+
+The belonging motive (Vignoles, 2011, 412)
+seems particularly strong in Petri, and it is
+possible that his decision to leave was influ-
+enced by the fact that most of his siblings
+had already left. In a family where all or
+most siblings remain within the movement,
+Petri might not have made the decision to
+leave. Aki, by contrast, does not appear
+to be driven as strongly by the motive of
+belonging and might have left regardless
+of his siblings’ choices. He seems more
+influenced by the distinctiveness motive
+(Vignoles, 2011, 412), which became espe-
+cially clear during the interview when he
+described his behaviour at a confirmation
+camp in Finland (Niskanen 2025, 156):
+
+Aki: Back then, I had already started
+to rebel a bit, so I dressed completely
+differently, for example. Some looked
+at me with maybe a bit of contempt,
+and some looked at me with curiosity,
+that I really stood out from the crowd.
+
+Interviewer: How did you dress?
+
+Aki: If you think of today’s youth,
+maybe those who live in a suburb
+or want to express themselves more
+through clothing, yeah, it was like that.
+
+It is possible that Aki adopted the role
+of “the before he left
+Laestadianism and therefore did not expe-
+
+different one”
+
+rience the same level of emptiness or iden-
+tity loss as Petri. In contrast, Piia’s decision
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+to leave the congregation may be explained
+by the motives of self-efficacy and psycho-
+logical coherence. She stated clearly that
+she was not living as a Laestadian: “Why
+should I pretend to be something I’m not?”
+(Niskanen 2025, 143).
+
+According to Jaspal and Cinnirella, the
+psychological coherence motive refers to
+the experience of interconnected identi-
+ties as compatible. Identity is perceived as
+threatened when the social context pre-
+vents the satisfaction of identity motives.
+One way of managing such an identity
+threat is to deny an identity element that
+is incompatible with another, more cen-
+tral identity element (Bardi et al. 2014, 176;
+Niskanen 2025, 156).
+
+When Piia chose to leave Conservative
+Laestadianism, she had already recognised
+that she was not truly part of the movement
+but had merely pretended to be. This may
+explain why her departure was easier com-
+pared to Petri’s, who expressed greater emo-
+tional difficulty, possibly because he lacked
+a bridge to a new role identity at the time
+of his exit. His younger age may also have
+contributed to the emotional hardship. Piia
+left the movement later in adulthood and
+appears to have done so after reflecting on
+her identity (Niskanen 2025, 156).
+
+Piias husband Erkki may have left for
+similar reasons, guided by the psycho-
+logical coherence motive. However, his
+stronger need for belonging may explain
+why he found it more difficult to leave the
+congregation (Niskanen 2025, 156-57):
+
+And what does RY
+(Rauhanyhdistys/The Peace Associ-
+
+Interviewer:
+
+ation) mean to you... or what did RY
+mean to you?
+
+35
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+Erkki: Well, meeting friends.
+
+Interviewer: So you were involved
+mostly for the social aspect?
+
+Erkki: Yeah. I mostly got tired of the
+preaching [laughs].
+
+Interviewer: So would you say that
+being involved for so long was really
+about meeting people, or...
+
+Erkki: Yeah... yeah, exactly. And then
+there was not wanting to let mum and
+dad down, and just... a whole bunch of
+stuff like that on your mind.
+
+Erkki seems to have been involved in the
+congregation primarily for social reasons
+and out of a desire to please his parents.
+This suggests that relationships are impor-
+tant to him and can be interpreted as a
+strong belonging motive. He has shown a
+need to be included and accepted by those
+who matter to him (Vignoles 2011, 412).
+His greater difficulty in leaving may also be
+linked to challenges in establishing a new
+role identity (Ebaugh 1988, 148).
+
+As for Anne, although she left the con-
+gregation, she stated that she did not want
+to say she had renounced her faith:
+
+Anne: And I didn’t want to say that
+I had denied the faith, because I’ve
+never denied my faith. I've only denied
+the way of “practising my faith’, but
+Ive never denied my belief.
+
+During the interview, Anne mentions sev-
+eral reasons for leaving the congregation, but
+what recurs is that she did not want or was
+not able to live according to Laestadian rules:
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+Anne: In my opinion, it was so diffi-
+cult, such pressure to be Laestadian.
+Almost like torture, sometimes it felt
+that way.
+
+Anne believed that it has now become
+easier and more flexible to be Laestadian,
+for example, regarding contraception,
+as fewer children are being born among
+members. She is critical of this shift, as
+she is accustomed to a more rigid frame-
+work where there was no middle ground
+
+(Niskanen 2025, 158):
+
+Anne: In my view, or I’m used to it
+being either you're Laestadian or
+youre not... That there are no in-
+betweens... Or we always said, either
+youre a believer or a non-believer.
+That there are no middle grounds.
+
+Anne’s sister Piia did not live according to
+Conservative Laestadian rules during part
+of her teenage years. She recalls facing a
+choice when she met her husband, who
+also had a background in the congregation:
+the choice between marrying and having
+children or living a different life. She ulti-
+mately chose to marry him, which may
+explain why she remained in the congrega-
+tion for so long. The fact that Piia chose to
+marry young to a man with a Conservative
+Laestadian background, even though both
+had experimented with different lifestyles
+in their youth, suggests that the continu-
+ity motive may have been stronger in Piia
+than in Anne, who did not make the same
+choice. Piia explained her decision this way
+(Niskanen 2025, 159):
+
+Piia: I think I had a... a moment before
+I got married. Like, “Yeah, should I
+
+36
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@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+go into this?” and then yeah, I kind of
+chose which direction my life would
+go, roughly.
+
+And_ what
+
+Interviewer: did you
+
+choose?
+
+Piia: That I would... that I married...
+I broke up three times and thought,
+“Maybe I should go to Finland for a
+bit or travel and just live life” [laughs].
+Mm. Because it... yeah, it was almost
+like, “Should I become a mum... a
+mum even?’ like have... have kids or
+something, and I did want that.
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. How old were you
+when you... when you got married?
+
+Piia: 20, I think.
+
+Interviewer: Yeah. And that’s when
+you made the choice to stay, so to
+speak, was that it?
+
+Piia: Stay in the faith?
+
+Interviewer: Yeah, exactly. Was that
+the choice you think you made?
+
+Piia: Yeah, kind of.
+
+The continuity motive seems to have influ-
+enced Piia’s decision to marry young and
+remain in the congregation, even though
+the family may not have lived a strictly
+Conservative Laestadian life. This may be
+because both Piia and her husband had
+lived differently before marriage. They
+inhabited a middle ground that, according
+to Piia’s sister Anne, does not exist. Perhaps
+the ambivalence about not living “the right
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+way” eventually led Piia to want to leave the
+congregation, an example of the psycho-
+logical coherence motive (Niskanen 2025,
+159).
+
+Anne, Petri and Aki have not verbally
+renounced their faith, unlike Piia, who
+declared she no longer believes. Petri and
+Aki “drifted away” from faith during their
+teenage years but did not claim to have
+explicitly renounced it, even though Aki
+expressed his rejection in other ways. Anne
+says she never wanted to say she renounced
+her faith, as she has never denied her belief
+in God. She has therefore opposed the idea
+of renouncing faith (Niskanen 2025, 159-
+60). This supports the view of apostasy as a
+fluid and sequential process without a pre-
+determined destination (Enstedt 2020, 300).
+Apostasy does not necessarily mean reject-
+ing belief; it can instead involve distancing
+oneself from religious practice, as Anne
+said she did when she left Conservative
+Laestadianism. Likewise, for her brothers
+Aki and Petri, the endpoint has not been
+non-religiosity, as both express some form
+of religious belief despite distancing them-
+selves from the Conservative Laestadian
+revival movement (Niskanen 2025, 160).
+
+For the siblings, the consequences right
+after leaving varied, possibly depending
+on age. For Aki and Petri, breaking away
+from the Laestadian movement during
+their teenage years had destructive conse-
+quences, such as family conflicts and sub-
+stance abuse. Piia, who left later in life,
+reports that she did not receive any reac-
+tions at all, at least not from her own par-
+ents, although her mother-in-law ques-
+tioned the decision (Niskanen 2025,
+142-43). Anne, who left the movement as
+a young adult, did receive reactions from
+those around her, which may have been
+
+37
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@@ -0,0 +1,89 @@
+because she openly demonstrated her exit
+from the Conservative Laestadian lifestyle
+(Niskanen 2025, 160):
+
+Anne: But I was open about leaving.
+And I know, for a fact, that many lived
+like I did, but they hadn't openly left
+Laestadianism, and they were greeted
+in shops and invited home, and they
+were considered good people, even
+though we were the same...
+
+Those who did not publicly declare their
+exit were not perceived as non-members,
+which suggests that public disclosure plays
+a significant role in leaving a role identity
+(Ebaugh 1988, 123). Vignoles argues that
+presenting one’s identity to a real or imag-
+ined audience is a key part of the social
+process through which individuals claim a
+particular kind of identity (Vignoles 2011,
+412). Although Anne did not verbally
+renounce Conservative Laestadianism, she
+did so through her lifestyle, and was there-
+fore perceived as non-Laestadian, unlike
+those who did not openly demonstrate
+that they lived outside Laestadian norms
+(Niskanen 2025, 160-61).
+There are also notable differences
+between the siblings in terms of identity
+motives. Aki appears to have been driven by
+the distinctiveness motive and possibly also
+the self-efficacy motive, while Petri seems to
+have had a stronger need for belonging. It is
+possible that Petri wanted to feel connected
+to his older siblings and that this influenced
+his decision to leave, since several of them
+had already exited the movement. He may
+have experienced an emotional conflict in
+deciding which side to feel aligned with:
+the religious group or the non-Laestadian
+friends and the siblings who had left.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+For Piia, the psychological coherence
+and self-efficacy motives seem to have
+guided her decision to leave the movement.
+This may also be true for Anne, although it
+is more difficult to assess, as she left a long
+time ago. Anne was clear that she did not
+want to renounce her faith, a stance that
+some found problematic, given that faith
+and the practice of faith were perceived as
+synonymous within the group (Niskanen
+2025, 161):
+
+Anne: And that, mm, many wondered
+about, why I didn’t say it. But I said,
+I don't deny my faith. I believe, but I
+don't want ... I don’t want those ways,
+those behaviours, that, I want to get
+rid of that. And that, they couldn't
+understand, because to them it’s the
+same thing.
+
+Interviewer: Mm. That they’re kind of
+inseparable?
+
+Anne: Yes, it was one and the same.
+
+Anne’s distinction between personal faith
+and communal religious practice reflects
+a desire to maintain agency over her own
+beliefs. This aligns with the self-efficacy
+motive: she sought to define her faith on
+her own terms, rather than conform to
+externally imposed behaviours that no
+longer resonated with her. Her stance sug-
+gests a need to feel competent and in con-
+trol of her identity, even in the face of social
+pressure. The distinctiveness motive, which
+involves a desire to maintain a unique iden-
+tity, is also evident in Anne's insistence on
+retaining her faith while rejecting behav-
+ioural expectations, an effort to resist being
+absorbed into a singular group identity.
+
+38
diff --git a/ocr-output/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self/txt/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self_page_0016.txt b/ocr-output/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self/txt/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self_page_0016.txt
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@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+The quote above illustrates that the
+Conservative Laestadian lifestyle appears
+to be central to belonging within the move-
+ment. What happens when an individual
+cannot, or does not wish to, live accord-
+ing to the lifestyle promoted by the move-
+ment, yet remains driven by the motives of
+continuity and belonging? In Anne's case,
+she sought out another religious context.
+Piia and her husband Erkki, by contrast,
+became members of a secular Sweden-
+Finnish cultural association after leaving
+the movement (Niskanen 2025, 268). The
+brothers Aki and Petri, however, ended up
+in destructive environments involving sub-
+stance abuse right after leaving the religious
+revival movement in their youth, high-
+lighting the importance of understanding
+identity processes not only on an individ-
+ual level but also within broader societal
+structures.
+
+Conclusion
+
+This article has explored how Sweden-
+Finnish Conservative Laestadian siblings
+manage religious disaffiliation as a gradual
+process of identity renegotiation. While
+distancing themselves from doctrinal
+norms, they maintain cultural and familial
+ties, reflecting a complex interplay between
+tradition and transformation.
+
+Identity motives such as continuity, dis-
+tinctiveness and psychological coherence
+shaped how the siblings redefined them-
+selves. Petri’s need for belonging, Aki’s
+drive for distinctiveness, Piia’s pursuit of
+coherence and Anne’s emphasis on self-
+efficacy illustrate how individual trajecto-
+ries vary within the same family context.
+
+This study has explored how former
+Conservative Laestadian siblings navi-
+gate the psychological and _ relational
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+complexities of religious disaffiliation.
+Their narratives reveal that leaving the
+faith is not merely an act of rejection, but
+a gradual reformulation of self in response
+to conflicting identity motives. As Streib
+emphasises, deconversion should be under-
+stood as a process of biographical change,
+involving emotional suffering, loss of reli-
+gious experience and disaffiliation from
+community (2021, 139). This perspective
+aligns with the findings presented here,
+where apostasy emerges not as a moment
+of rupture, but as an unfolding negotia-
+tion of belonging. By situating these indi-
+vidual trajectories within a broader theo-
+retical framework, the study contributes
+to a more nuanced understanding of reli-
+gious exit as a dynamic and identity-driven
+transformation.
+
+While the empirical focus of this arti-
+cle is on one Sweden-Finnish family, the
+findings have broader implications for the
+study of religious disaffiliation. The case
+illustrates how identity motives operate in
+contexts where religious identity is deeply
+intertwined with ethnic and cultural herit-
+age. Thus, the article contributes to a more
+general understanding of religious exit as a
+dynamic and identity-driven transforma-
+tion, relevant to scholars of religion, psy-
+chology and minority studies.
+
+The siblings’ narratives illustrate that
+religious disaffiliation is best understood
+as a layered identity process shaped by
+motivational structures, family dynamics
+and cultural contexts. Among the identity
+motives, continuity emerges as particu-
+larly decisive: even when individuals reject
+Conservative Laestadianism, some retain
+elements of inherited faith or cultural
+belonging that provide a thread of stability
+across time. This underscores that apostasy
+
+39
diff --git a/ocr-output/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self/txt/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self_page_0017.txt b/ocr-output/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self/txt/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self_page_0017.txt
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@@ -0,0 +1,117 @@
+is not merely a rupture but a reconfigura-
+tion, in which old and new aspects of iden-
+tity coexist. Ultimately, continuity stands
+out as the crucial motive, enabling individ-
+uals to preserve a stable sense of self while
+renegotiating belonging beyond religious
+
+boundaries. ™
+
+Anoo Niskanen, Doctor
+of Theology (Study of
+Religions, Abo Akademi
+University), specialises
+in minority studies with
+a focus on Sweden's
+national minorities. Her
+research explores iden-
+tity motives and_ reli-
+gious life choices among
+Sweden-Finnish Conser-
+vative Laestadians. She works as a Language
+Promoter for Finnish at the Institute for Language
+and Folklore (lsof) in Sweden and coordinates
+the Finnish administrative area in Sk6vde munici-
+pality. She also has professional experience as an
+interpreter and translator between Finnish, Bur-
+mese/Myanmar and Swedish.
+
+References
+
+Andreassen, Bengt-Ove, Roald E. Kristiansen
+and Rolf Inge Larsen. 2020. “Approaching
+Laestadianism.” Approaching Religion 10
+(1): 1-3. https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.95047.
+
+Andreassen, Bengt-Ove. 2020. “Doctoral The-
+ses on Laestadius and the Laestadian Move-
+ment 1937-2018” Approaching Religion
+10 (1): 91-109. https://doi.org/10.30664/
+ar.86819.
+
+Bardi, Anat, Rusi Jaspal, Ela Polek and Shalom
+H. Schwartz. 2014. “Values and Identity
+Process Theory: Theoretical Integration and
+Empirical Interactions.” In Identity Process
+Theory—Identity, Social Action and Social
+Change, edited by Rusi Jaspal and Glynis M.
+Breakwell, 175-99. Cambridge University
+Press.
+
+Bjorkmark, Maria, Camilla Koskinen, Peter
+Nynas and Linda Nyholm. 2021. “Suffering
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No. 1 * March 2026
+
+of Life after Religious Disaffiliation: A Car-
+ing Science Study.’ International Journal of
+Caring Sciences 14 (1): 1-7. https://urn.fi/
+URN:NBN:fi-fe2022021819749.
+
+Bjorkmark, Maria, Peter Nynas and Camilla
+Koskinen. 2022. “Living between Two
+Different Worlds’: Experiences of Leav-
+ing a High Cost Religious Group.” Jour-
+nal of Religion and Health 61: 4721-37.
+https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-021-01397-1.
+
+Ebaugh, Helen Rose Fuchs. 1988. Becoming an
+Ex: The Process of Role Exit. University of
+Chicago Press.
+
+Enstedt, Daniel. 2020. “Sociological Approaches
+to Leaving Religion.” In Handbook of Leav-
+ing Religion, edited by Daniel Enstedt,
+Goran Larsson and Teemu T. Mantsinen,
+292-306. Brill.
+
+Hadding, Cecilia. 2023. “Almost Not Allowed
+to Exist”: Former Cult Members’ Experi-
+ences - With Focus on Mental Health and the
+Healthcare Meeting. Ph.D. diss, Umea Uni-
+versity. Umea University medical disserta-
+tions 2268. diva2:1818818.
+
+Jaspal, Rusi, and Glynis M. Breakwell.
+2014. Identity Process ‘Theory: Identity,
+Social Action and Social Change. Cambridge
+University Press.
+
+Niskanen, Anoo. 2025. Trygghet i utanforskap:
+Livssyn och identitetsmotiv hos nuvarande
+och fore detta sverigefinska gammallaestadi-
+aner. Ph.D. diss., Abo Akademi University.
+https://www.doria.fi/handle/10024/192439.
+
+Nynas, Peter, Janne Kontala and Mika Las-
+sander. 2021. “The Faith Q-Sort: In-Depth
+Assessment of Diverse Spirituality and
+Religiosity in 12 Countries.” In Assessing
+Spirituality in a Diverse World, edited by
+A. L. Ai, P. Wink, R. FE. Paloutzian and K.
+A. Harris, 553-73. Springer. https://doi.
+org/10.1007/978-3-030-52140-0_22.
+
+Nynas, Peter. 2022. “Putting a Q into the Study
+of Religions: Observations from a Global
+Study With the Faith Q-Sort” Temenos:
+Nordic Journal for the Study of Reli-
+gion 58 (1): 7-40.
+https://doi.org/10.33356/temenos.116001.
+
+Streib, Heinz, and Barbara Keller. 2004. “The
+Variety of Deconversion Experiences: Con-
+tours of a Concept in Respect to Empiri-
+cal Research.” Archive for the Psychology
+
+AQ
diff --git a/ocr-output/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self/txt/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self_page_0018.txt b/ocr-output/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self/txt/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self_page_0018.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..e7c526a41aaea560f60bf9f9b370ea7ec4fa6b32
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ocr-output/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self/txt/Leaving the Faith Preserving the Self_page_0018.txt	
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+of Religion 26 (1): 181-200. https://doi.
+org/10.1163/0084672053598030.
+
+Streib, Heinz. 2021. Leaving Religion: Decon-
+version. Current Opinion in Psychol-
+ogy 40: 139-44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
+copsyc.2020.09.007.
+
+Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Tor-
+nedalians, Kvens and Lantalaiset. 2023. Som
+om vi aldrig funnits: exkludering och assim-
+ilering av tornedalingar, kvaner och lanta-
+laiset. Final Report, SOU 2023:68. Govern-
+ment Offices of Sweden.
+
+van den Brandt, Nella, and Teija Rantala.
+2024. “Gendered and Embodied Un/learn-
+ing Among Women Disengaging from
+Faith in the UK and Finland” Approach-
+ing Religion 14 (2): 224-39.
+https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.137195.
+
+Vignoles, Vivian L. 2011. “Identity Motives.’
+In Handbook of Identity Theory and Research,
+edited by Seth J. Schwartz, Koen Luyckx and
+Vivian L. Vignoles, 403-32. Springer. https://
+doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7988-9_18.
+
+Vignoles, Vivian L. 2018. “Identity: Per-
+sonal AND Social” In The Oxford Hand-
+book of Personality and Social Psychol-
+ogy (2nd edition), edited by Kay Deaux
+and Mark Snyder, 289-316. Oxford Uni-
+versity Press. _https://doi.org/10.1093/
+oxfordhb/9780190224837.013.12.
+
+Wulff, David M. 2019. “Prototypes of Faith:
+Findings with the Faith Q-Sort? Jour-
+nal for the Scientific Study of Religion
+58 (3): 643-65.
+http://www. jstor.org/stable/45218954.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
diff --git a/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/Social Identity Across Time.txt b/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/Social Identity Across Time.txt
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--- /dev/null
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@@ -0,0 +1,498 @@
+
+
+========== PAGE 1 ==========
+
+EDITORIAL
+
+Social Identity across Time
+
+Interdisciplinary Applications
+
+doi.org/10.30664/ar.179346
+
+dentities (and social identities) are studied in
+
+many different disciplines and approached with
+
+different theoretical tools and concepts. This
+special issue grew out of the need to enhance
+dialogue between disciplines and expand our
+common ground in studying past and present
+identities and their significance.
+
+Religious identities are interwoven in com-
+plex ways with ethnic, cultural and other
+identities. Historical understanding of these
+identities contributes to the understanding
+of identity processes and language used in
+contemporary communities. Yet identities
+may be approached from methodologi-
+cally varied perspectives (e.g. constructiv-
+ist, discursive, cognitive, statistic). There
+is need for dialogue both between differ-
+ent research traditions of (social) identity
+as well as between scholars of ancient and
+contemporary religious identities.
+
+The issue is based on the international
+workshop in 2023, organized by the pro-
+ject FIDSIT (Finnish Interdisciplinary
+Study of Social Identity Transmission,
+https://blogs. helsinki. fi/sosiaalinen-
+identiteetti/), funded by Finnish Cultural
+Foundation in 2020-23. It was an inter-
+disciplinary endeavour, seeking to bring
+historical knowledge of past religious
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+©)@ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
+
+identity-formation to bear on the under-
+standing of the present, and to develop a
+common vocabulary and methodology
+for doing comparative work. The mean-
+ings of labels such as Jewish, Christian or
+Muslim are in constant flux, but the per-
+ceived continuity with the historical past
+is often considered as essential for present-
+day religious identities. Even though con-
+structed and situational, identities are sig-
+nalled through (persistent) means such as
+prototypical figures, sacred texts and sym-
+bols which are perceived to stand the test of
+time: they function as vehicles for mediat-
+ing identity across generations and across
+cultural contexts.
+
+What is the contribution of the articles
+
+in this issue to the dialogue between
+disciplines?
+
+First, social identity, despite its name, is,
+according to the classic Social Identity
+Theory (Tajfel and Turner 1979), an indi-
+vidual’s perception of him- or herself. This
+is often forgotten when group identities
+and social identities are spoken of inter-
+changeably, or when collective identities
+are assumed to work similarly at some
+abstract level for all group members. This
+
+
+========== PAGE 2 ==========
+
+is not necessarily the case. Social identity
+theory and its developments (known as
+social identity approach SIA, Reicher et al.
+2010) answer the questions of how indi-
+viduals come to categorize themselves and
+identify with particular groups and what
+the consequences are of such identifica-
+tions (especially for behaviour in inter-
+group settings, that is, settings where one
+perceives in- and outgroup differentia-
+tion). One’s ingroup members are seen as
+more similar to oneself whereas the out-
+group members are considered to be dif-
+ferent, even suspicious (prejudice). One
+judges the in- and outgroup behaviours
+differently. One’s emotional relation to
+in- and outgroups is different. One often
+perceives both oneself and others in line
+with group prototypes, that is, fuzzy sets
+of attributes considered as typical to the
+group in question, etc.
+
+However, the individual’s process of
+adopting, assuming, negotiating, neglect-
+ing, stressing, activating and defining the
+contents of a social identity, as well as the
+process of relating different intersecting
+social identities to each other, is fascinat-
+ing and complex, and not the same for each
+individual even if they identified with the
+same ingroup. The dialogical-self theory
+assists the discussion of such complexi-
+ties. Here, identity construction is concep-
+tualized as an ongoing dialogue that seeks
+to bring the various aspects of one’s self
+into a reasonable agreement. Sometimes
+this is easier than at other times: for exam-
+ple, considering a common Islamic ban
+on alcohol, it may be harder to combine
+a Muslim religious identity with a profes-
+sional identity as a bartender rather than,
+say, with that of an imam. In his article,
+Teemu Pauha argues that social identity
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+theory and dialogical self theory both have
+their own gaps; the theories can, however,
+be seen to complement each other.
+
+Some glimpses of such narrations
+and negotiations can be seen in Anoo
+Niskanen’s case study. Although she does
+not refer to dialogical-self theory, her
+interview examples of Sweden-Finnish
+Conservative Laestadians who have left
+their religious community can be inter-
+preted as reflective of such narrations
+between different roles and positions. By
+analysing siblings and members of the
+same family and community, Niskanen’s
+study reveals how different the individual
+processes of identifying and disidentify-
+ing with an ingroup can be. Pauha, on the
+other hand, takes up examples of histori-
+cal evidence: narrations and re-narrations
+in biblical texts—and surely this could be
+applied to other ancient texts. The Apostle
+Paul is not the only example of context-
+dependent identifications but he could be
+seen as actively searching for some resolu-
+tion between his various social identities.
+
+Niskanen also makes room for varia-
+tion in individual social identities by ana-
+lysing the different motives behind identity
+narrations. Whereas the classic social iden-
+tity theory mainly identified the motive of
+positive distinctiveness and_ self-esteem,
+later scholarship has suggested that there
+are more motives driving the identity con-
+structions (Vignoles 2011). The members
+of the same family narrate their identities
+in different ways, some wishing to see more
+continuity, others more distinctiveness, for
+example. Psychological coherence is also
+suggested as a motive for representing one-
+self in the certain way: one is motivated to
+see various positions or aspects of oneself
+as compatible.
+
+
+========== PAGE 3 ==========
+
+The second major lesson from the arti-
+cles is the way in which the emergence of
+new identities requires negative stereotyp-
+ing and how such stereotypes may become
+part of traditions and historical narrations.
+
+Ilkka Lindstedt traces the polemi-
+cal commonplace concerning the prac-
+tice of female infanticide in Islamic rhet-
+oric. While the accusation that pre-Islamic
+Arabs buried female infants alive is still
+taken at face value by many modern schol-
+ars and continues to be repeated in popular
+discourse, Lindstedt argues that this repre-
+sentation should not be considered histor-
+ically accurate but rather understood as
+an ideologically driven, identity-forming
+strategy intended to depict the pre-Islamic
+outgroup negatively in order to highlight
+the moral superiority of emergent Islam.
+This argument is supported by the SIA,
+which stresses the importance of social,
+intergroup comparison to establishing a
+positive ingroup identity. This compari-
+son can also incorporate a temporal aspect
+where a problematic past acts as a point of
+comparison to highlight the present posi-
+tive status of the ingroup. Lindstedt argues
+that, historically, the idea of female infan-
+ticide first appeared in intertribal polemic
+directed against the Tamim tribe around
+the time of the Second Muslim Civil War
+(680-92 CE) and was later attested in
+interpretations of Qur’anic verses 16:57-
+59 and 81:8-9. By the eighth century, the
+notion of female infanticide came to char-
+acterize a broader category of Arabs and
+was expanded to encompass a wider group
+of pre-Islamic Arabs in the “age of igno-
+rance” (jahiliyya) preceding the enlighten-
+ing effects of Islam.
+
+Karmela Liebkind outlines the diverse
+Islamic)
+
+(right-wing, left-wing and
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+manifestations of antisemitism, con-
+centrating especially on the blurring of
+antisemitism and antizionism in modern
+discourses. Bringing historical and socio-
+logical scholarship into dialogue with
+social identity theory, Liebkind argues that
+a force driving antisemitism is the need of
+Christians (and later Muslims) to distin-
+guish themselves positively from Judaism.
+One example of this is the stereotypical jux-
+taposition between the angry and vengeful
+“Old Testament God” and the merciful and
+loving “New Testament God”.
+
+While scholars of racism have produced
+extremely elaborate conceptualizations of
+other forms of prejudice, they have largely
+overlooked antisemitism. According to
+Liebkind, the reasons for this lie in the
+complexity of Jewish identity as well as its
+intersections with other social identities;
+Jews are often perceived as White, even
+“super-White’, and therefore as enjoying a
+relatively privileged position in society.
+
+Both Liebkind and Pauha point out
+how social identity research often consid-
+ers only one identity at a time, focusing, for
+example, on religiosity or nationality in iso-
+lation from other group memberships. As
+illustrated by Liebkind’s article, ignoring
+identity intersectionality may lead to being
+blind to the intricacies of oppression and
+prejudice encountered by a minority group.
+Social identity scholars would benefit from
+increased awareness of intersectionality
+research. The overlap and mutual interplay
+of various social identities have been con-
+sidered in connection to so-called “social
+identity complexity” (Roccas and Brewer
+2002). However, even though a quarter of
+a century has passed since Sonia Roccas
+and Marilynn B. Brewer introduced the
+concept in 2002, it has not really become
+
+
+========== PAGE 4 ==========
+
+established in scholarship, and relatively
+few studies have engaged with it.
+
+Despite adopting a research design that
+is very different from that of Liebkind,
+Zdenka Spiclova, Nina Nikki, Vojtéch
+Kase and Jan Tvrz share her interest in the
+longue durée currents in intergroup hostil-
+ities. Combining close reading and com-
+putational analysis of both Christian and
+pagan sources of the first six centuries CE,
+Spiclova, Nikki, KaSe and Tvrz demonstrate
+both commonalities and variations in how
+opponents are portrayed. For example,
+throughout the time period under investi-
+gation, both Christian and pagan authors
+commonly accused their enemies of vio-
+lence and of causing strife and division.
+However, Christian accusations of violence
+intensified somewhat in the fifth century
+CE, which the authors interpret as a possi-
+ble indicator of the increasing importance
+of martyrdom narratives and persecution
+discourses as elements in a Christian group
+identity. Similar to the antisemitism dis-
+cussed by Liebkind, inter-group hostility in
+general appears to be like a piano: the keys
+remain the same, but they are used to play
+different melodies.
+
+Spiclova, Nikki, KaSe and Tvrz propose
+a variety of factors that could explain
+the stability and change in how hostile
+outgroups are depicted. In addition to
+social identity theory, the authors draw on
+cognitive research pertaining to negativity
+bias and fears of contagion. However, not
+all trends can be accounted for by the com-
+monalities of the human mind, and histori-
+cal events and other contextual factors also
+play a role. A comprehensive understand-
+ing of polemical rhetoric thus calls for an
+interdisciplinary approach combining psy-
+chological and historical scholarship—a
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+call resonating with Liebkind’s article and
+several other contributions to this special
+issue.
+
+Lastly, scholars of the past often strug-
+gle with the limited and often random
+data and what can and cannot be inferred
+from such evidence. Spiclova, Nikki, KaSe
+and Tvrz emphasize that their design can
+only hypothesize on the linkages between
+specific cognitive or identity processes and
+polemical rhetoric—not demonstrate the
+existence of such linkages. They also reflect
+at length on how the gaps in their data
+affect the conclusions that can be drawn
+from them. Similarly, Pauha notes how the
+relative inaccessibility of identity processes
+to consciousness significantly restricts the
+applications of social identity theory in his-
+torical research, proposing narrative iden-
+tity theories as a potential way to circum-
+vent some of these restrictions.
+
+The review article by Sini Mikkola
+makes a similar note regarding the use of
+SIA in the research of early modern data.
+According to Mikkola, group divisions
+and categorizations are a salient feature
+of the Reformation era, and SIA can be of
+marked benefit in conceptualizing these
+dynamics. However, historical texts do not
+provide immediate access to the mind of
+their author. At most, they reveal how the
+author wanted to portray himself or herself
+to the reader. Like Pauha, Mikkola empha-
+sizes the role of narrativity in the study of
+historical identities. However, in addition
+to acknowledging the challenges in apply-
+ing SIA to historical sources, Mikkola also
+notes the traces that identity processes do
+leave on paper. Specifically, the ways in
+which the authors categorize themselves
+and others or in which they construct
+intergroup boundaries reveal something of
+
+
+========== PAGE 5 ==========
+
+their salient identities. Mikkola illustrates
+these dynamics with examples from letters
+written by Reformation-era authors.
+
+A golden thread in both this special
+issue and in the FIDSIT project, within
+which it originated, is interdisciplinarity
+and theoretical flexibility. A single theory,
+even one as rich as social identity theory,
+seldom suffices to grasp the full complex-
+ity of phenomena such as apostasy or
+antisemitism. Being open to insights from
+other approaches to address gaps in one’s
+preferred theory can lead to increased
+understanding of empirical cases as well
+as to theoretical development. At the same
+time, integrating insights from several
+frameworks cannot be done haphazardly.
+Different approaches may have distinct
+ontological, epistemological and method-
+ological underpinnings; integrating them
+may thus require considerable reflection
+and a preparedness to revisit the founda-
+tional principles of one’s own discipline. Hl
+
+Jutta Jokiranta is profes-
+sor of Hebrew Bible and
+Cognate Studies at the
+University of Helsinki. She
+specializes in social-sci-
+entific approaches in Bib-
+lical Studies and study of
+Early Judaism (especially
+Dead Sea Scrolls). She is
+the author of Social Iden-
+tity and Sectarianism in the
+Qumran Movement (Brill 2013), and co-editor-in-
+chief of the Brill series Studies on the Texts of the
+Desert of Judah (STDJ). She has published widely
+on social changes in late Second Temple Juda-
+ism, ritual studies, social-identity construction in
+ancient religious movements, ethnicity and cogni-
+tive science of religion. She was a team leader in
+the Centre of Excellence Changes in Sacred Texts
+and Traditions (2016-19) and principal investiga-
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No. 1 * March 2026
+
+tor of the Finnish Interdisciplinary Study of Social
+Identity Transmission (FIDSIT 2020-23).
+
+Nina Nikki is associate
+professor of New Testa-
+ment Exegesis at Umea
+University, Sweden. She
+has authored Opponents
+and Identity in Philippi-
+ans (NovTSup 173, Brill,
+2019) and several arti-
+cles combining — social
+scientific, cognitive and
+cultural evolutionary
+approaches to the study of biblical texts and early
+Christianity. From 2023 to 2026 Nikki is principal
+investigator in the Emil Aaltonen Foundation-
+funded research project Experimenting the Rise
+of Early Christianity in Cultural Evolution: Mar-
+tyrs, Manuscripts and Intergroup Hostility.
+
+Dr Teemu Pauha is a
+psychologist and scholar
+of religion focusing on
+the social psychology
+of religious identity and
+inter-religious relations,
+especially in the context
+of Islam in Europe. He
+is a University Lecturer
+in Islamic Theology at
+the University of Hel-
+sinki and has published research on topics such
+as mosque conflicts, apostasy from Islam, the
+inter-religious attitudes of atheists, Qur'an burn-
+ing and religion in martial arts. Pauha has edited
+(in Finnish) collections of articles on Islam in
+Finland as well as on the psychology of religion.
+He is also the author of Finnish Shia Youth and the
+Qur‘an: Cultural Psychological Perspectives on Lived
+Religion (Springer, 2025). Since 2014, Pauha has
+authored or co-authored the Finnish section of
+the Yearbook of Muslims in Europe (Brill). He is
+the editor-in-chief of Studia Theologica—Nordic
+Journal of Theology. Currently, Pauha is investigat-
+ing the sense of safety in religious spaces, with a
+particular focus on LGBTIQ+ Muslims.
+
+
+
+========== PAGE 6 ==========
+
+References
+
+Reicher, Stephen, Russell Spears and S. Alex-
+ander Haslam. 2010. “The Social Identity
+Approach in Social Psychology.” In The Sage
+Handbook of Identities, edited by Margaret
+Wetherell and Chandra Talpade Mohanty.
+SAGE Publications.
+
+Roccas, Sonia, and Marilynn B. Brewer.
+2002. “Social Identity Complexity.” Per-
+sonality and Social Psychology Review
+6 (2): 88-106. https://doi-org/10.1207/
+$15327957PSPR0602_01.
+
+Tajfel, Henri, and John C. Turner. 1979. “An
+Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict?”
+In The Social Psychology of Intergroup Rela-
+tions, edited by William G. Austin and Ste-
+phen Worchel. Brooks/Cole.
+
+Vignoles, Vivian L. 2011. “Identity Motives.” In
+Handbook of Identity Theory and Research,
+edited by Seth J. Schwartz, Koen Luyckx and
+Vivian L. Vignoles. Springer.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
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diff --git a/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/txt/Social Identity Across Time_page_0001.txt b/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/txt/Social Identity Across Time_page_0001.txt
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+++ b/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/txt/Social Identity Across Time_page_0001.txt	
@@ -0,0 +1,77 @@
+EDITORIAL
+
+Social Identity across Time
+
+Interdisciplinary Applications
+
+doi.org/10.30664/ar.179346
+
+dentities (and social identities) are studied in
+
+many different disciplines and approached with
+
+different theoretical tools and concepts. This
+special issue grew out of the need to enhance
+dialogue between disciplines and expand our
+common ground in studying past and present
+identities and their significance.
+
+Religious identities are interwoven in com-
+plex ways with ethnic, cultural and other
+identities. Historical understanding of these
+identities contributes to the understanding
+of identity processes and language used in
+contemporary communities. Yet identities
+may be approached from methodologi-
+cally varied perspectives (e.g. constructiv-
+ist, discursive, cognitive, statistic). There
+is need for dialogue both between differ-
+ent research traditions of (social) identity
+as well as between scholars of ancient and
+contemporary religious identities.
+
+The issue is based on the international
+workshop in 2023, organized by the pro-
+ject FIDSIT (Finnish Interdisciplinary
+Study of Social Identity Transmission,
+https://blogs. helsinki. fi/sosiaalinen-
+identiteetti/), funded by Finnish Cultural
+Foundation in 2020-23. It was an inter-
+disciplinary endeavour, seeking to bring
+historical knowledge of past religious
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+©)@ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
+
+identity-formation to bear on the under-
+standing of the present, and to develop a
+common vocabulary and methodology
+for doing comparative work. The mean-
+ings of labels such as Jewish, Christian or
+Muslim are in constant flux, but the per-
+ceived continuity with the historical past
+is often considered as essential for present-
+day religious identities. Even though con-
+structed and situational, identities are sig-
+nalled through (persistent) means such as
+prototypical figures, sacred texts and sym-
+bols which are perceived to stand the test of
+time: they function as vehicles for mediat-
+ing identity across generations and across
+cultural contexts.
+
+What is the contribution of the articles
+
+in this issue to the dialogue between
+disciplines?
+
+First, social identity, despite its name, is,
+according to the classic Social Identity
+Theory (Tajfel and Turner 1979), an indi-
+vidual’s perception of him- or herself. This
+is often forgotten when group identities
+and social identities are spoken of inter-
+changeably, or when collective identities
+are assumed to work similarly at some
+abstract level for all group members. This
diff --git a/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/txt/Social Identity Across Time_page_0002.txt b/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/txt/Social Identity Across Time_page_0002.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..ccb81caae739ed6b1250c600e30ad46c182e82eb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/txt/Social Identity Across Time_page_0002.txt	
@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+is not necessarily the case. Social identity
+theory and its developments (known as
+social identity approach SIA, Reicher et al.
+2010) answer the questions of how indi-
+viduals come to categorize themselves and
+identify with particular groups and what
+the consequences are of such identifica-
+tions (especially for behaviour in inter-
+group settings, that is, settings where one
+perceives in- and outgroup differentia-
+tion). One’s ingroup members are seen as
+more similar to oneself whereas the out-
+group members are considered to be dif-
+ferent, even suspicious (prejudice). One
+judges the in- and outgroup behaviours
+differently. One’s emotional relation to
+in- and outgroups is different. One often
+perceives both oneself and others in line
+with group prototypes, that is, fuzzy sets
+of attributes considered as typical to the
+group in question, etc.
+
+However, the individual’s process of
+adopting, assuming, negotiating, neglect-
+ing, stressing, activating and defining the
+contents of a social identity, as well as the
+process of relating different intersecting
+social identities to each other, is fascinat-
+ing and complex, and not the same for each
+individual even if they identified with the
+same ingroup. The dialogical-self theory
+assists the discussion of such complexi-
+ties. Here, identity construction is concep-
+tualized as an ongoing dialogue that seeks
+to bring the various aspects of one’s self
+into a reasonable agreement. Sometimes
+this is easier than at other times: for exam-
+ple, considering a common Islamic ban
+on alcohol, it may be harder to combine
+a Muslim religious identity with a profes-
+sional identity as a bartender rather than,
+say, with that of an imam. In his article,
+Teemu Pauha argues that social identity
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+theory and dialogical self theory both have
+their own gaps; the theories can, however,
+be seen to complement each other.
+
+Some glimpses of such narrations
+and negotiations can be seen in Anoo
+Niskanen’s case study. Although she does
+not refer to dialogical-self theory, her
+interview examples of Sweden-Finnish
+Conservative Laestadians who have left
+their religious community can be inter-
+preted as reflective of such narrations
+between different roles and positions. By
+analysing siblings and members of the
+same family and community, Niskanen’s
+study reveals how different the individual
+processes of identifying and disidentify-
+ing with an ingroup can be. Pauha, on the
+other hand, takes up examples of histori-
+cal evidence: narrations and re-narrations
+in biblical texts—and surely this could be
+applied to other ancient texts. The Apostle
+Paul is not the only example of context-
+dependent identifications but he could be
+seen as actively searching for some resolu-
+tion between his various social identities.
+
+Niskanen also makes room for varia-
+tion in individual social identities by ana-
+lysing the different motives behind identity
+narrations. Whereas the classic social iden-
+tity theory mainly identified the motive of
+positive distinctiveness and_ self-esteem,
+later scholarship has suggested that there
+are more motives driving the identity con-
+structions (Vignoles 2011). The members
+of the same family narrate their identities
+in different ways, some wishing to see more
+continuity, others more distinctiveness, for
+example. Psychological coherence is also
+suggested as a motive for representing one-
+self in the certain way: one is motivated to
+see various positions or aspects of oneself
+as compatible.
diff --git a/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/txt/Social Identity Across Time_page_0003.txt b/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/txt/Social Identity Across Time_page_0003.txt
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..7445ff60ea5ae5654007a1d37aa0cbc0fa6c1b0a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/txt/Social Identity Across Time_page_0003.txt	
@@ -0,0 +1,93 @@
+The second major lesson from the arti-
+cles is the way in which the emergence of
+new identities requires negative stereotyp-
+ing and how such stereotypes may become
+part of traditions and historical narrations.
+
+Ilkka Lindstedt traces the polemi-
+cal commonplace concerning the prac-
+tice of female infanticide in Islamic rhet-
+oric. While the accusation that pre-Islamic
+Arabs buried female infants alive is still
+taken at face value by many modern schol-
+ars and continues to be repeated in popular
+discourse, Lindstedt argues that this repre-
+sentation should not be considered histor-
+ically accurate but rather understood as
+an ideologically driven, identity-forming
+strategy intended to depict the pre-Islamic
+outgroup negatively in order to highlight
+the moral superiority of emergent Islam.
+This argument is supported by the SIA,
+which stresses the importance of social,
+intergroup comparison to establishing a
+positive ingroup identity. This compari-
+son can also incorporate a temporal aspect
+where a problematic past acts as a point of
+comparison to highlight the present posi-
+tive status of the ingroup. Lindstedt argues
+that, historically, the idea of female infan-
+ticide first appeared in intertribal polemic
+directed against the Tamim tribe around
+the time of the Second Muslim Civil War
+(680-92 CE) and was later attested in
+interpretations of Qur’anic verses 16:57-
+59 and 81:8-9. By the eighth century, the
+notion of female infanticide came to char-
+acterize a broader category of Arabs and
+was expanded to encompass a wider group
+of pre-Islamic Arabs in the “age of igno-
+rance” (jahiliyya) preceding the enlighten-
+ing effects of Islam.
+
+Karmela Liebkind outlines the diverse
+Islamic)
+
+(right-wing, left-wing and
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+manifestations of antisemitism, con-
+centrating especially on the blurring of
+antisemitism and antizionism in modern
+discourses. Bringing historical and socio-
+logical scholarship into dialogue with
+social identity theory, Liebkind argues that
+a force driving antisemitism is the need of
+Christians (and later Muslims) to distin-
+guish themselves positively from Judaism.
+One example of this is the stereotypical jux-
+taposition between the angry and vengeful
+“Old Testament God” and the merciful and
+loving “New Testament God”.
+
+While scholars of racism have produced
+extremely elaborate conceptualizations of
+other forms of prejudice, they have largely
+overlooked antisemitism. According to
+Liebkind, the reasons for this lie in the
+complexity of Jewish identity as well as its
+intersections with other social identities;
+Jews are often perceived as White, even
+“super-White’, and therefore as enjoying a
+relatively privileged position in society.
+
+Both Liebkind and Pauha point out
+how social identity research often consid-
+ers only one identity at a time, focusing, for
+example, on religiosity or nationality in iso-
+lation from other group memberships. As
+illustrated by Liebkind’s article, ignoring
+identity intersectionality may lead to being
+blind to the intricacies of oppression and
+prejudice encountered by a minority group.
+Social identity scholars would benefit from
+increased awareness of intersectionality
+research. The overlap and mutual interplay
+of various social identities have been con-
+sidered in connection to so-called “social
+identity complexity” (Roccas and Brewer
+2002). However, even though a quarter of
+a century has passed since Sonia Roccas
+and Marilynn B. Brewer introduced the
+concept in 2002, it has not really become
diff --git a/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/txt/Social Identity Across Time_page_0004.txt b/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/txt/Social Identity Across Time_page_0004.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..b4afb582ea90d94a4f10ded2014e7f98b80a2885
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/txt/Social Identity Across Time_page_0004.txt	
@@ -0,0 +1,91 @@
+established in scholarship, and relatively
+few studies have engaged with it.
+
+Despite adopting a research design that
+is very different from that of Liebkind,
+Zdenka Spiclova, Nina Nikki, Vojtéch
+Kase and Jan Tvrz share her interest in the
+longue durée currents in intergroup hostil-
+ities. Combining close reading and com-
+putational analysis of both Christian and
+pagan sources of the first six centuries CE,
+Spiclova, Nikki, KaSe and Tvrz demonstrate
+both commonalities and variations in how
+opponents are portrayed. For example,
+throughout the time period under investi-
+gation, both Christian and pagan authors
+commonly accused their enemies of vio-
+lence and of causing strife and division.
+However, Christian accusations of violence
+intensified somewhat in the fifth century
+CE, which the authors interpret as a possi-
+ble indicator of the increasing importance
+of martyrdom narratives and persecution
+discourses as elements in a Christian group
+identity. Similar to the antisemitism dis-
+cussed by Liebkind, inter-group hostility in
+general appears to be like a piano: the keys
+remain the same, but they are used to play
+different melodies.
+
+Spiclova, Nikki, KaSe and Tvrz propose
+a variety of factors that could explain
+the stability and change in how hostile
+outgroups are depicted. In addition to
+social identity theory, the authors draw on
+cognitive research pertaining to negativity
+bias and fears of contagion. However, not
+all trends can be accounted for by the com-
+monalities of the human mind, and histori-
+cal events and other contextual factors also
+play a role. A comprehensive understand-
+ing of polemical rhetoric thus calls for an
+interdisciplinary approach combining psy-
+chological and historical scholarship—a
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+call resonating with Liebkind’s article and
+several other contributions to this special
+issue.
+
+Lastly, scholars of the past often strug-
+gle with the limited and often random
+data and what can and cannot be inferred
+from such evidence. Spiclova, Nikki, KaSe
+and Tvrz emphasize that their design can
+only hypothesize on the linkages between
+specific cognitive or identity processes and
+polemical rhetoric—not demonstrate the
+existence of such linkages. They also reflect
+at length on how the gaps in their data
+affect the conclusions that can be drawn
+from them. Similarly, Pauha notes how the
+relative inaccessibility of identity processes
+to consciousness significantly restricts the
+applications of social identity theory in his-
+torical research, proposing narrative iden-
+tity theories as a potential way to circum-
+vent some of these restrictions.
+
+The review article by Sini Mikkola
+makes a similar note regarding the use of
+SIA in the research of early modern data.
+According to Mikkola, group divisions
+and categorizations are a salient feature
+of the Reformation era, and SIA can be of
+marked benefit in conceptualizing these
+dynamics. However, historical texts do not
+provide immediate access to the mind of
+their author. At most, they reveal how the
+author wanted to portray himself or herself
+to the reader. Like Pauha, Mikkola empha-
+sizes the role of narrativity in the study of
+historical identities. However, in addition
+to acknowledging the challenges in apply-
+ing SIA to historical sources, Mikkola also
+notes the traces that identity processes do
+leave on paper. Specifically, the ways in
+which the authors categorize themselves
+and others or in which they construct
+intergroup boundaries reveal something of
diff --git a/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/txt/Social Identity Across Time_page_0005.txt b/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/txt/Social Identity Across Time_page_0005.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..2a683df1f80d1464dd91572e5af43225c51aabdf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/txt/Social Identity Across Time_page_0005.txt	
@@ -0,0 +1,96 @@
+their salient identities. Mikkola illustrates
+these dynamics with examples from letters
+written by Reformation-era authors.
+
+A golden thread in both this special
+issue and in the FIDSIT project, within
+which it originated, is interdisciplinarity
+and theoretical flexibility. A single theory,
+even one as rich as social identity theory,
+seldom suffices to grasp the full complex-
+ity of phenomena such as apostasy or
+antisemitism. Being open to insights from
+other approaches to address gaps in one’s
+preferred theory can lead to increased
+understanding of empirical cases as well
+as to theoretical development. At the same
+time, integrating insights from several
+frameworks cannot be done haphazardly.
+Different approaches may have distinct
+ontological, epistemological and method-
+ological underpinnings; integrating them
+may thus require considerable reflection
+and a preparedness to revisit the founda-
+tional principles of one’s own discipline. Hl
+
+Jutta Jokiranta is profes-
+sor of Hebrew Bible and
+Cognate Studies at the
+University of Helsinki. She
+specializes in social-sci-
+entific approaches in Bib-
+lical Studies and study of
+Early Judaism (especially
+Dead Sea Scrolls). She is
+the author of Social Iden-
+tity and Sectarianism in the
+Qumran Movement (Brill 2013), and co-editor-in-
+chief of the Brill series Studies on the Texts of the
+Desert of Judah (STDJ). She has published widely
+on social changes in late Second Temple Juda-
+ism, ritual studies, social-identity construction in
+ancient religious movements, ethnicity and cogni-
+tive science of religion. She was a team leader in
+the Centre of Excellence Changes in Sacred Texts
+and Traditions (2016-19) and principal investiga-
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No. 1 * March 2026
+
+tor of the Finnish Interdisciplinary Study of Social
+Identity Transmission (FIDSIT 2020-23).
+
+Nina Nikki is associate
+professor of New Testa-
+ment Exegesis at Umea
+University, Sweden. She
+has authored Opponents
+and Identity in Philippi-
+ans (NovTSup 173, Brill,
+2019) and several arti-
+cles combining — social
+scientific, cognitive and
+cultural evolutionary
+approaches to the study of biblical texts and early
+Christianity. From 2023 to 2026 Nikki is principal
+investigator in the Emil Aaltonen Foundation-
+funded research project Experimenting the Rise
+of Early Christianity in Cultural Evolution: Mar-
+tyrs, Manuscripts and Intergroup Hostility.
+
+Dr Teemu Pauha is a
+psychologist and scholar
+of religion focusing on
+the social psychology
+of religious identity and
+inter-religious relations,
+especially in the context
+of Islam in Europe. He
+is a University Lecturer
+in Islamic Theology at
+the University of Hel-
+sinki and has published research on topics such
+as mosque conflicts, apostasy from Islam, the
+inter-religious attitudes of atheists, Qur'an burn-
+ing and religion in martial arts. Pauha has edited
+(in Finnish) collections of articles on Islam in
+Finland as well as on the psychology of religion.
+He is also the author of Finnish Shia Youth and the
+Qur‘an: Cultural Psychological Perspectives on Lived
+Religion (Springer, 2025). Since 2014, Pauha has
+authored or co-authored the Finnish section of
+the Yearbook of Muslims in Europe (Brill). He is
+the editor-in-chief of Studia Theologica—Nordic
+Journal of Theology. Currently, Pauha is investigat-
+ing the sense of safety in religious spaces, with a
+particular focus on LGBTIQ+ Muslims.
+
diff --git a/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/txt/Social Identity Across Time_page_0006.txt b/ocr-output/Social Identity Across Time/txt/Social Identity Across Time_page_0006.txt
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+References
+
+Reicher, Stephen, Russell Spears and S. Alex-
+ander Haslam. 2010. “The Social Identity
+Approach in Social Psychology.” In The Sage
+Handbook of Identities, edited by Margaret
+Wetherell and Chandra Talpade Mohanty.
+SAGE Publications.
+
+Roccas, Sonia, and Marilynn B. Brewer.
+2002. “Social Identity Complexity.” Per-
+sonality and Social Psychology Review
+6 (2): 88-106. https://doi-org/10.1207/
+$15327957PSPR0602_01.
+
+Tajfel, Henri, and John C. Turner. 1979. “An
+Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict?”
+In The Social Psychology of Intergroup Rela-
+tions, edited by William G. Austin and Ste-
+phen Worchel. Brooks/Cole.
+
+Vignoles, Vivian L. 2011. “Identity Motives.” In
+Handbook of Identity Theory and Research,
+edited by Seth J. Schwartz, Koen Luyckx and
+Vivian L. Vignoles. Springer.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
diff --git a/ocr-output/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs.txt b/ocr-output/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs.txt
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+
+
+========== PAGE 1 ==========
+
+ILKKA LINDSTEDT
+
+The Portrayal of the Pre-Islamic Arabs as
+Murderers of Their Own Infants
+
+doi.org/10.30664/ar.148924
+
+his article critically reassesses the
+Teun of the supposed custom of infan-
+
+ticide, particularly female infanticide (in
+Arabic, wa’d al-bandat), among pre-Islamic Arabs,
+arguing that this notion emerged during the
+Umayyad era as an imagined aspect of the so-
+called pre-Islamic jahiliyya (“age of ignorance”).
+Both noble aspects, such as valour and esteemed
+poetry, and debased ones, such as polytheism
+and immorality, were ascribed to pre-Islamic
+Arabs, thus encapsulating a troublesome her-
+itage. Additionally, this article explores some
+aspects of the Islamic-era political dynamics,
+particularly the polemics between various Ara-
+bian tribes. The case of the tribe of Tamim—who
+are said to have been the main perpetrators of
+infanticide—is examined, highlighting how inter-
+tribal polemics influenced the birth and populari-
+zation of tales depicting the Tamim as engaged
+in the brutal practice of daughter-killing. In my
+interpretation, the Tamim became the butt of
+these polemical attacks because they fought on
+the losing side during the second Muslim fitna,
+“civil war” (680-92 CE). | argue that the sus-
+tained recollection and retelling of the jahiliyya
+narratives served not only to forge a new Muslim
+identity and self-assertion of moral reformation
+but also to facilitate intra-Arab distinctions in
+Islamic times. Social Identity Theory (SIT) serves
+as the interpretive framework of the article.
+
+1 lam very grateful to Adham Abdel-Bary, Jutta
+Jokiranta, Tariq Osman, Tsampika-Mika Par-
+askeva, Nina Nikki, Mulki al-Sharmani and
+the late Jaakko Hameen-Anttila for important
+comments on earlier versions of this article.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+©)@ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
+
+VERTAISARVIOITU
+~ KOLLEGIALT GRANSKAD
+wy. PEER-REVIEWED
+
+www.tsv.fi/tunnus
+
+Introduction
+
+Muslim religious scholars, starting in the
+late seventh century CE (as suggested by
+Donner 2010; Lindstedt 2024), began to
+formulate and maintain a distinct Islamic
+identity, which was articulated in contrast
+to other religious communities—in par-
+ticular, Jews, Christians, Manicheans and
+Zoroastrians—but also in contrast to pre-
+Islamic Arabs who lived during the so-
+called jahiliyya, or “the age of ignorance”
+(an era before the mission of the Prophet
+Muhammad, which lasted ca. 610-32 CE).
+For example, in his famous work Nahj
+al-Balagha, al-Sharif al-Radi (d. 1015)
+states that the pre-Islamic Arabs were
+
+camel-herders tending to their beasts’
+sores and harvesting their wool.
+They lived as the most wretched of
+nations, with the least fertile fields,
+with no mission under whose wing
+they could seek shelter, no column of
+unity on whose strength they could
+depend. Their situation was volatile,
+their hands discordant, their num-
+bers scattered. They were trapped in a
+hard trial and crushed under rocks of
+ignorance: they buried baby girls alive,
+
+42
+
+
+========== PAGE 2 ==========
+
+worshipped idols, cut ties of kinship,
+and raided one another. Observe the
+abundance of God’s blessings [with
+the coming of Islam] on them [the
+Arabs]. He sent them a messenger
+[the Prophet Muhammad], secured
+their obedience through his religion
+[Islam], and gathered their company
+within his mission. See how bounty
+spread the wings of her generosity
+over them and the wellsprings of her
+delights flowed. See how the new reli-
+gion gathered them within the gifts of
+its grace. They were immersed in its
+bounty, joyful in the fresh greenness
+of its way of life. (al-Sharif al-Radi
+2024, 453-55)
+
+This is an illustrative example of the ways
+in which Muslim authors saw the coming
+of Islam (“the new religion gathered them
+within the gifts of its grace”) and what
+existed before it (Arabs had been “crushed
+under rocks of ignorance: they buried baby
+girls alive, worshipped idols, cut ties of
+kinship, and raided one another”). Such
+characterizations are habitually echoed
+in modern scholarship (e.g. Aksoy 2024).
+However, al-Sharif al-Radi’s and simi-
+lar writings were not really describing
+what had taken place in pre-Islamic times;
+rather, they were ideological and tenden-
+tious accounts that were used to argue for
+and emphasize the illuminating nature of
+the new religion, Islam.
+
+Indeed, much recent scholarship (e.g.
+Drory 1996; El Cheikh 2015; Crone 2016;
+Webb 2016) has called into question many
+of the narratives about, and traits ascribed
+to, the pre-Islamic inhabitants of Arabia
+contained in Islamic-era literature. As Nadia
+Maria El Cheikh (2015, 18) has aptly noted:
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+Jahiliyya indicated the negative image
+ofa society seen as the opposite pole of
+Islam. It was portrayed as a state of cor-
+ruption and immorality from which
+God delivered the Arabs by sending
+them the Prophet Muhammad. [...]
+The sharp distinction between the
+pre-Islamic and Islamic periods meant
+that the people of jahiliyya lingered
+in the imperial Muslim imagination.
+They functioned as a signifier of a new
+Muslim identity emanating from the
+heritage of jahiliyya, a Muslim identity
+that could not exist without the con-
+stant remembering and retelling of the
+story of jahiliyya.
+
+On the basis of this view, which I agree
+with, these classical Arabic narratives of
+the “age of ignorance” were more a founda-
+tion myth than factual history. For exam-
+ple, though the jahiliyya is portrayed by
+later Muslim authors as an era and state
+of idolatrous barbarism, many pre-Islamic
+Arabians were, in fact, monotheists (Jews,
+Christians or so-called pagan monothe-
+ists); and, moreover, they engaged in ethical
+thought and practices that to some degree
+corresponded to later Islamic-era ones
+(Crone 2016, 53-183; Jamil 2017; Al-Jallad
+and Sidky 2024; Lindstedt 2024, 42-144).
+Importantly too, contrary to what has
+been thought conventionally in scholar-
+ship and popular discourse, it has been
+suggested by Peter Webb (2016) that Arab
+identity itself (as a broader category) is an
+Islamic-era creation. In the process of craft-
+ing an Arab ethnic identity, a sense of a
+shared past was invoked, and the creation
+and telling of stories about that imagined
+past was crucial in this. Because this article
+deals with, in particular, the past construed
+
+43
+
+
+========== PAGE 3 ==========
+
+and imagined, I will use the words “pre-
+Islamic Arabs” without problematizing
+them. Though many of the writers of these
+stories about jahiliyya identified as Arab,
+they had a conflicted relationship with this
+(imagined) Arab past: on the one hand,
+the Arabs before Islam were, for example,
+noble warriors, great poets and esteemed
+astronomers; on the other, they were pagan
+polytheists, whose life was immoral (see
+e.g. Ibn Qutaybah 2017). It was, in a word,
+a troubling heritage, with various conflict-
+ing aspects.
+
+The alleged practice of female infanticide
+
+Pre-modern exegetes of the Qur'an, other
+medieval Muslim scholars and modern
+researchers for the most part agree that
+the Qur’an not only mentions and con-
+demns infanticide in general (verses 6:137,
+140, 151; 17:31; and 60:12), but also female
+infanticide in particular (16:57-59 and
+81:8-9). The putative practice of female
+infanticide is called in classical Arabic wad
+al-banat, which denotes (or came to mean)
+“burying baby daughters alive”. The follow-
+ing hadith (prophetic narrative) exempli-
+fies the understanding of the pre-modern
+Muslim scholars of what would routinely
+take place during the “age of ignorance”. In
+it, a tribal leader, Qays ibn ‘Asim al-Tamimi
+(that is, from the tribe Tamim), is portrayed
+as conversing with Muhammad as follows:
+
+Qays ibn ‘Asim came to the Prophet,
+may God bless him and give him peace.
+Qays said: “Messenger of God! During
+the jahiliyya, I buried alive (wa’adtu)
+eight daughters of mine. [What should
+I do to be redeemed of my sins?]” The
+Prophet answered: “Manumit a slave
+[as a recompense] for each one.” Qays
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+said: “Messenger of God, I have [only]
+camels.” The Prophet said: “Donate a
+camel [i.e., slaughter it and donate the
+meat to the poor] for each one, if you
+can.” (Al-Qurtubi 1935-1940, vol. xix,
+231; see also Wensinck 1936-69, vol.
+vii, 120-21)
+
+The extensive number of daughters so killed
+is an example of the image of pre-Islam that
+many Muslim scholars had in mind: it was
+a brutal place, and Islam brought about
+moral and legal reformation. (It should
+be noted that the text is not to be under-
+stood as decreeing the recompense or pun-
+ishment for infanticide in Islamic times;
+it merely concerns a compensation of this
+crime committed in pre-Islamic times,
+when, according to the narratives, it was
+not a prohibited practice.) The following
+report also speaks to this theme and pre-
+supposes a widespread cultural convention:
+
+When a pregnant woman was about
+to give birth during the jahiliyya, she
+would dig a grave and give birth next
+to it. If it [the baby] was a daughter,
+she would cast her in the grave, and
+if it was a son, she would keep him.
+(al-Tha‘labi 2002, vol. x, 139)
+
+The belief that the pre-Islamic Arabs would
+have routinely killed their baby daughters
+is not restricted to the pre-modern era.
+As even a cursory look at the basic refer-
+ence works of Islamic studies, such as the
+Encyclopaedia of Islam (second and third
+editions), shows, the alleged practice of wad
+al-banat has been accepted—with some
+exceptions—at face value by most modern
+scholars. For instance, in the second edi-
+tion of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Fred
+
+44
+
+
+========== PAGE 4 ==========
+
+Leemhuis (2012) takes it as a fact, writing
+under the entry wad al-banat: “the dis-
+posal by burying alive of newborn daugh-
+ters, refers to the practice in pre-Islamic
+times of burying newborn girls immedi-
+ately after birth [...] it may be concluded
+that, more generally, the practice was prob-
+ably a primitive sort of population control,
+though ‘gendered.” In the third edition of
+the Encyclopaedia, Avner Giladi (2009)
+writes: “According to Q[ur’an] 6:151 and
+17:31, Arab pagans practised infanticide
+as relief for both child and parents in times
+of deprivation; according to Q 16:57-59,
+pagans killed female infants because they
+preferred male offspring”
+
+These views are also routinely present
+in modern research articles. For exam-
+ple, Soner Aksoy (2024, 4) claims that
+“we know that the Jahiliyya Arabs had a
+custom of killing their daughters by bury-
+ing them alive” As for Aqsa Tasgheer and
+Muhammad Ishfaq (2021, 1), they opine
+that “This repugnant custom of killing
+infants was deeply rooted [among] Arabs”.
+
+Based on the scholarly reference works
+and studies just mentioned, it can be said
+that, until recently, the scholarly consensus
+has been that a) the Qur’an mentions and
+prohibits infanticide, in particular female
+infanticide, and b) that practice was cur-
+rent among the pre-Islamic Arabs. One
+could also mention that the idea of wide-
+spread killing of baby daughters in pre-
+Islamic times is a common view in the pop-
+ular discourse among modern Muslims.
+
+However, a few scholars have of late cast
+doubt on the pervasive and widespread
+nature of the practice. It has, for example,
+been noted that there were differences in
+how medieval Muslim scholars understood
+the custom of wa’d, some understanding
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+it as not containing clear gendered under-
+tones (female infanticide) but as a word
+that was also used for infant sons who were
+killed (for various critical approaches to the
+question, see Ibn Tunbak 2007; Paraskeva
+2021 and 2024).
+
+More pointedly, in an earlier publica-
+tion (Lindstedt 2023), I have taken issue
+with the conventional understanding of
+the two key Qur’anic passages (16:57-
+59 and 81:8-9). To quote them (and to
+adduce the whole beginning of Qur’an 81
+for context):
+
+16:57-59: °7And they [the disbeliev-
+ers] attribute daughters to God—
+immaculate is He—while they will
+have what they desire! *®When one of
+them is brought the news of a female
+[newborn], his face becomes darkened
+and he chokes with suppressed agony.
+°°He hides from the people out of dis-
+tress at the news he has been brought
+(ma bushshira bihi). Shall he retain
+it in humiliation, or hide it in/on the
+ground (yadussuhu fi al-turab)? Look!
+Evil is the judgement that they make.
+(Transl. ‘Ali Quli Qara’i, modified)
+
+Qur’an 81:1-9: !When the sun is
+wound up, 2when the stars scatter,
+3when the mountains are set moving,
+4when the pregnant camels are
+neglected, when the wild beasts are
+mustered, “when the seas are set afire,
+7when the souls are assorted, when
+the maw’iida will be asked (sw ilat)
+°for what sin she was killed, !°when
+the records [of deeds] are unfolded,
+when the sky is stripped off, !when
+hell is set ablaze, !2when paradise is
+
+brought near, !4then a soul shall know
+
+45
+
+
+========== PAGE 5 ==========
+
+what it has readied [for itself]. (Transl.
+‘Ali Quli Qara’i, modified)
+
+We can start by noting that no pre-Islamic
+source (in Arabic or any other language)
+evidences the supposed custom of female
+infanticide. Because of this silence, it is
+warranted to also look at the two purported
+Qur anic prooftexts (16:57-59 and 81:8-9)
+usually understood to reference the mur-
+dering of baby girls.
+
+I accept that the Qur’an (6:137, 140,
+151; 17:31; and 60:12) emphatically prohib-
+its infanticide generally speaking, but there
+does not appear to be any clear gendered
+aspects mentioned in these Quranic pas-
+sages, according to my interpretation. As
+for the passages 16:57-59 and 81:8-9, I sug-
+gest that the Arabic yadussuhu fi al-turab
+in verse 16:59 rather refers to (female)
+infant abandonment than to infanticide
+(naturally, abandonment often, but not
+always, resulted in the death of the child).
+Moreover, the anonymous disbeliever of
+the passage is portrayed as contemplat-
+ing abandoning his daughter; the passage
+cannot be used of evidence of a supposed
+cultural practice among pre-Islamic Arabs.
+As regards the other passage, it should be
+noted that the context is eschatological and
+the language somewhat cryptic.
+
+I argue, on the basis of pre- and early
+Islamic Arabic poetry, that the word
+al-maw ida in verse 81:8 should be under-
+stood as “the one (f.) who has been trod-
+den/trampled over” (Lindstedt 2023,
+16-23), rather than as “the female infant
+buried alive’, which is the conventional
+understanding of pre-modern exegetes and
+most modern scholars. In the compara-
+tive poetical material, all instances of the
+verb wa’ada appear to signify treading, in
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+particular loud treading or tramping (see
+now also the important study Paraskeva
+2024 on classical Arabic lexica).
+
+It is true that Qur’an 81:9 says that the
+maw’ ida has been killed, qutilat. But there
+is, in my opinion, little to suggest that the
+word maw’ ida refers to a child (girl); it
+could refer to an adult woman as well. I
+also suggest that the meaning “buried”
+for maw’ ida (root w-’-d) was inferred by
+the exegetes on the basis of another simi-
+lar root, namely w-d-’, which has meanings
+such as “to bury someone (by levelling the
+ground over them)” (for a longer discus-
+sion, see Lindstedt 2023).
+
+What I definitely do not want to say in
+this or the previous article is that a) pre-
+Islamic Arabs would never commit infan-
+ticide; b) that, if they did, they would not
+have, because of to some extent shared patri-
+archal values and misogyny, preferred boys
+over girls, leading to more daughters being
+killed; or c) some parents killing their chil-
+dren would not have buried them alive. It is
+indeed likely that, as in all societies, specifi-
+cally pre-modern ones, some parents killed
+their children because of food crises, pov-
+erty, mental disorder or other reasons. What
+I do argue for is that, though Q 6:137, 140,
+151; 17:31; and 60:12 refer to and repugn
+infanticide, generally speaking, there is scant
+Qur ’anic evidence for female infanticide, in
+particular, or, even more particularly, for the
+alleged common cultural practice of bury-
+ing daughters alive. The general prohibi-
+tion against infanticide, it should be noted,
+is shared by various religious traditions in
+addition to the Qur’an: see, for example,
+Deuteronomy 12:29-31 or the Didascalia
+Apostolorum (Zellentin 2013, 72-73).
+
+If my interpretation is accepted, it
+remains to be explored and explained in
+
+A6
+
+
+========== PAGE 6 ==========
+
+detail why the Islamic-era Arabs construed
+and projected the practice of female infan-
+ticide onto their forebears. Why would one
+narrate and re-narrate stories of the his-
+tory of one’s own ethnos as having been
+keen murderers of their own baby daugh-
+ters? The answer to that lies, I suggest, in
+inter-tribal polemics, comparison and
+temporality.
+
+Social identity and social comparison
+
+To probe and analyse the issue of inter-
+tribal polemics further, I contend that a
+look at modern theorization of social iden-
+tity and social comparison is helpful. The
+modern academic research of social com-
+parison can be said to have begun with
+Leon Festinger’s article (1954), which put
+forward a theory of social comparison pro-
+cesses. In Festinger’s view, social compari-
+son was related to, in particular, implicit
+and explicit self-evaluation through infor-
+mation gathering from and about other
+people. He also suggested that people have
+a “unidirectional drive upward” (Taylor
+and Lobel 2007, 96), meaning that indi-
+viduals endeavor to be and become more
+capable than both their own current level
+and also the individuals that they compare
+themselves to. Festinger’s views, though
+influential, were later supplemented with
+other observations and theorizations.
+
+One strand of research has focused on
+downward (rather than upward) social
+comparisons, while another has brought
+the concept of self-enhancement (in addi-
+tion to self-evaluation) to the fore. It has
+been noted, for example, that “under con-
+ditions of threat, individuals typically make
+downward social comparisons” (Taylor and
+Lobel 2007, 97-98): that is, when one’s self-
+esteem and/or status is low, one typically
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+displays more negative views of the out-
+groups and engages in downward social-
+comparison which, in this context at least,
+enhances one’s view of oneself.
+
+Social comparison can refer to a
+number of interrelated, but ultimately dis-
+tinct, phenomena. Festinger approached
+the question from the point of view of
+intragroup and interindividual processes.
+However, my own interest in this arti-
+cle is intergroup comparison, that is, how
+people “compare their own group with
+other groups” (Hogg 2000, 401). It is in
+particular among the social psychologists
+that have toiled with social identity theory
+(SIT) that the question of social compari-
+son processes’ links with self-esteem, on
+the one hand, and intergroup dynamics, on
+the other, has been probed. SIT began with
+the studies of Henri Tajfel, with important
+contributions over the years by, among
+others, John Turner, Michael Hogg and S.
+Alexander Haslam.
+
+The importance and usages of social
+comparison have been part of SIT litera-
+ture from the very beginning. In an influ-
+ential article, Tajfel (1972) noted that the
+meanings attached to a group and derived
+from social identification obtain through
+social comparison and relations to other
+groups (see also Hogg 2000, 404). Tajfel
+felt that Festinger concentrated too much
+on within-group comparisons; he, on the
+other hand, concentrated on the impor-
+tance of the intergroup. In SIT, a basic
+premise is that people aim for a positive
+self-image, self-esteem and social identity;
+social comparison is viewed as part and
+parcel of the processes related to this quest.
+Turner, Brown and Tajfel (1979, 190) put
+this well:
+
+4]
+
+
+========== PAGE 7 ==========
+
+It is assumed that individuals are
+motivated to achieve a positive self-
+image and that self-esteem can be
+enhanced by a positive evaluation of
+one’s own group. Own group is eval-
+uated by comparison with others:
+positively discrepant comparisons
+between ingroup and some relevant
+outgroup (perceived evaluative dif-
+ferences favouring the ingroup) pro-
+vide a positive group identity which
+enhances self-esteem. An individual's
+social identity is those aspects of his
+self-concept contributed by the social
+groups to which he perceives himself
+to belong. Very generally, then, indi-
+viduals are motivated to establish pos-
+itively valued differences (positively
+discrepant comparisons) between the
+ingroup and a relevant outgroup to
+achieve a positive social identity.
+
+Moreover, theorizing in the context of
+SIT and related fields has also focused on
+the temporal aspect of social categoriza-
+tion and values attached to groups (see e.g.
+Condor 1996). As Haslam, Reicher and
+Platow (2020, 155) note, “social identity is
+as much about future as about past social
+realities”. This means that, as regards social
+comparison, one can not only compare
+one’s own group with other groups, but also
+one’s own group to its past (in these studies,
+the notion of collective memory and imagi-
+nation is often invoked). Such comparison
+emphasizes the optimal nature of the pre-
+sent group identity. In fact, the narratives
+about the past are not primarily about the
+history but about the present and the future
+of the group (see the various contributions
+in Saint-Laurent, Odradovi¢ and Carriere
+2018).
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+These insights from the research on
+social comparison are useful in discuss-
+ing, first, the early Islamic-era inter-tribal
+polemics and, second, the broader dis-
+course on and creation of the depiction
+of the jahiliyya, or the pre-Islamic “era of
+ignorance.’ I understand inter-tribal preju-
+dice and polemics (discussed in what fol-
+lows) as being one reflection of downward
+comparison (Hogg 2000, 403), which some
+early Muslims employed to create a positive
+group identity for themselves and, more
+generally, fashioned a narrative about the
+past that underlined the civilizing nature of
+Islam.
+
+Processes of inter-tribal polemics and the
+alleged wa’d al-banat
+
+This section endeavours to reconstruct the
+historical trajectory through which the idea
+of widespread female infanticide among pre-
+Islamic Arabs was construed. I argue that
+the notion first began its life as part of inter-
+tribal, specifically anti-Tamimi, polemics.
+After the idea had surfaced, the putative
+tradition of burying baby daughters alive
+was generalized to all pre-Islamic Arabs
+and became one of the means, and themes,
+that Muslim religious and other schol-
+ars employed to create a sense of immoral
+pre-Islam, which was understood to be in
+marked opposition to the moral Muslim
+way of life. This imagined notion, I sug-
+gest, was read into the Qur’an itself through
+the exegesis of verses 16:57-59 and 81:8-9
+(I have explored this process of exegesis in
+some detail in Lindstedt 2023, 13-8).
+
+As Ihave stated, the memory of jahiliyya
+was a conflicted one, but one which the
+Muslim authors could not escape, as El
+Cheikh has noted (see the quotation at the
+beginning of this article). Chivalry, valor
+
+48
+
+
+========== PAGE 8 ==========
+
+and poetic excellence were projected onto
+the Arabs of jahiliyya; but so were drunken-
+ness, promiscuity, paganism and the unset-
+tling idea that they engaged in a vicious
+tradition of female infanticide. Moreover,
+the imagined manner of accomplishing
+the infanticide was most cruel: burying the
+infant daughters alive.
+
+First, we should try to reconstruct how
+the notion of wa‘d al-banat appeared and
+spread in Islamic-era Arabic literature. I
+suggest in the following that it first emerged
+after the second civil war or fitna (680-
+92 CE) as inter-tribal polemics and only
+afterwards was projected onto the whole
+Arab ethnos (as it was remembered—or
+construed—to have existed before Islam).
+Eventually, for instance, the famous ninth-
+tenth-century exegete al-Tabari adduced
+the view according to which the Arabs had
+been, of all humankind, the most eager
+to commit the offence of female infanti-
+cide (kanat al- ‘arab af‘al al-nas li-dhdalika;
+al-Tabari 2001, vol. xxiv, 148).
+
+Important hints for analysing the
+appearance and development of this dis-
+course can be found in identifying the
+people and tribes that are connected to the
+(supposed) pre-Islamic cultural custom by
+Muslim authors, who were writing centu-
+ries after the events. For allegedly having
+been a very widespread practice, men-
+tions of named individuals who actually
+committed the crime are, surprisingly, few
+and far between. We do find some names
+of the perpetrators in the sources: i) a
+rather obscure figure called Nu‘aym ibn
+Qa‘nab; ii) strikingly, in a few narrations
+the later Caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab; iii)
+and, lastly and most commonly, Qays ibn
+‘Asim al-Tamimi, who was mentioned at
+the beginning of this article as having killed
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+eight of his daughters before embracing
+Islam and who is the most infamous child-
+killer in the Muslim historiographical and
+other literature (see Wensinck 1936-69,
+vol. vii, 120-21; Paraskeva 2021).
+
+However, something does not feel quite
+right about these narratives of the alleged
+daughter-murderers: the narratives appear
+tendentious and unrealistic, as fittingly
+analysed by Tsampika-Mika Paraskeva
+(2021, 271-80). Indeed, I would suggest
+that they were invented out of whole cloth.
+
+Let us take the narratives on Qays
+ibn ‘Asim al-Tamimi, the most notori-
+ous daughter-murderer in classical Arabic
+accounts (for a long collection of bio-
+graphical reports on him, see al-Isfahani
+2009, vol. xiv, 46-59). The emerging biog-
+raphy of Qays ibn ‘Asim is very conflicted:
+on the one hand, his crimes of murdering
+his own daughters by burying them alive
+are recounted at some length (al-Isfahani
+2009, vol. xiv, 46-47, 58). Also, we have
+other negative portrayals of him: he is
+said to have imbibed alcohol frequently
+and forsaken Islam after the death of the
+Prophet (al-Isfahani 2009, vol. xiv, 49, 54,
+57; Lecker 2005, 48 remarks that “Qays
+ibn ‘Asim abstained from drinking wine,”
+but he fails to give the context, which is
+that, according to some narratives, Qays
+gave up wine after multiple mishaps and
+transgressions while drunk). On the other
+hand, very positive accounts co-exist side
+by side with the negative ones: for exam-
+ple, the Prophet Muhammad is depicted
+as calling Qays ibn ‘Asim “the lord of all
+the nomads” (al-Isfahani 2009, vol. xiv, 49).
+Moreover, on the death of Qays, the famous
+poet ‘Abda ibn al-Tabib al-Tamimi is said
+to have composed an attractive poem in
+Qays’s memory, in which ‘Abda asks God to
+
+49
+
+
+========== PAGE 9 ==========
+
+bless Qays. ‘Abda ends the poem by declar-
+ing: “The death of Qays is not simply the
+death of an individual; he was the edifice
+of a whole nation/tribe (qawm), which has
+now collapsed” (al-Isfahani 2009, vol. xiv,
+53, my translation). It is difficult, indeed
+impossible, to square this beautiful lament
+by ‘Abda with the narratives of Qays the sot
+and child-killer.
+
+In addition to Qays ibn
+al-Tamimi being the most well-known
+
+‘Asim
+
+and notorious daughter-murdering indi-
+vidual, his tribe, Tamim is remembered
+as the one that most often committed this
+crime. For instance, al-Mubarrad (d. 898)
+remarks that the crime of female infanti-
+cide did not characterize all pre-Islamic
+Arabs at the beginning but only the tribe
+of Tamim, though the practice then spread
+among their neighbors to a certain degree
+(al-Mubarrad 1874, vol. i, 277). Al-Qurtubi
+(d. 1273) also mentions that Tamim was the
+most eager in perpetrating female infan-
+ticide, though Mudar and Khuza‘a would
+commit it as well (al-Qurtubi 1935-40, vol.
+x, 117; however, this remark is a bit confus-
+ing since Mudar was a large tribal confed-
+eration that included, among other tribes,
+Tamim).
+
+A unique stance is witnessed in the lex-
+icographer al-Jawhari’s (d. ca. 1002) work
+(and a few later works citing al-Jawhar1),
+who notes that it was, instead, the tribe
+Kinda who committed female infanticide
+(Paraskeva 2024, 35). However, there does
+not appear to be a single individual from
+Kinda identified in the sources as engag-
+ing in wa’d al-banat.? All in all, it is safe
+to conclude that the supposed cultural
+
+2 I thank Tsampika-Mika Paraskeva for
+pointing this out to me in a private com-
+munication.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+convention of female infanticide is, in clas-
+sical Muslim literature, most often ascribed
+to the tribe Tamim (in addition to the ref-
+erences already given, see e.g. al-Maydani
+n.d., vol. i, 424; Ibn Abi al-Hadid 2019, vol.
+xiii, 174) and their tribal leader, Qays ibn
+‘Asim, serves as the literary figure who
+epitomizes this barbaric and blood-thirsty
+putative pre-Islamic practice.
+
+I argue that there are a number of differ-
+ent reasons why the tribe Tamim was subject
+to vehement attacks in poetry and prose. To
+begin with, some of the Tamim joined the
+early Islamic-era rebellious Khariji move-
+ments and revolts, which used, or at least
+were portrayed as using, unrestricted vio-
+lence against other Muslims (Ulrich 2019:
+114; Hagemann 2021: 69-73). Indeed, sev-
+eral famous early Kharijis, such as “‘Urwa
+ibn Udayya and Hurgqts ibn Zuhayr, were
+from Tamim (El-Hibri 2010: 183, 236;
+Hagemann 2021: 69). Moreover, Tamim
+and other important Muslim tribes of the
+Umayyad era (661-750 CE), such as Azd,
+often vied for political position and status
+and sometimes met on the actual battlefield
+to fight against each other (Ulrich 2019:
+93).
+
+And crucially, in the midst of the second
+Muslim civil war, many Tamimis sup-
+ported the counter-Caliph ‘Abdallah ibn
+al-Zubayr during his Caliphate in 683-92
+CE (Ulrich 2019: 87), which posed a severe
+threat to the rule of the Umayyad Caliphs
+(who held power in Syria). In the eyes of the
+supporters of the Umayyad Caliphate, this
+soiled the Tamimis. Soon after ‘Abdallah
+ibn al-Zubayr was brutally killed by the
+Umayyad troops in 692 CE, the loyal poet
+of the Umayyad dynasty, al-Akhtal (d. 708)
+composed a poem in praise of the Umayyad
+state. Significantly for the arguments of this
+
+50
+
+
+========== PAGE 10 ==========
+
+article, al-Akhtal denigrated a number of
+Tamimi clans in this celebrated poem:
+
+As for the Kulayb ibn Yarbu‘ [a clan
+from Tamim], when tribes vie
+
+to reach the water hole,
+
+They have no way to get to water or
+return.
+
+Left behind, other men determine
+their affairs,
+
+Left in the dark, they neither see nor
+sense
+
+what's going on.
+
+[...]
+
+What wretches they are sober!
+
+What wretched drinkers when they’re
+drunk!
+
+When strong wine or mellow date-
+brew courses
+
+through their veins.
+
+Their tribe [Kulayb ibn Yarba‘ or the
+wider Tamim] is where
+
+every foul deed ends up.
+
+[...]
+
+The Ghudana [another clan from
+Tamim] have no station
+
+whatsoever;
+
+They must restrain their thirsty flocks
+of sheep
+
+till only dregs remain.
+
+[...]
+
+Then they go home to women
+that are dark and defiled,
+Who after their crotches
+satisfied
+
+do not bathe.
+
+itch is
+
+Glory has truly sworn
+that it will have
+No covenant with them
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+till the hand’s palm grows hair.
+(Arabic text in and _ translation
+adapted from Stetkevych 2002, 96-97,
+297-298)
+
+This vulgar poem shows many aspects of
+anti-Tamimi polemics. Various Tamimi
+sub-tribes are disparaged by al-Akhtal: they
+do not have any political or social standing
+according to al-Akhtal, and their moralities
+are more than suspect. The Tamimis do not
+know how to carry themselves while sober,
+nor do they know how to drink in a cultured
+manner. Their women are “defiled” and do
+not bathe after sexual intercourse, thus
+remaining impure ad infinitum. It should
+be acknowledged that al-Akhtal does not
+mention infanticide among the supposed
+vices of the Tamimis, but I hypothesize that
+it was one of the aspects in the anti-Tamimi
+discourse that was current after the second
+Muslim civil war. Above, I have noted that
+several classical Arabic sources state that
+infanticide was specifically a Tamimi vice;
+here, I conjecture that this arose during or
+in the aftermath of the second civil war.
+
+Behind my hypothesis is, among other
+things, the fact that the contemporary
+Tamimi poet al-Farazdaq (d. 728) appears
+to be reacting to such anti-Tamimi polem-
+ics when he boasts that, not only did the
+Tamimis not commit infanticide in the pre-
+sent day, in fact, one of his relatives (identi-
+fied by commentators as his paternal uncle
+Sa‘sa‘a ibn Najiya, on whom see Paraskeva
+2021, 281-91) forbade the practice already
+in the pre-Islamic era. Al-Farazdaq com-
+posed the following verse in reference to
+this:
+
+My uncle was the one who forbade the
+killers (fem.) of infants (al-wa idat)
+
+
+========== PAGE 11 ==========
+
+He saved (ahya) the to-be-murdered
+infant (al-wa id), who was not buried
+alive (lam yi’ad). (al-Qurtubi 1935-
+AO, vol. x, 117; Paraskeva 2021, 289-91)
+
+It is interesting, incidentally, that in al-Far-
+azdaq’s verse the killers of infants are moth-
+ers and the killed infants are masculine (or
+non-gendered, if we take the masculine lam
+yuad to refer to a child, walad, regardless
+of gender). This shows that the understand-
+ing of the putative pre-Islamic practice of
+burying infants alive was still evolving and
+not understood to refer to, in particular,
+daughters (Paraskeva 2024, 19-21).
+
+Taking into consideration the fact that
+sources often ascribe the custom to a spe-
+cific tribe (mostly Tamim) and that al-
+Farazdaq (a Tamimi poet), boasts of his tribe
+as having instead rejected the practice early
+on, it would seem plausible that the reports
+about the alleged Arab infant-killers arose
+as polemics against that particular tribe,
+and al-Farazdaq was reacting to and rebut-
+ting such discourse. Hence, I suggest that
+since Tamim is often mentioned in classical
+Arabic historiographical and other literature
+as the most bloodthirsty in this regard, it can
+be argued that the reports of wa’d were for-
+mulated as an anti-Tamim attack. Indeed,
+the tribe Tamim appears to have been the
+butt of much denigration. Michael Lecker
+(2005) notes that Tamimi and anti-Tamimi
+informants provided clashing reports about
+the history and fame of the said tribe in the
+early Islamic period (on early Islamic-era
+tribal lore, not exclusively in the context of
+Tamim, see also Shoshan 2016, 29-52).
+
+If we entertain this line of thought, the
+development of the notion could be recon-
+structed as follows: At some point during
+the seventh century CE (in all likelihood
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+toward the end of the century), Quranic
+verses 16:57-59 and 81:8 were understood
+to refer to female infanticide (by burying
+the infants alive). Soon after that, the pas-
+sages were connected with the pre-Islamic
+habits of the tribe Tamim by non- and anti-
+Tamimi scholars, though the Qur’an natu-
+rally makes no such particular mention of
+the tribe. Al-Farazdaq’s verse would then
+be a rebuttal of these anti-Tamimi polem-
+ics. And later, starting in the eighth century,
+Muslim scholars started to delineate the
+jahiliyya more starkly from the virtuous life
+of the Islamic era and began to project the
+wa'd al-banat onto numerous Arab tribes
+and claim that it was a more pervasive pre-
+Islamic custom. Al-Mubarrad’s point, men-
+tioned above—that female infanticide did
+not, at first, describe all Arabs but only the
+tribe of Tamim though the practice then
+spread to other tribes—can then be refor-
+mulated: the violent myth of wa’d al-banat
+was first employed to disparage Tamim but
+was later understood to be a pervasive pre-
+Islamic Arab custom.
+
+However, I should note that not eve-
+ryone seems to have been happy with
+this portrayal of Arab forefathers and
+mothers. This is witnessed by classical
+Arabic sources mentioning individu-
+als who rejected and forbade the sup-
+posed culture of female infanticide. For
+example, the Prophet Muhammad’s
+grandfather “Abd al-Muttalib is cited
+as one such person (al-Ya‘qubi 1883,
+vol. ii, 9; 2018, vol. iii, 604).
+
+Conclusions: social comparison and the
+creation of a troubling past
+
+In this article, I have proposed that clas-
+sical Arabic depictions of jahiliyya do not
+
+52
+
+
+========== PAGE 12 ==========
+
+often accurately reflect pre-Islamic events.
+Instead, these portrayals were ideologically
+driven, crafted to highlight the enlighten-
+ing impact of the new religion, Islam.
+
+If so, how is one to understand the crea-
+tion of a troubling Arab past, in particular
+when it was put forward by scholars writ-
+ing in Arabic and (often but not always)
+self-identifying as Arab? First, it shows the
+sometimes incompatible and creative ways
+that different social categorizations inter-
+sect and social comparison works.
+
+For example, when a ninth-century
+Muslim Arab compared herself to a Muslim
+non-Arab (say, Persian), she could adduce
+the purported glorious past of the Arabs
+as noble poets and warriors of the desert
+and as conquerors of Iran in Islamic times
+in social comparison. This is illustrated by
+Ibn Qutaybah, who noted (2017, 17): “The
+Persians did possess all of these [luxuri-
+ous things and majesty] [...] But then God
+gave them to the Arabs, who plundered the
+Persians, stripping them of their riches like
+bark from a tree. Just as a revelation that
+overrides an earlier one is better, so too it is
+with peoples.”
+
+Needless to say, this was not always suc-
+cessful. Indeed, non-Arab Muslims some-
+times used the established negative ste-
+reotypes of the pre-Islamic Arabs to their
+advantage. For example, the Iranian eighth-
+century poet Isma‘il ibn Yasar is said to
+have composed the following verses: “How
+have we [the Iranians] been in the long
+stretch of history? / Indeed, we raised our
+daughters, while you buried yours alive in
+the ground!” (Savran 2007-08, 45).
+
+Furthermore, the imagined past of the
+in-group can also accommodate disquiet-
+ing and negative aspects, in particular if
+those characteristics can be said to have
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+been overcome and left behind in the pre-
+sent. Here, the concept of jahiliyya was uti-
+lized to mark the moment of this overcom-
+ing. The ethico-legal reform that Islam was
+seen as bringing about was to a degree con-
+strued by creating and recounting a pre-
+Islamic past that contained much stereo-
+typing and imagined history of “the Arabs”.
+In this manner, the Islamic-era Arabs com-
+pared themselves not so much with other
+groups as the purported past of their own
+ethnos.
+
+Lastly, the trope of (in particular,
+female) infanticide served as fodder for
+inter-tribal polemics—indeed, I have sug-
+gested that it originated as such. The non-
+Tamimi tribes used it to defame Tamim,
+while there appears to have been oppos-
+ing efforts, possibly by Tamim, to ascribe
+this grim cultural practice to other tribes
+such as Kinda. Nonetheless, these coun-
+ter-polemical endeavours did not became
+as developed: no individual from Kinda is
+singled out as exemplifying the crime of
+infanticide. Among the Tamim, we find
+the conflicting portrayal of Qays ibn ‘Asim
+al-Tamimi, who, on the one hand, is por-
+trayed as a sot, a mass-murderer of his own
+daughters, and an apostate; on the other, we
+see the Prophet praising him and the poet
+‘Abda ibn al-Tabib composing a beautiful
+elegy in his memory, portraying him as a
+larger-than-life figure who merits God's
+mercy and blessing. As such, one can say
+that the literary figure of Qays ibn ‘Asim
+al-Tamimi epitomizes not only pro- versus
+anti-Tamimi narratives, in particular, but
+also the clashing Muslim depictions of
+jahiliyya, in general.
+
+53
+
+
+========== PAGE 13 ==========
+
+Ilkka Lindstedt (Ph.D.,
+University of Helsinki,
+2014) is Lecturer in
+Islamic theology at the
+University of Helsinki,
+Finland. He has pub-
+lished several studies on
+pre-Islamic Arabia, early
+Islam, Arabic epigraphy
+and Arabic historiogra-
+phy. He is_ particularly
+interested in changes in religious groups and
+ideas in late antique Arabia. His monograph
+Muhammad and His Followers in Context: The Reli-
+gious Map of Late Antique Arabia was published by
+Brill in 2023. Other recent publications include:
+“The Qur'an and the putative pre-Islamic prac-
+tice of female infanticide”, Journal of the Inter-
+national Qur‘anic Studies Association 8 (2023):
+5-29; “The Seed of Abraham: Gentile Ethnicity in
+Early Christian Texts and the Qur'an”, Advances
+in Ancient, Biblical and Near Eastern Research 3/3
+(2023): 253-313; “The scripture is an instantia-
+tion of divine discourse’: Mulla Sadra’'s notions
+on God's speech (kalam Allah) and the Koran”,
+Studia Islamica 119 (2024): 97-129; and Ilkka
+Lindstedt, Nina Nikki and Riikka Tuori (eds.),
+Walking Together & Parting Ways: Religious Identi-
+ties in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages Leiden:
+Brill (2022).
+
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+ILKKA LINDSTEDT
+
+The Portrayal of the Pre-Islamic Arabs as
+Murderers of Their Own Infants
+
+doi.org/10.30664/ar.148924
+
+his article critically reassesses the
+Teun of the supposed custom of infan-
+
+ticide, particularly female infanticide (in
+Arabic, wa’d al-bandat), among pre-Islamic Arabs,
+arguing that this notion emerged during the
+Umayyad era as an imagined aspect of the so-
+called pre-Islamic jahiliyya (“age of ignorance”).
+Both noble aspects, such as valour and esteemed
+poetry, and debased ones, such as polytheism
+and immorality, were ascribed to pre-Islamic
+Arabs, thus encapsulating a troublesome her-
+itage. Additionally, this article explores some
+aspects of the Islamic-era political dynamics,
+particularly the polemics between various Ara-
+bian tribes. The case of the tribe of Tamim—who
+are said to have been the main perpetrators of
+infanticide—is examined, highlighting how inter-
+tribal polemics influenced the birth and populari-
+zation of tales depicting the Tamim as engaged
+in the brutal practice of daughter-killing. In my
+interpretation, the Tamim became the butt of
+these polemical attacks because they fought on
+the losing side during the second Muslim fitna,
+“civil war” (680-92 CE). | argue that the sus-
+tained recollection and retelling of the jahiliyya
+narratives served not only to forge a new Muslim
+identity and self-assertion of moral reformation
+but also to facilitate intra-Arab distinctions in
+Islamic times. Social Identity Theory (SIT) serves
+as the interpretive framework of the article.
+
+1 lam very grateful to Adham Abdel-Bary, Jutta
+Jokiranta, Tariq Osman, Tsampika-Mika Par-
+askeva, Nina Nikki, Mulki al-Sharmani and
+the late Jaakko Hameen-Anttila for important
+comments on earlier versions of this article.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+©)@ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
+
+VERTAISARVIOITU
+~ KOLLEGIALT GRANSKAD
+wy. PEER-REVIEWED
+
+www.tsv.fi/tunnus
+
+Introduction
+
+Muslim religious scholars, starting in the
+late seventh century CE (as suggested by
+Donner 2010; Lindstedt 2024), began to
+formulate and maintain a distinct Islamic
+identity, which was articulated in contrast
+to other religious communities—in par-
+ticular, Jews, Christians, Manicheans and
+Zoroastrians—but also in contrast to pre-
+Islamic Arabs who lived during the so-
+called jahiliyya, or “the age of ignorance”
+(an era before the mission of the Prophet
+Muhammad, which lasted ca. 610-32 CE).
+For example, in his famous work Nahj
+al-Balagha, al-Sharif al-Radi (d. 1015)
+states that the pre-Islamic Arabs were
+
+camel-herders tending to their beasts’
+sores and harvesting their wool.
+They lived as the most wretched of
+nations, with the least fertile fields,
+with no mission under whose wing
+they could seek shelter, no column of
+unity on whose strength they could
+depend. Their situation was volatile,
+their hands discordant, their num-
+bers scattered. They were trapped in a
+hard trial and crushed under rocks of
+ignorance: they buried baby girls alive,
+
+42
diff --git a/ocr-output/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs/txt/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs_page_0002.txt b/ocr-output/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs/txt/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs_page_0002.txt
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/ocr-output/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs/txt/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs_page_0002.txt	
@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+worshipped idols, cut ties of kinship,
+and raided one another. Observe the
+abundance of God’s blessings [with
+the coming of Islam] on them [the
+Arabs]. He sent them a messenger
+[the Prophet Muhammad], secured
+their obedience through his religion
+[Islam], and gathered their company
+within his mission. See how bounty
+spread the wings of her generosity
+over them and the wellsprings of her
+delights flowed. See how the new reli-
+gion gathered them within the gifts of
+its grace. They were immersed in its
+bounty, joyful in the fresh greenness
+of its way of life. (al-Sharif al-Radi
+2024, 453-55)
+
+This is an illustrative example of the ways
+in which Muslim authors saw the coming
+of Islam (“the new religion gathered them
+within the gifts of its grace”) and what
+existed before it (Arabs had been “crushed
+under rocks of ignorance: they buried baby
+girls alive, worshipped idols, cut ties of
+kinship, and raided one another”). Such
+characterizations are habitually echoed
+in modern scholarship (e.g. Aksoy 2024).
+However, al-Sharif al-Radi’s and simi-
+lar writings were not really describing
+what had taken place in pre-Islamic times;
+rather, they were ideological and tenden-
+tious accounts that were used to argue for
+and emphasize the illuminating nature of
+the new religion, Islam.
+
+Indeed, much recent scholarship (e.g.
+Drory 1996; El Cheikh 2015; Crone 2016;
+Webb 2016) has called into question many
+of the narratives about, and traits ascribed
+to, the pre-Islamic inhabitants of Arabia
+contained in Islamic-era literature. As Nadia
+Maria El Cheikh (2015, 18) has aptly noted:
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+Jahiliyya indicated the negative image
+ofa society seen as the opposite pole of
+Islam. It was portrayed as a state of cor-
+ruption and immorality from which
+God delivered the Arabs by sending
+them the Prophet Muhammad. [...]
+The sharp distinction between the
+pre-Islamic and Islamic periods meant
+that the people of jahiliyya lingered
+in the imperial Muslim imagination.
+They functioned as a signifier of a new
+Muslim identity emanating from the
+heritage of jahiliyya, a Muslim identity
+that could not exist without the con-
+stant remembering and retelling of the
+story of jahiliyya.
+
+On the basis of this view, which I agree
+with, these classical Arabic narratives of
+the “age of ignorance” were more a founda-
+tion myth than factual history. For exam-
+ple, though the jahiliyya is portrayed by
+later Muslim authors as an era and state
+of idolatrous barbarism, many pre-Islamic
+Arabians were, in fact, monotheists (Jews,
+Christians or so-called pagan monothe-
+ists); and, moreover, they engaged in ethical
+thought and practices that to some degree
+corresponded to later Islamic-era ones
+(Crone 2016, 53-183; Jamil 2017; Al-Jallad
+and Sidky 2024; Lindstedt 2024, 42-144).
+Importantly too, contrary to what has
+been thought conventionally in scholar-
+ship and popular discourse, it has been
+suggested by Peter Webb (2016) that Arab
+identity itself (as a broader category) is an
+Islamic-era creation. In the process of craft-
+ing an Arab ethnic identity, a sense of a
+shared past was invoked, and the creation
+and telling of stories about that imagined
+past was crucial in this. Because this article
+deals with, in particular, the past construed
+
+43
diff --git a/ocr-output/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs/txt/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs_page_0003.txt b/ocr-output/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs/txt/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs_page_0003.txt
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@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+and imagined, I will use the words “pre-
+Islamic Arabs” without problematizing
+them. Though many of the writers of these
+stories about jahiliyya identified as Arab,
+they had a conflicted relationship with this
+(imagined) Arab past: on the one hand,
+the Arabs before Islam were, for example,
+noble warriors, great poets and esteemed
+astronomers; on the other, they were pagan
+polytheists, whose life was immoral (see
+e.g. Ibn Qutaybah 2017). It was, in a word,
+a troubling heritage, with various conflict-
+ing aspects.
+
+The alleged practice of female infanticide
+
+Pre-modern exegetes of the Qur'an, other
+medieval Muslim scholars and modern
+researchers for the most part agree that
+the Qur’an not only mentions and con-
+demns infanticide in general (verses 6:137,
+140, 151; 17:31; and 60:12), but also female
+infanticide in particular (16:57-59 and
+81:8-9). The putative practice of female
+infanticide is called in classical Arabic wad
+al-banat, which denotes (or came to mean)
+“burying baby daughters alive”. The follow-
+ing hadith (prophetic narrative) exempli-
+fies the understanding of the pre-modern
+Muslim scholars of what would routinely
+take place during the “age of ignorance”. In
+it, a tribal leader, Qays ibn ‘Asim al-Tamimi
+(that is, from the tribe Tamim), is portrayed
+as conversing with Muhammad as follows:
+
+Qays ibn ‘Asim came to the Prophet,
+may God bless him and give him peace.
+Qays said: “Messenger of God! During
+the jahiliyya, I buried alive (wa’adtu)
+eight daughters of mine. [What should
+I do to be redeemed of my sins?]” The
+Prophet answered: “Manumit a slave
+[as a recompense] for each one.” Qays
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+said: “Messenger of God, I have [only]
+camels.” The Prophet said: “Donate a
+camel [i.e., slaughter it and donate the
+meat to the poor] for each one, if you
+can.” (Al-Qurtubi 1935-1940, vol. xix,
+231; see also Wensinck 1936-69, vol.
+vii, 120-21)
+
+The extensive number of daughters so killed
+is an example of the image of pre-Islam that
+many Muslim scholars had in mind: it was
+a brutal place, and Islam brought about
+moral and legal reformation. (It should
+be noted that the text is not to be under-
+stood as decreeing the recompense or pun-
+ishment for infanticide in Islamic times;
+it merely concerns a compensation of this
+crime committed in pre-Islamic times,
+when, according to the narratives, it was
+not a prohibited practice.) The following
+report also speaks to this theme and pre-
+supposes a widespread cultural convention:
+
+When a pregnant woman was about
+to give birth during the jahiliyya, she
+would dig a grave and give birth next
+to it. If it [the baby] was a daughter,
+she would cast her in the grave, and
+if it was a son, she would keep him.
+(al-Tha‘labi 2002, vol. x, 139)
+
+The belief that the pre-Islamic Arabs would
+have routinely killed their baby daughters
+is not restricted to the pre-modern era.
+As even a cursory look at the basic refer-
+ence works of Islamic studies, such as the
+Encyclopaedia of Islam (second and third
+editions), shows, the alleged practice of wad
+al-banat has been accepted—with some
+exceptions—at face value by most modern
+scholars. For instance, in the second edi-
+tion of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Fred
+
+44
diff --git a/ocr-output/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs/txt/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs_page_0004.txt b/ocr-output/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs/txt/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs_page_0004.txt
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/ocr-output/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs/txt/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs_page_0004.txt	
@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+Leemhuis (2012) takes it as a fact, writing
+under the entry wad al-banat: “the dis-
+posal by burying alive of newborn daugh-
+ters, refers to the practice in pre-Islamic
+times of burying newborn girls immedi-
+ately after birth [...] it may be concluded
+that, more generally, the practice was prob-
+ably a primitive sort of population control,
+though ‘gendered.” In the third edition of
+the Encyclopaedia, Avner Giladi (2009)
+writes: “According to Q[ur’an] 6:151 and
+17:31, Arab pagans practised infanticide
+as relief for both child and parents in times
+of deprivation; according to Q 16:57-59,
+pagans killed female infants because they
+preferred male offspring”
+
+These views are also routinely present
+in modern research articles. For exam-
+ple, Soner Aksoy (2024, 4) claims that
+“we know that the Jahiliyya Arabs had a
+custom of killing their daughters by bury-
+ing them alive” As for Aqsa Tasgheer and
+Muhammad Ishfaq (2021, 1), they opine
+that “This repugnant custom of killing
+infants was deeply rooted [among] Arabs”.
+
+Based on the scholarly reference works
+and studies just mentioned, it can be said
+that, until recently, the scholarly consensus
+has been that a) the Qur’an mentions and
+prohibits infanticide, in particular female
+infanticide, and b) that practice was cur-
+rent among the pre-Islamic Arabs. One
+could also mention that the idea of wide-
+spread killing of baby daughters in pre-
+Islamic times is a common view in the pop-
+ular discourse among modern Muslims.
+
+However, a few scholars have of late cast
+doubt on the pervasive and widespread
+nature of the practice. It has, for example,
+been noted that there were differences in
+how medieval Muslim scholars understood
+the custom of wa’d, some understanding
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+it as not containing clear gendered under-
+tones (female infanticide) but as a word
+that was also used for infant sons who were
+killed (for various critical approaches to the
+question, see Ibn Tunbak 2007; Paraskeva
+2021 and 2024).
+
+More pointedly, in an earlier publica-
+tion (Lindstedt 2023), I have taken issue
+with the conventional understanding of
+the two key Qur’anic passages (16:57-
+59 and 81:8-9). To quote them (and to
+adduce the whole beginning of Qur’an 81
+for context):
+
+16:57-59: °7And they [the disbeliev-
+ers] attribute daughters to God—
+immaculate is He—while they will
+have what they desire! *®When one of
+them is brought the news of a female
+[newborn], his face becomes darkened
+and he chokes with suppressed agony.
+°°He hides from the people out of dis-
+tress at the news he has been brought
+(ma bushshira bihi). Shall he retain
+it in humiliation, or hide it in/on the
+ground (yadussuhu fi al-turab)? Look!
+Evil is the judgement that they make.
+(Transl. ‘Ali Quli Qara’i, modified)
+
+Qur’an 81:1-9: !When the sun is
+wound up, 2when the stars scatter,
+3when the mountains are set moving,
+4when the pregnant camels are
+neglected, when the wild beasts are
+mustered, “when the seas are set afire,
+7when the souls are assorted, when
+the maw’iida will be asked (sw ilat)
+°for what sin she was killed, !°when
+the records [of deeds] are unfolded,
+when the sky is stripped off, !when
+hell is set ablaze, !2when paradise is
+
+brought near, !4then a soul shall know
+
+45
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+what it has readied [for itself]. (Transl.
+‘Ali Quli Qara’i, modified)
+
+We can start by noting that no pre-Islamic
+source (in Arabic or any other language)
+evidences the supposed custom of female
+infanticide. Because of this silence, it is
+warranted to also look at the two purported
+Qur anic prooftexts (16:57-59 and 81:8-9)
+usually understood to reference the mur-
+dering of baby girls.
+
+I accept that the Qur’an (6:137, 140,
+151; 17:31; and 60:12) emphatically prohib-
+its infanticide generally speaking, but there
+does not appear to be any clear gendered
+aspects mentioned in these Quranic pas-
+sages, according to my interpretation. As
+for the passages 16:57-59 and 81:8-9, I sug-
+gest that the Arabic yadussuhu fi al-turab
+in verse 16:59 rather refers to (female)
+infant abandonment than to infanticide
+(naturally, abandonment often, but not
+always, resulted in the death of the child).
+Moreover, the anonymous disbeliever of
+the passage is portrayed as contemplat-
+ing abandoning his daughter; the passage
+cannot be used of evidence of a supposed
+cultural practice among pre-Islamic Arabs.
+As regards the other passage, it should be
+noted that the context is eschatological and
+the language somewhat cryptic.
+
+I argue, on the basis of pre- and early
+Islamic Arabic poetry, that the word
+al-maw ida in verse 81:8 should be under-
+stood as “the one (f.) who has been trod-
+den/trampled over” (Lindstedt 2023,
+16-23), rather than as “the female infant
+buried alive’, which is the conventional
+understanding of pre-modern exegetes and
+most modern scholars. In the compara-
+tive poetical material, all instances of the
+verb wa’ada appear to signify treading, in
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+particular loud treading or tramping (see
+now also the important study Paraskeva
+2024 on classical Arabic lexica).
+
+It is true that Qur’an 81:9 says that the
+maw’ ida has been killed, qutilat. But there
+is, in my opinion, little to suggest that the
+word maw’ ida refers to a child (girl); it
+could refer to an adult woman as well. I
+also suggest that the meaning “buried”
+for maw’ ida (root w-’-d) was inferred by
+the exegetes on the basis of another simi-
+lar root, namely w-d-’, which has meanings
+such as “to bury someone (by levelling the
+ground over them)” (for a longer discus-
+sion, see Lindstedt 2023).
+
+What I definitely do not want to say in
+this or the previous article is that a) pre-
+Islamic Arabs would never commit infan-
+ticide; b) that, if they did, they would not
+have, because of to some extent shared patri-
+archal values and misogyny, preferred boys
+over girls, leading to more daughters being
+killed; or c) some parents killing their chil-
+dren would not have buried them alive. It is
+indeed likely that, as in all societies, specifi-
+cally pre-modern ones, some parents killed
+their children because of food crises, pov-
+erty, mental disorder or other reasons. What
+I do argue for is that, though Q 6:137, 140,
+151; 17:31; and 60:12 refer to and repugn
+infanticide, generally speaking, there is scant
+Qur ’anic evidence for female infanticide, in
+particular, or, even more particularly, for the
+alleged common cultural practice of bury-
+ing daughters alive. The general prohibi-
+tion against infanticide, it should be noted,
+is shared by various religious traditions in
+addition to the Qur’an: see, for example,
+Deuteronomy 12:29-31 or the Didascalia
+Apostolorum (Zellentin 2013, 72-73).
+
+If my interpretation is accepted, it
+remains to be explored and explained in
+
+A6
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@@ -0,0 +1,92 @@
+detail why the Islamic-era Arabs construed
+and projected the practice of female infan-
+ticide onto their forebears. Why would one
+narrate and re-narrate stories of the his-
+tory of one’s own ethnos as having been
+keen murderers of their own baby daugh-
+ters? The answer to that lies, I suggest, in
+inter-tribal polemics, comparison and
+temporality.
+
+Social identity and social comparison
+
+To probe and analyse the issue of inter-
+tribal polemics further, I contend that a
+look at modern theorization of social iden-
+tity and social comparison is helpful. The
+modern academic research of social com-
+parison can be said to have begun with
+Leon Festinger’s article (1954), which put
+forward a theory of social comparison pro-
+cesses. In Festinger’s view, social compari-
+son was related to, in particular, implicit
+and explicit self-evaluation through infor-
+mation gathering from and about other
+people. He also suggested that people have
+a “unidirectional drive upward” (Taylor
+and Lobel 2007, 96), meaning that indi-
+viduals endeavor to be and become more
+capable than both their own current level
+and also the individuals that they compare
+themselves to. Festinger’s views, though
+influential, were later supplemented with
+other observations and theorizations.
+
+One strand of research has focused on
+downward (rather than upward) social
+comparisons, while another has brought
+the concept of self-enhancement (in addi-
+tion to self-evaluation) to the fore. It has
+been noted, for example, that “under con-
+ditions of threat, individuals typically make
+downward social comparisons” (Taylor and
+Lobel 2007, 97-98): that is, when one’s self-
+esteem and/or status is low, one typically
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+displays more negative views of the out-
+groups and engages in downward social-
+comparison which, in this context at least,
+enhances one’s view of oneself.
+
+Social comparison can refer to a
+number of interrelated, but ultimately dis-
+tinct, phenomena. Festinger approached
+the question from the point of view of
+intragroup and interindividual processes.
+However, my own interest in this arti-
+cle is intergroup comparison, that is, how
+people “compare their own group with
+other groups” (Hogg 2000, 401). It is in
+particular among the social psychologists
+that have toiled with social identity theory
+(SIT) that the question of social compari-
+son processes’ links with self-esteem, on
+the one hand, and intergroup dynamics, on
+the other, has been probed. SIT began with
+the studies of Henri Tajfel, with important
+contributions over the years by, among
+others, John Turner, Michael Hogg and S.
+Alexander Haslam.
+
+The importance and usages of social
+comparison have been part of SIT litera-
+ture from the very beginning. In an influ-
+ential article, Tajfel (1972) noted that the
+meanings attached to a group and derived
+from social identification obtain through
+social comparison and relations to other
+groups (see also Hogg 2000, 404). Tajfel
+felt that Festinger concentrated too much
+on within-group comparisons; he, on the
+other hand, concentrated on the impor-
+tance of the intergroup. In SIT, a basic
+premise is that people aim for a positive
+self-image, self-esteem and social identity;
+social comparison is viewed as part and
+parcel of the processes related to this quest.
+Turner, Brown and Tajfel (1979, 190) put
+this well:
+
+4]
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@@ -0,0 +1,91 @@
+It is assumed that individuals are
+motivated to achieve a positive self-
+image and that self-esteem can be
+enhanced by a positive evaluation of
+one’s own group. Own group is eval-
+uated by comparison with others:
+positively discrepant comparisons
+between ingroup and some relevant
+outgroup (perceived evaluative dif-
+ferences favouring the ingroup) pro-
+vide a positive group identity which
+enhances self-esteem. An individual's
+social identity is those aspects of his
+self-concept contributed by the social
+groups to which he perceives himself
+to belong. Very generally, then, indi-
+viduals are motivated to establish pos-
+itively valued differences (positively
+discrepant comparisons) between the
+ingroup and a relevant outgroup to
+achieve a positive social identity.
+
+Moreover, theorizing in the context of
+SIT and related fields has also focused on
+the temporal aspect of social categoriza-
+tion and values attached to groups (see e.g.
+Condor 1996). As Haslam, Reicher and
+Platow (2020, 155) note, “social identity is
+as much about future as about past social
+realities”. This means that, as regards social
+comparison, one can not only compare
+one’s own group with other groups, but also
+one’s own group to its past (in these studies,
+the notion of collective memory and imagi-
+nation is often invoked). Such comparison
+emphasizes the optimal nature of the pre-
+sent group identity. In fact, the narratives
+about the past are not primarily about the
+history but about the present and the future
+of the group (see the various contributions
+in Saint-Laurent, Odradovi¢ and Carriere
+2018).
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+These insights from the research on
+social comparison are useful in discuss-
+ing, first, the early Islamic-era inter-tribal
+polemics and, second, the broader dis-
+course on and creation of the depiction
+of the jahiliyya, or the pre-Islamic “era of
+ignorance.’ I understand inter-tribal preju-
+dice and polemics (discussed in what fol-
+lows) as being one reflection of downward
+comparison (Hogg 2000, 403), which some
+early Muslims employed to create a positive
+group identity for themselves and, more
+generally, fashioned a narrative about the
+past that underlined the civilizing nature of
+Islam.
+
+Processes of inter-tribal polemics and the
+alleged wa’d al-banat
+
+This section endeavours to reconstruct the
+historical trajectory through which the idea
+of widespread female infanticide among pre-
+Islamic Arabs was construed. I argue that
+the notion first began its life as part of inter-
+tribal, specifically anti-Tamimi, polemics.
+After the idea had surfaced, the putative
+tradition of burying baby daughters alive
+was generalized to all pre-Islamic Arabs
+and became one of the means, and themes,
+that Muslim religious and other schol-
+ars employed to create a sense of immoral
+pre-Islam, which was understood to be in
+marked opposition to the moral Muslim
+way of life. This imagined notion, I sug-
+gest, was read into the Qur’an itself through
+the exegesis of verses 16:57-59 and 81:8-9
+(I have explored this process of exegesis in
+some detail in Lindstedt 2023, 13-8).
+
+As Ihave stated, the memory of jahiliyya
+was a conflicted one, but one which the
+Muslim authors could not escape, as El
+Cheikh has noted (see the quotation at the
+beginning of this article). Chivalry, valor
+
+48
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+and poetic excellence were projected onto
+the Arabs of jahiliyya; but so were drunken-
+ness, promiscuity, paganism and the unset-
+tling idea that they engaged in a vicious
+tradition of female infanticide. Moreover,
+the imagined manner of accomplishing
+the infanticide was most cruel: burying the
+infant daughters alive.
+
+First, we should try to reconstruct how
+the notion of wa‘d al-banat appeared and
+spread in Islamic-era Arabic literature. I
+suggest in the following that it first emerged
+after the second civil war or fitna (680-
+92 CE) as inter-tribal polemics and only
+afterwards was projected onto the whole
+Arab ethnos (as it was remembered—or
+construed—to have existed before Islam).
+Eventually, for instance, the famous ninth-
+tenth-century exegete al-Tabari adduced
+the view according to which the Arabs had
+been, of all humankind, the most eager
+to commit the offence of female infanti-
+cide (kanat al- ‘arab af‘al al-nas li-dhdalika;
+al-Tabari 2001, vol. xxiv, 148).
+
+Important hints for analysing the
+appearance and development of this dis-
+course can be found in identifying the
+people and tribes that are connected to the
+(supposed) pre-Islamic cultural custom by
+Muslim authors, who were writing centu-
+ries after the events. For allegedly having
+been a very widespread practice, men-
+tions of named individuals who actually
+committed the crime are, surprisingly, few
+and far between. We do find some names
+of the perpetrators in the sources: i) a
+rather obscure figure called Nu‘aym ibn
+Qa‘nab; ii) strikingly, in a few narrations
+the later Caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab; iii)
+and, lastly and most commonly, Qays ibn
+‘Asim al-Tamimi, who was mentioned at
+the beginning of this article as having killed
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+eight of his daughters before embracing
+Islam and who is the most infamous child-
+killer in the Muslim historiographical and
+other literature (see Wensinck 1936-69,
+vol. vii, 120-21; Paraskeva 2021).
+
+However, something does not feel quite
+right about these narratives of the alleged
+daughter-murderers: the narratives appear
+tendentious and unrealistic, as fittingly
+analysed by Tsampika-Mika Paraskeva
+(2021, 271-80). Indeed, I would suggest
+that they were invented out of whole cloth.
+
+Let us take the narratives on Qays
+ibn ‘Asim al-Tamimi, the most notori-
+ous daughter-murderer in classical Arabic
+accounts (for a long collection of bio-
+graphical reports on him, see al-Isfahani
+2009, vol. xiv, 46-59). The emerging biog-
+raphy of Qays ibn ‘Asim is very conflicted:
+on the one hand, his crimes of murdering
+his own daughters by burying them alive
+are recounted at some length (al-Isfahani
+2009, vol. xiv, 46-47, 58). Also, we have
+other negative portrayals of him: he is
+said to have imbibed alcohol frequently
+and forsaken Islam after the death of the
+Prophet (al-Isfahani 2009, vol. xiv, 49, 54,
+57; Lecker 2005, 48 remarks that “Qays
+ibn ‘Asim abstained from drinking wine,”
+but he fails to give the context, which is
+that, according to some narratives, Qays
+gave up wine after multiple mishaps and
+transgressions while drunk). On the other
+hand, very positive accounts co-exist side
+by side with the negative ones: for exam-
+ple, the Prophet Muhammad is depicted
+as calling Qays ibn ‘Asim “the lord of all
+the nomads” (al-Isfahani 2009, vol. xiv, 49).
+Moreover, on the death of Qays, the famous
+poet ‘Abda ibn al-Tabib al-Tamimi is said
+to have composed an attractive poem in
+Qays’s memory, in which ‘Abda asks God to
+
+49
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+bless Qays. ‘Abda ends the poem by declar-
+ing: “The death of Qays is not simply the
+death of an individual; he was the edifice
+of a whole nation/tribe (qawm), which has
+now collapsed” (al-Isfahani 2009, vol. xiv,
+53, my translation). It is difficult, indeed
+impossible, to square this beautiful lament
+by ‘Abda with the narratives of Qays the sot
+and child-killer.
+
+In addition to Qays ibn
+al-Tamimi being the most well-known
+
+‘Asim
+
+and notorious daughter-murdering indi-
+vidual, his tribe, Tamim is remembered
+as the one that most often committed this
+crime. For instance, al-Mubarrad (d. 898)
+remarks that the crime of female infanti-
+cide did not characterize all pre-Islamic
+Arabs at the beginning but only the tribe
+of Tamim, though the practice then spread
+among their neighbors to a certain degree
+(al-Mubarrad 1874, vol. i, 277). Al-Qurtubi
+(d. 1273) also mentions that Tamim was the
+most eager in perpetrating female infan-
+ticide, though Mudar and Khuza‘a would
+commit it as well (al-Qurtubi 1935-40, vol.
+x, 117; however, this remark is a bit confus-
+ing since Mudar was a large tribal confed-
+eration that included, among other tribes,
+Tamim).
+
+A unique stance is witnessed in the lex-
+icographer al-Jawhari’s (d. ca. 1002) work
+(and a few later works citing al-Jawhar1),
+who notes that it was, instead, the tribe
+Kinda who committed female infanticide
+(Paraskeva 2024, 35). However, there does
+not appear to be a single individual from
+Kinda identified in the sources as engag-
+ing in wa’d al-banat.? All in all, it is safe
+to conclude that the supposed cultural
+
+2 I thank Tsampika-Mika Paraskeva for
+pointing this out to me in a private com-
+munication.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+convention of female infanticide is, in clas-
+sical Muslim literature, most often ascribed
+to the tribe Tamim (in addition to the ref-
+erences already given, see e.g. al-Maydani
+n.d., vol. i, 424; Ibn Abi al-Hadid 2019, vol.
+xiii, 174) and their tribal leader, Qays ibn
+‘Asim, serves as the literary figure who
+epitomizes this barbaric and blood-thirsty
+putative pre-Islamic practice.
+
+I argue that there are a number of differ-
+ent reasons why the tribe Tamim was subject
+to vehement attacks in poetry and prose. To
+begin with, some of the Tamim joined the
+early Islamic-era rebellious Khariji move-
+ments and revolts, which used, or at least
+were portrayed as using, unrestricted vio-
+lence against other Muslims (Ulrich 2019:
+114; Hagemann 2021: 69-73). Indeed, sev-
+eral famous early Kharijis, such as “‘Urwa
+ibn Udayya and Hurgqts ibn Zuhayr, were
+from Tamim (El-Hibri 2010: 183, 236;
+Hagemann 2021: 69). Moreover, Tamim
+and other important Muslim tribes of the
+Umayyad era (661-750 CE), such as Azd,
+often vied for political position and status
+and sometimes met on the actual battlefield
+to fight against each other (Ulrich 2019:
+93).
+
+And crucially, in the midst of the second
+Muslim civil war, many Tamimis sup-
+ported the counter-Caliph ‘Abdallah ibn
+al-Zubayr during his Caliphate in 683-92
+CE (Ulrich 2019: 87), which posed a severe
+threat to the rule of the Umayyad Caliphs
+(who held power in Syria). In the eyes of the
+supporters of the Umayyad Caliphate, this
+soiled the Tamimis. Soon after ‘Abdallah
+ibn al-Zubayr was brutally killed by the
+Umayyad troops in 692 CE, the loyal poet
+of the Umayyad dynasty, al-Akhtal (d. 708)
+composed a poem in praise of the Umayyad
+state. Significantly for the arguments of this
+
+50
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+article, al-Akhtal denigrated a number of
+Tamimi clans in this celebrated poem:
+
+As for the Kulayb ibn Yarbu‘ [a clan
+from Tamim], when tribes vie
+
+to reach the water hole,
+
+They have no way to get to water or
+return.
+
+Left behind, other men determine
+their affairs,
+
+Left in the dark, they neither see nor
+sense
+
+what's going on.
+
+[...]
+
+What wretches they are sober!
+
+What wretched drinkers when they’re
+drunk!
+
+When strong wine or mellow date-
+brew courses
+
+through their veins.
+
+Their tribe [Kulayb ibn Yarba‘ or the
+wider Tamim] is where
+
+every foul deed ends up.
+
+[...]
+
+The Ghudana [another clan from
+Tamim] have no station
+
+whatsoever;
+
+They must restrain their thirsty flocks
+of sheep
+
+till only dregs remain.
+
+[...]
+
+Then they go home to women
+that are dark and defiled,
+Who after their crotches
+satisfied
+
+do not bathe.
+
+itch is
+
+Glory has truly sworn
+that it will have
+No covenant with them
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+till the hand’s palm grows hair.
+(Arabic text in and _ translation
+adapted from Stetkevych 2002, 96-97,
+297-298)
+
+This vulgar poem shows many aspects of
+anti-Tamimi polemics. Various Tamimi
+sub-tribes are disparaged by al-Akhtal: they
+do not have any political or social standing
+according to al-Akhtal, and their moralities
+are more than suspect. The Tamimis do not
+know how to carry themselves while sober,
+nor do they know how to drink in a cultured
+manner. Their women are “defiled” and do
+not bathe after sexual intercourse, thus
+remaining impure ad infinitum. It should
+be acknowledged that al-Akhtal does not
+mention infanticide among the supposed
+vices of the Tamimis, but I hypothesize that
+it was one of the aspects in the anti-Tamimi
+discourse that was current after the second
+Muslim civil war. Above, I have noted that
+several classical Arabic sources state that
+infanticide was specifically a Tamimi vice;
+here, I conjecture that this arose during or
+in the aftermath of the second civil war.
+
+Behind my hypothesis is, among other
+things, the fact that the contemporary
+Tamimi poet al-Farazdaq (d. 728) appears
+to be reacting to such anti-Tamimi polem-
+ics when he boasts that, not only did the
+Tamimis not commit infanticide in the pre-
+sent day, in fact, one of his relatives (identi-
+fied by commentators as his paternal uncle
+Sa‘sa‘a ibn Najiya, on whom see Paraskeva
+2021, 281-91) forbade the practice already
+in the pre-Islamic era. Al-Farazdaq com-
+posed the following verse in reference to
+this:
+
+My uncle was the one who forbade the
+killers (fem.) of infants (al-wa idat)
diff --git a/ocr-output/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs/txt/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs_page_0011.txt b/ocr-output/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs/txt/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs_page_0011.txt
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@@ -0,0 +1,92 @@
+He saved (ahya) the to-be-murdered
+infant (al-wa id), who was not buried
+alive (lam yi’ad). (al-Qurtubi 1935-
+AO, vol. x, 117; Paraskeva 2021, 289-91)
+
+It is interesting, incidentally, that in al-Far-
+azdaq’s verse the killers of infants are moth-
+ers and the killed infants are masculine (or
+non-gendered, if we take the masculine lam
+yuad to refer to a child, walad, regardless
+of gender). This shows that the understand-
+ing of the putative pre-Islamic practice of
+burying infants alive was still evolving and
+not understood to refer to, in particular,
+daughters (Paraskeva 2024, 19-21).
+
+Taking into consideration the fact that
+sources often ascribe the custom to a spe-
+cific tribe (mostly Tamim) and that al-
+Farazdaq (a Tamimi poet), boasts of his tribe
+as having instead rejected the practice early
+on, it would seem plausible that the reports
+about the alleged Arab infant-killers arose
+as polemics against that particular tribe,
+and al-Farazdaq was reacting to and rebut-
+ting such discourse. Hence, I suggest that
+since Tamim is often mentioned in classical
+Arabic historiographical and other literature
+as the most bloodthirsty in this regard, it can
+be argued that the reports of wa’d were for-
+mulated as an anti-Tamim attack. Indeed,
+the tribe Tamim appears to have been the
+butt of much denigration. Michael Lecker
+(2005) notes that Tamimi and anti-Tamimi
+informants provided clashing reports about
+the history and fame of the said tribe in the
+early Islamic period (on early Islamic-era
+tribal lore, not exclusively in the context of
+Tamim, see also Shoshan 2016, 29-52).
+
+If we entertain this line of thought, the
+development of the notion could be recon-
+structed as follows: At some point during
+the seventh century CE (in all likelihood
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+toward the end of the century), Quranic
+verses 16:57-59 and 81:8 were understood
+to refer to female infanticide (by burying
+the infants alive). Soon after that, the pas-
+sages were connected with the pre-Islamic
+habits of the tribe Tamim by non- and anti-
+Tamimi scholars, though the Qur’an natu-
+rally makes no such particular mention of
+the tribe. Al-Farazdaq’s verse would then
+be a rebuttal of these anti-Tamimi polem-
+ics. And later, starting in the eighth century,
+Muslim scholars started to delineate the
+jahiliyya more starkly from the virtuous life
+of the Islamic era and began to project the
+wa'd al-banat onto numerous Arab tribes
+and claim that it was a more pervasive pre-
+Islamic custom. Al-Mubarrad’s point, men-
+tioned above—that female infanticide did
+not, at first, describe all Arabs but only the
+tribe of Tamim though the practice then
+spread to other tribes—can then be refor-
+mulated: the violent myth of wa’d al-banat
+was first employed to disparage Tamim but
+was later understood to be a pervasive pre-
+Islamic Arab custom.
+
+However, I should note that not eve-
+ryone seems to have been happy with
+this portrayal of Arab forefathers and
+mothers. This is witnessed by classical
+Arabic sources mentioning individu-
+als who rejected and forbade the sup-
+posed culture of female infanticide. For
+example, the Prophet Muhammad’s
+grandfather “Abd al-Muttalib is cited
+as one such person (al-Ya‘qubi 1883,
+vol. ii, 9; 2018, vol. iii, 604).
+
+Conclusions: social comparison and the
+creation of a troubling past
+
+In this article, I have proposed that clas-
+sical Arabic depictions of jahiliyya do not
+
+52
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--- /dev/null
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@@ -0,0 +1,91 @@
+often accurately reflect pre-Islamic events.
+Instead, these portrayals were ideologically
+driven, crafted to highlight the enlighten-
+ing impact of the new religion, Islam.
+
+If so, how is one to understand the crea-
+tion of a troubling Arab past, in particular
+when it was put forward by scholars writ-
+ing in Arabic and (often but not always)
+self-identifying as Arab? First, it shows the
+sometimes incompatible and creative ways
+that different social categorizations inter-
+sect and social comparison works.
+
+For example, when a ninth-century
+Muslim Arab compared herself to a Muslim
+non-Arab (say, Persian), she could adduce
+the purported glorious past of the Arabs
+as noble poets and warriors of the desert
+and as conquerors of Iran in Islamic times
+in social comparison. This is illustrated by
+Ibn Qutaybah, who noted (2017, 17): “The
+Persians did possess all of these [luxuri-
+ous things and majesty] [...] But then God
+gave them to the Arabs, who plundered the
+Persians, stripping them of their riches like
+bark from a tree. Just as a revelation that
+overrides an earlier one is better, so too it is
+with peoples.”
+
+Needless to say, this was not always suc-
+cessful. Indeed, non-Arab Muslims some-
+times used the established negative ste-
+reotypes of the pre-Islamic Arabs to their
+advantage. For example, the Iranian eighth-
+century poet Isma‘il ibn Yasar is said to
+have composed the following verses: “How
+have we [the Iranians] been in the long
+stretch of history? / Indeed, we raised our
+daughters, while you buried yours alive in
+the ground!” (Savran 2007-08, 45).
+
+Furthermore, the imagined past of the
+in-group can also accommodate disquiet-
+ing and negative aspects, in particular if
+those characteristics can be said to have
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+been overcome and left behind in the pre-
+sent. Here, the concept of jahiliyya was uti-
+lized to mark the moment of this overcom-
+ing. The ethico-legal reform that Islam was
+seen as bringing about was to a degree con-
+strued by creating and recounting a pre-
+Islamic past that contained much stereo-
+typing and imagined history of “the Arabs”.
+In this manner, the Islamic-era Arabs com-
+pared themselves not so much with other
+groups as the purported past of their own
+ethnos.
+
+Lastly, the trope of (in particular,
+female) infanticide served as fodder for
+inter-tribal polemics—indeed, I have sug-
+gested that it originated as such. The non-
+Tamimi tribes used it to defame Tamim,
+while there appears to have been oppos-
+ing efforts, possibly by Tamim, to ascribe
+this grim cultural practice to other tribes
+such as Kinda. Nonetheless, these coun-
+ter-polemical endeavours did not became
+as developed: no individual from Kinda is
+singled out as exemplifying the crime of
+infanticide. Among the Tamim, we find
+the conflicting portrayal of Qays ibn ‘Asim
+al-Tamimi, who, on the one hand, is por-
+trayed as a sot, a mass-murderer of his own
+daughters, and an apostate; on the other, we
+see the Prophet praising him and the poet
+‘Abda ibn al-Tabib composing a beautiful
+elegy in his memory, portraying him as a
+larger-than-life figure who merits God's
+mercy and blessing. As such, one can say
+that the literary figure of Qays ibn ‘Asim
+al-Tamimi epitomizes not only pro- versus
+anti-Tamimi narratives, in particular, but
+also the clashing Muslim depictions of
+jahiliyya, in general.
+
+53
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--- /dev/null
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@@ -0,0 +1,123 @@
+Ilkka Lindstedt (Ph.D.,
+University of Helsinki,
+2014) is Lecturer in
+Islamic theology at the
+University of Helsinki,
+Finland. He has pub-
+lished several studies on
+pre-Islamic Arabia, early
+Islam, Arabic epigraphy
+and Arabic historiogra-
+phy. He is_ particularly
+interested in changes in religious groups and
+ideas in late antique Arabia. His monograph
+Muhammad and His Followers in Context: The Reli-
+gious Map of Late Antique Arabia was published by
+Brill in 2023. Other recent publications include:
+“The Qur'an and the putative pre-Islamic prac-
+tice of female infanticide”, Journal of the Inter-
+national Qur‘anic Studies Association 8 (2023):
+5-29; “The Seed of Abraham: Gentile Ethnicity in
+Early Christian Texts and the Qur'an”, Advances
+in Ancient, Biblical and Near Eastern Research 3/3
+(2023): 253-313; “The scripture is an instantia-
+tion of divine discourse’: Mulla Sadra’'s notions
+on God's speech (kalam Allah) and the Koran”,
+Studia Islamica 119 (2024): 97-129; and Ilkka
+Lindstedt, Nina Nikki and Riikka Tuori (eds.),
+Walking Together & Parting Ways: Religious Identi-
+ties in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages Leiden:
+Brill (2022).
+
+References
+
+Aksoy, Soner. 2024. “The Impact of Reli-
+gious Practices on Shaping Cultural Hab-
+its: The Case of Child Sacrifice among
+the Pre-Islamic Arabs from the Quranic
+Perspective.” Religions 15 (8): 1019;
+https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15081019.
+
+Al-Jallad, Ahmad, and Hythem Sidky. 2024. “A
+Paleo-Arabic Inscription of a Companion
+of Muhammad?” Journal of Near Eastern
+Studies 83 (1): 1-14.
+
+Condor, Susan. 1996. “Social Identity and Time”
+In Social Groups and Identities: Developing
+the Legacy of Henri Tajfel, edited by W. Peter
+Robinson. Butterworth Heinemann.
+
+Crone, Patricia. 2016. The Quranic Pagans and
+Related Matters: Collected Studies in Three
+Volumes, edited by Hanna Siurua. Brill.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No. 1 * March 2026
+
+Donner, Fred M. 2010. Muhammad and the
+Believers: At the Origins of Islam. The
+Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
+
+Drory, Rina. 1996. “The Abbasid Construction
+of the Jahiliyya: Cultural Authority in the
+Making.” Studia Islamica 83: 33-49.
+
+El Cheikh, Nadia Maria. 2015. Women, Islam,
+and Abbasid Identity. Harvard University
+Press.
+
+El-Hibri, Tayeb. 2010. Parable and Politics
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+
+Festinger, Leon. 1954. “A Theory of Social Com-
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+
+Giladi, Avner. 2009. “Birth Control.” In Encyclo-
+paedia of Islam Three, edited by Kate Fleet,
+Gudrun Kramer, Denis Matringe, John
+Nawas and Devin J. Stewart. Consulted
+online on 19 April 2024. http://dx.doi.
+org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_23280.
+
+Hagemann, Hannah-Lena. 2021. The Khdrijites
+in Early Islamic Historical Tradition: Heroes
+and Villains. Edinburgh University Press.
+
+Haslam, S. Alexander, Stephen Reicher and
+Michael Platow. 2020. The New Psychology
+of Leadership: Identity, Influence and Power.
+Second edition. Routledge.
+
+Hogg, Michael. 2000. “Social Identity and
+Social Comparison.” In Handbook of Social
+Comparison: Theory and Research, edited
+by Jerry Suls and Ladd Wheeler. Kluwer
+Academic.
+
+Ibn Abi al-Hadid [d. 1258]. 2019. Sharh nahj
+al-balagha. Maktabat Ayatullah al-‘Uzma
+al-Najafi.
+
+Ibn Qutaybah [d. 889 CE]. 2017. The Excellence
+of the Arabs. Edited by James E. Montgom-
+ery and Peter Webb, translated by Sarah
+Bowen Savant and Peter Webb. New York
+University Press.
+
+Ibn Tunbak, Marztgq. 2007. Al-Wa’d ‘inda
+al-‘arab bayn al-wahm wa-l-haqiqa. Dar
+al-Basha ‘ir.
+
+al-Isfahani, Abt 1-Faraj [d. ca. 967]. 2009. Kitab
+al-aghani, edited by Ihsan ‘Abbas et al. Dar
+Sadir.
+
+Jamil, Nadia. 2017. Ethics and Poetry in Sixth-
+Century Arabia. Edinburgh University Press.
+
+Lecker, Michael. 2005. “Tamim.” In Michael
+Lecker, Peoples, Tribes and Society around
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diff --git a/ocr-output/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs/txt/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs_page_0014.txt b/ocr-output/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs/txt/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs_page_0014.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..215f1f90562f6f09cbfb234f2cfe1d58586b89a1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ocr-output/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs/txt/The Portrayal of the PreIslamic Arabs_page_0014.txt	
@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
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+
+Lindstedt, Ilkka. 2023. “The Qur’an and the
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+
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+55
diff --git a/ocr-output/The Social Identity Approach/The Social Identity Approach.txt b/ocr-output/The Social Identity Approach/The Social Identity Approach.txt
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+++ b/ocr-output/The Social Identity Approach/The Social Identity Approach.txt	
@@ -0,0 +1,1393 @@
+
+
+========== PAGE 1 ==========
+
+SINI MIKKOLA
+
+The Social Identity Approach and Historical
+Research on the Early Modern Era
+
+Review article
+
+doi.org/10.30664/ar.179053
+
+his review article explores the applicabil-
+i of the Social Identity Approach (SIA)
+
+in historical research, focusing on research
+and sources from the Early Modern era, particu-
+larly the context of the Lutheran Reformation.
+The study argues that while identity is often
+treated as self-evident in religious historical
+research, SIA offers conceptual tools that can
+enrich historical interpretation. Using examples
+from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writ-
+ers’ texts, the article demonstrates how bounda-
+ries of “true Christianity” were negotiated and
+maintained, and how the conceptualizations of
+SIA could be used in these discussions. It also
+highlights methodological challenges: historians
+lack direct access to human cognitive processes
+and must rely on mediated, fragmentary sources,
+which necessitates contextualization and source
+criticism to avoid anachronism. SIA should
+therefore be employed as a heuristic framework
+rather than a predictive model. When applied
+critically, it enables nuanced analysis of iden-
+tity construction and group dynamics, fostering
+interdisciplinary dialogue between history and
+social psychology.
+
+Introduction
+In November 2025, I participated in a
+entitled Christianity and
+arranged by the
+
+symposium
+Education, Finnish
+Theological Literature Society. The topics
+were both historical and contemporary,
+discussing Christian upbringing and edu-
+cation from various viewpoints. I detected
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+©)@ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
+
+one theme that characterized many of the
+presentations: that of defining the borders
+of one’s own convictional group and oth-
+ering of other convictional or religious
+groups. Whether in seventeenth-century
+Catechisms and sermons, nineteenth-
+century oral-history material or question-
+naires concerning contemporary Orthodox
+catechetical training, the drawing of bor-
+ders between “us” and “them” or “others”
+kept popping up. In other words, in many
+source materials, the aim of creating clear
+borders between the ingroup and out-
+groups was evident (cf. e.g. Hornsey 2008,
+205-6; Newsom 2008, 13).
+
+In my research, this phenomenon of
+categorization, or partitioning of the world
+(cf. Abrams and Hogg 1990, 2), has become
+apparent when examining sources both
+from sixteenth-century Germany and six-
+teenth- and seventeenth-century Finland.!
+Although the phenomenon of partition-
+ing the world and of categorizing oneself
+as part of different groups is familiar to
+
+1 For short discussion on identifying one-
+self in the group of “true Christians” in
+sixteenth-century Germany, see Mikkola
+2023a, 173-77.
+
+107
+
+
+========== PAGE 2 ==========
+
+every historian, it is seldom discussed with
+a theoretical approach. This may have to do
+with the strong empirical emphasis that has
+been dominant in the field of history. As the
+Finnish historians Mirkka Danielsbacka,
+Matti O. Hannikainen and Tuomas Tepora
+have noted: “Researchers often focus pri-
+marily on accurately describing past events
+without using difficult concepts or complex
+theoretical constructs” However, they con-
+tinue, “historical research also contains a
+theoretical dimension, which has already
+been explicitly expressed in some studies”
+(Danielsbacka et al. 2018, 9).
+
+In historical research, the choice of
+theoretical framework is guided primar-
+ily by the question of which framework
+is the most fruitful tool for conceptual-
+izing observations drawn from historical
+sources and for giving meaning to them. As
+in other humanities, and in contrast to the
+natural sciences, for example, the order in
+historical research is that the source mate-
+rial and research questions are consid-
+ered first, after which a suitable theory is
+selected heuristically. Consequently, histo-
+rians often use theories in a rather eclectic
+manner, selectively and in combination (cf.
+e.g. Danielsbacka et al. 2018, 11; Lahtinen
+2018, 184, 195).
+
+In this text, I will ponder how the Social
+Identity Approach (SIA) suits research
+on historical sources. The Social Identity
+Approach encompasses Social Identity
+Theory (SIT, Tajfel and Turner 2004) and
+Self-Categorization Theory (SCT, Turner
+1987) and is first and foremost an approach
+concentrating on intragroup and _ inter-
+group relations (Luomanen 2021, 88). I
+will consider both opportunities and chal-
+lenges that the approach might offer for a
+historian. To keep the discussion concise, I
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+will delimit my examples to Early Modern
+German and Finnish sources from the con-
+text of the Lutheran Reformation as these
+are the ones I have worked with most
+extensively. I will highlight some discus-
+sions from my previous research on the
+Early Modern era, reflecting on them in
+relation to the conceptualizations of SIA.
+My highlights are examples only; hence,
+they are not intended as a comprehensive
+presentation of the applicability of SIA in
+historical research. Finally, I will conclude
+with some remarks of the usefulness of SIA
+in historical studies and hope that it will
+inspire further discussion.
+
+(Social) identity and historical sources
+
+In historical research focused on examining
+religious or confessional groups and identi-
+ties in one way or another, identity is not
+often theorized or even defined in detail.”
+For example, in the monograph by Michele
+Zelinsky Hanson, entitled Religious Identity
+in an Early Reformation Community:
+Augsburg, 1517 to 1555, the writer notes
+that “religious identity was dependent on
+various factors and conditions. Thus, iden-
+tity is not a simple category” (Hanson 2008,
+8). She refers to articulating, constructing
+and expressing one’s religious identity, yet
+does not offer any theoretical approach
+to conceptualize her discussion (Hanson
+2008, 8, 24). In a similar vein, other stud-
+ies on Reformation history talk about, for
+example, “shaping and expressing” iden-
+tity (Willis 2025, 789), sense of identity
+(Walsham 2016, 589) or affirming and
+struggling for religious identity (Backus
+
+2 The same observation has been made with
+regard to exegetical research. See Jokiranta
+and Luomanen 2020, 67.
+
+108
+
+
+========== PAGE 3 ==========
+
+2003, 3). In many religious historical stud-
+ies, identity—especially religious identity—
+seems to be considered a self-evident con-
+cept, and hence a concept that does not
+need to be defined. However, all the depic-
+tions cited above are ways of defining iden-
+tity narratively and some of them offer a
+relational perspective on identity.
+
+In psychological research, identity
+broadly refers to an individual’s percep-
+tion of himself or herself. However, there
+are various interpretations of the nature
+of identity; for example, whether identity
+is permanent or changeable by nature, or
+whether it is primarily internal or interper-
+sonal, that is, constructed through social
+interaction. In SIT, identity is conceptual-
+ized on two levels: intergroup and interper-
+sonal, whereas in SCT, identity is divided to
+three levels: the superordinate, the interper-
+sonal and the intergroup levels (Hornsey
+2008, 208; Luomanen 2021, 89-90). The
+superordinate level means one’s human
+identity: the understanding of the self as
+human being—in comparison to other
+creatures. The interpersonal level refers to
+personal identity, which is based on inter-
+personal comparisons—that is, oneself
+in comparison to other persons. Finally,
+the intergroup level refers to social iden-
+tity, which, according to Tajfel and Turner
+means “those aspects of an individual's self-
+image that derive from the social categories
+to which he perceives himself as belonging”
+(Tajfel and Turner 2004, 376-77). Thus, it
+means the self-conception of the person “as
+a group member” in comparison to other
+
+3 For concise presentation of these differ-
+ent interpretations, see Pauha and Haim-
+ila 2024, 209-214. See also e.g. Leary and
+Tangney 2003; Schwartz et al. 2011.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+groups (Jokiranta 2012, 78; see also Abrams
+and Hogg 1990, 2). This sense of belonging
+includes cognitive, evaluative and affective
+significance, as Henri Tajfel has described:
+“The two necessary components are: a cog-
+nitive one, in the sense of awareness of
+membership; and an evaluative one, in the
+sense that this awareness is related to some
+value connotations. The third component
+consists of an emotional investment in the
+awareness and evaluations” (Tajfel 1982, 2;
+see also Jokiranta 2012, 78; Hornsey 2008,
+206). Hence, on all the levels of identity,
+SIA emphasizes the relationality of identity.
+Moreover, the three levels of identity are
+deemed to be activated with varying inten-
+sity in different situations (Hornsey 2008,
+208).
+
+Let me first consider the issues of per-
+manent/changeable identity and internal/
+interpersonal identity from the viewpoint
+of historical research, as I regard it as essen-
+tial for further discussion. From the per-
+spective of historical research, the question
+of the internal nature of human identity is
+particularly problematic. First, historical
+sources do not provide direct access or an
+“open window” into the mind of the author
+of the text: we cannot access the minds of
+people from the past by investigating writ-
+ten or material sources. To put it another
+way, historians do not have access to an
+individual's internal cognitive and moti-
+vational processes but work with medi-
+ated and often fragmentary source mate-
+rial. Thus, detecting the sense of the self in
+the sources is at least problematic, if not
+impossible.
+
+Of course, preserved historical sources
+can be perceived as reflecting the expe-
+riences, feelings and thoughts of their
+authors. However, a characteristic feature
+
+109
+
+
+========== PAGE 4 ==========
+
+of the majority of source materials—let-
+ters, polemical writings and even admin-
+istrative records—is that they were often
+written with a specific recipient in mind,
+and the motives for writing arose from
+this interactive relationship—whether
+real or imagined—and the desired out-
+come. Descriptions of oneself and others
+were also written to serve these motives. In
+addition, many texts, such as letters, were
+governed by certain conventions, such as
+prescribed formal modes of expression.
+Autobiographical material, such as dia-
+ries, memoirs and chronicles, is also sub-
+ject to the same source-critical observa-
+tions, as it does not fall outside the scope
+of the aforementioned constraints.4 Hence
+historians cannot assume that the author's
+experiences, feelings or thoughts were in
+fact such as the text suggests. Thus, from
+the perspective of identity research, histor-
+ical sources can be analysed to determine
+what kind of self-image the author—or the
+person who dictated the text°—wanted to
+give the target readership. The (religious)
+identities of people in the past must there-
+fore be examined primarily from the per-
+spective of relationality and narrativity,
+bearing in mind the limitations of histori-
+cal sources.
+
+Secondly, and related to the previous
+constraints, the fragmentary nature of his-
+torical sources makes it impossible in most
+cases to assess the changeability of iden-
+tity of people in the past. Some historical
+figures, often belonging to upper social
+
+4 For these source-critical questions, see, for
+example, Mikkola and Raisaénen-Schréder
+2022, 21-22 and the literature cited therein.
+
+5 In the Early Modern era, it was common to
+employ scribes, and members of the upper
+estates regularly made use of their services.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+strata, such as the reformer Martin Luther,
+have left behind a vast number of textual
+documents, including autobiographical
+ones (Mikkola 2014, 76-7). On the basis
+of these, it may be possible to observe to
+some extent the changes in his identity
+narrative. Only a small amount of mate-
+rial has survived from other historical fig-
+ures. For example, only a single letter has
+survived from the martyr Maeyken Wens
+and the noblewoman Elisabeth Cruciger
+left behind a single hymn.© Many people
+from the past, especially those from the
+lower classes, have been forgotten because
+they left no written documentation behind,
+or because such documentation has been
+lost or destroyed. For example, only a few
+letters have survived from the probably
+quite extensive correspondence of Martin
+Luther's wife, Katharina von Bora (Jurgens
+2022, 53). In many cases, therefore, the
+limited amount of source material, or other
+constraints related to its nature, does not
+allow us to analyse the identity narratives
+of people from the past from the perspec-
+tives of change and continuity.
+
+When a historical text containing either
+self-narrative or descriptions of people
+and groups of people is under investiga-
+tion, it is of course possible to examine, for
+example, whether writers’ descriptions of
+themselves relate to interpersonal or inter-
+group comparisons, and thus make inter-
+pretations about personal and social iden-
+tity. However, one must be careful when
+drawing conclusions from different source
+materials. For example, court records may
+not directly reveal the social identity of a
+
+6 For Maeyken Wens, see e.g. Raisanen-
+Schréder and Mikkola 2023. For Elisabeth
+Cruciger, see e.g. Haemig 2022.
+
+
+========== PAGE 5 ==========
+
+person accused of being an Anabaptist, if
+and when social identity is understood as
+an individual’s own experience of belong-
+ing to a particular group, since the records
+were written through intermediaries. In the
+case of autobiographical sources of narra-
+tive content that reveal personal experi-
+ences, it is possible to examine the identities
+of people from the past, but one must care-
+fully bear in mind the identities’ performa-
+tive or narrative nature, which was always
+determined by the historical and personal
+circumstances and the context in which
+the text was written. These basic elements
+of historical research—such as source criti-
+cism and contextualization—must there-
+fore always be exercised when testing and
+applying new theoretical frameworks such
+as SIA.
+
+Self-categorization as a true Christian:
+reflections on the ingroup/outgroup
+divisions
+
+Bearing in mind the above considera-
+tions, the Early Modern era and the con-
+text of the Reformations may prove to be
+a fruitful period for applying the Social
+Identity Approach. This is because the
+period is characterized by disputes, divi-
+sions and drawing of borders between dif-
+ferent groups. Thus, one of the questions
+that constantly arises in the sources is that
+of who represented “true Christianity”. The
+division between true and false Christians
+could be made in the personal or group
+level.
+
+For example, in the letter of the Bavarian
+noblewoman and lay reformer Argula von
+Grumbach (1492-1557), explication of the
+levels of both personal and social identity
+can be detected in the following remarks:
+“I am called Lutheran, but I am not. I was
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+baptized in the name of Christ; it is him I
+confess, not Luther. But I confess that as
+a faithful Christian, Martin also confesses
+Him” (Grumbach 2010 [1523], 121, transl.
+Peter Matheson). On a personal level, von
+Grumbach compared herself to Martin
+Luther, whom she nevertheless at the
+same time categorized together with her-
+self as belonging to the group of followers
+of Christ. The letter was addressed to von
+Grumbach’s relative Adam von Thering,
+who opposed the evangelical movement
+and whom von Grumbach tried to convince
+that she was on the right path in her faith.
+Therefore, it was important to emphasize to
+the recipient, who represented a different
+interpretation of faith, that it was neither
+a new doctrine nor the worship of Luther,
+but rather the traditional faith in Christ
+that all true Christians throughout history
+had confessed.
+
+In another letter, which was directed to
+the University of Ingolstadt, von Grumbach
+noted:
+
+And even if it came to pass—which
+God forfend—that Luther were to
+revoke his views, that would not
+worry me. I do not build on his, mine,
+or any person’s understanding, but on
+the true rock, Christ himself [...]. [I
+write] as a member of the Christian
+Church, against which the gates of
+Hell cannot prevail. (Grumbach 2010
+[1523], 74-75, transl. Peter Matheson)
+
+The Christian Church was von Grumbach’s
+ingroup, a member of which Luther also
+was, and the group was grounded in
+Christ himself. Her own as well as Luther's
+views were based solely on Christ, as von
+Grumbach seems to argue, which could
+
+MM
+
+
+========== PAGE 6 ==========
+
+perhaps be understood as minimizing
+intragroup differences (cf. e.g. Hornsey
+2008, 208). Thus gender, social position,
+education or other personal features of
+the like were not important in this group
+of “Christian Church” but joint interpreta-
+tion of faith. Indeed, von Grumbach cited
+in other contexts biblical passages, such as
+Galatians 3:28, that underlined the irrel-
+evance of possible differences within the
+ingroup of true believers.
+
+A passage from von Grumbach’s con-
+temporary, the lay reformer Katharina
+Schiitz Zell (1498-1562) from Strasbourg,
+is worth quoting when discussing the influ-
+ence of personal and social identities in the
+context of defining true Christians. Schtitz
+Zell narrated her religious identity in a
+letter in 1553:
+
+with His [God’s] help that is what I
+will do: I will demonstrate my love
+and service everywhere to whoever
+seeks it, but I will not give myself as
+a prisoner to anyone. [...] for St. Paul
+said, “Why is one an ‘Apolloian; the
+other a ‘Pauliar’ or a ‘Peterian’? Were
+these men crucified for you? Was not
+Christ crucified for you?” [cf. 1 Cor
+1:12-13]. Neither Schwenckfeld nor
+the dear Dr. Luther nor any devout
+minister, none of them ever sought
+that; I also will not do it. I do not want
+to be theirs, but with them I want to be
+Christ’s. (Schutz Zell 1999 [1553], 128,
+131, transl. Elsie Anne McKee)
+
+I have formerly argued that
+Schiitz Zell acknowledged her uncom-
+
+fortable position in a situation where
+a host of interpretations of right faith
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+and living were competing and posi-
+tioned herself on neutral ground, as
+it were, thus reinforcing her religious
+identity as a seeker of reconciliation
+[...]. Hence, her narration can be
+understood as emphasizing her inde-
+pendent status as a religious and the-
+ological thinker, though firmly basing
+her faith on Scripture and Christ him-
+self. (Mikkola 2023a, 174-75)
+
+From the viewpoint of SIA, it could per-
+haps be argued that Schiitz Zell narrated
+first and foremost her personal identity
+as a follower of Christ and renounced all
+groups, including those led by the spir-
+itualist Caspar Schwenckfeld and Luther.
+This interpretation seems to be justified in
+light of other passages in her production, in
+which she strongly emphasized her unique
+position among Christians as the one to
+have received a special calling from God
+to be a mediator between other people and
+God, that is, His prophet (cf. e.g. Pak 2015,
+104-5; Mikkola 2021, 300).7
+
+The salience of her personal identity
+can be detected from her wording of offer-
+ing her “love and service everywhere to
+whoever seeks it”. Thus, in the quoted pas-
+sage she quite straightforwardly rejected
+intergroup differences. She did not com-
+municate emotional bonds or awareness
+of belonging vis-a-vis any particular con-
+temporaries (cf. Jokiranta 2012, 78, 218),
+though she referred to Luther as “dear”.
+Her evaluation of herself vis-a-vis others
+
+7 The other passages could perhaps also be
+interpreted to reveal a sense of belonging
+to an ingroup that included Old Testament
+prophets, especially Isaiah and Jeremiah,
+the New Testament’s Paul, and Schiitz Zell
+herself. Cf. Mikkola 2023b, 133-35.
+
+
+========== PAGE 7 ==========
+
+emphasized _ differentiation. However,
+when rejecting ingroups and outgroups,
+she could be interpreted as having at the
+same time narrated a sort of a wide ingroup
+that included, in addition to herself, all
+the other followers of Christ, such as Paul,
+Luther and Schwenckfeld, despite their dif-
+ferences in theology, periods they lived in
+or other features. This could perhaps be
+called a “superordinate ingroup identity in
+Christ” to borrow Jutta Jokiranta’s (2012,
+86) wording, or common group identity,
+which contains the idea that a person rede-
+fines the boundaries of ingroup and out-
+group, and embraces the idea of an inclu-
+sive group (cf. Gaertner et al. 1993). Both
+of these explanations correspond also to
+Argula von Grumbach’ identity narrative
+described above.
+
+Schiitz Zell’s way of narrating her iden-
+tity is at least partly explained by the his-
+torical situation. She was at the time in the
+middle of a conflict between the Lutheran
+pastor Ludwig Rabus, the successor to her
+late husband Matthew Zell, and the spir-
+itualist Caspar Schwenckfeld and his suc-
+cessors (Mikkola 2023a, 174). Her empha-
+sis on independence especially vis-a-vis
+Schwenckfeld could be deemed strategical
+as Lutheran orthodoxy gained more ground
+in Strasbourg.8 To avoid being identified
+with one group or the other, and to maintain
+the position in Strasbourg she had achieved
+with her husband—which had been charac-
+terized by interaction with representatives
+of different interpretations of faith—Schitz
+Zell's strategy was to reject groupings.
+
+However, if we examine her other writ-
+ings from different contexts, we find very
+
+8 For the situation in Strasbourg in the 1550s,
+see McKee 1999, 149-51.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+explicit ingroup self-categorization and
+defining of outgroups. To put it another
+way, in this passage Schiitz Zell acted first
+and foremost as an individual but in other
+contexts she could also narrate herself as a
+member of a group (cf. Abrams and Hogg
+1990, 4; Jokiranta 2012, 79-80). In this case
+as well as in many others, it becomes evi-
+dent that categorization may change, and
+most often changes, as the context changes
+(cf. e.g. Hogg 2016, 9). This premise reso-
+nates well with the general principles of his-
+torical research, which place a key empha-
+sis on examining the source material in its
+context at all times.
+
+In multiple contexts, the positive dis-
+tinctiveness of one’s ingroup was accen-
+tuated. For example, the Lutheran bishop
+of Turku (Abo) diocese Ericus Erici
+Sorolainen (1546-1625) named _ several
+outgroups in his book of homilies in the
+1620s. The outgroups were heathens and
+other sects, Catholics and Sacramentarians,
+including Calvinists and Zwinglians. The
+bishop defined heathens and sects as blind
+and stupid. Catholics, or as the bishop
+expressed it, “the pope in Rome and his
+lot’, lived in darkness since they had aban-
+doned Christ and lived according to human
+decrees. The distinctive marks of their mis-
+takenness were, among others, veneration
+of saints, pilgrimages and rosaries. The
+Reformed had also, according to Ericus
+Erici, abandoned God and begun to follow
+their own reason and “fleshly wisdom” In
+this way, the Reformed were like Catholics,
+as the bishop noted. In the very same
+context, he elevated his own ingroup by
+reminding his readers to thank God for
+“bringing us to the brightness of the gospel
+/ through that holy man Martinus Luther”.
+Not only Luther and the gospel but also the
+
+113
+
+
+========== PAGE 8 ==========
+
+purity of the preached word were distinc-
+tive to his own ingroup, the true follow-
+ers of Christ (Ericus Erici Sorolainen 1621,
+Epistola Dedicatoria; see also Ericus Erici
+Sorolainen 1621, 284; 1625, 185, 843).
+
+In this example, it becomes evident
+that “groups are not islands; they become
+psychologically real only when defined in
+comparison to other groups’, as Matthew
+J. Hornsey (2008, 207) has remarked.
+Bishop Ericus Erici categorized himself as
+belonging within “us’, those illuminated
+by the gospel, and—in my interpreta-
+tion—offered Luther as an exemplar of his
+ingroup. In Ericus Erici’s text, the empha-
+sis on intergroup differences between his
+ingroup and those defined as outgroups is
+also markedly present. The intergroup dif-
+ferences were accentuated, perhaps even
+maximized. Moreover, the outgroups were
+portrayed very stereotypically, and the
+ingroup’ positive distinctiveness—or pos-
+itive social identity—was highlighted (cf.
+Abrams and Hogg 1990, 3; Jokiranta 2012,
+80-5, 147-8; Hornsey 2008, 207-8). From
+the bishop's narrative, it can be noticed that
+
+¢.
+
+social group defines for its members “who
+they are, what they should believe and how
+they should behave” (Hogg 2016, 6). When
+investigating Ericus Erici’s book of homilies
+more closely, these models of behaviour,
+virtues and correct content of belief can all
+be found (see e.g. Ericus Erici Sorolainen
+1621, 21, 652; 1625, 473 et passim). In all
+this, Ericus Erici’s rhetoric was similar to
+that of many other writers of the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries and, conse-
+quently, investigating those texts with SIA
+would probably produce similar findings.
+When analysing the bishop's text, it is
+again essential to consider the historical
+context. Lutheranism had become the state
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+religion of the Swedish realm and thus also
+of Finland at the end of the sixteenth cen-
+tury, and Catholicism was banned in 1617,
+a few years before the publication of Ericus
+Erici’s book of homilies. The beginning of
+closer cooperation between the church and
+the state and the preservation of Lutheran
+doctrinal purity meant a separation not
+only from the Catholic Church but also
+from Calvinism, the influence of which did
+not actually reach its peak until the 1660s
+(Laasonen 1998, 215). In addition to this
+general situation, Ericus Erici himself was
+accused of supporting the policies of the
+previous Catholic-leaning ruler, John III,
+and even dismissed from office for a while
+for it. The bishop, in fact, changed his stance
+more than once, always in accordance with
+the conviction of the ruler in power (Kouri
+2012). In the preface to his book of hom-
+ilies, he clearly seeks to position himself
+within the dominant confessional ingroup
+of the realm, which was obviously essential
+in his episcopal office. By doing so, he not
+only categorized himself within this group
+but also participated in maintaining the
+group’s status quo.?
+
+Exemplary figures and prototypes
+I noted
+Sorolainen, Martin Luther seems to have
+
+above that for Ericus Erici
+
+been an exemplary individual. Luther’s
+position as a true follower of Christ also
+emerged in the short text samples from
+Argula von Grumbach and Katharina
+Schiitz Zell. For my other theme, I will
+examine exemplary figures and proto-
+types vis-a-vis my previous research on
+Reformation and gender history.
+
+9 For the general notion of maintaining the
+status quo, see Abrams and Hogg 1990, 4.
+
+14
+
+
+========== PAGE 9 ==========
+
+Petri Luomanen has convincingly dis-
+tinguished between the concepts of proto-
+type and exemplar. Prototype refers to “an
+abstraction of group features” (Luomanen
+2021, 92). It is a construct to which certain
+features are attached, and which changes
+in content depending on the context. The
+set of attributes is most often fuzzy and
+mirrors what is considered as representa-
+tive within the group. Most importantly
+from the viewpoint of historical research,
+a prototype is an abstraction in the per-
+sons mind. Consequently, it is impossible
+to access prototypes from textual records,
+and Luomanen’s central argument is that
+“textual phenomena should not be termed
+as prototypes” (Luomanen 2021, 92-93,
+98, 103; see also Hogg and McGarty 1990,
+13-14). However, he has also noted that “as
+far as the texts signal normative percep-
+tions, attitudes, feelings and behaviours—
+by showing these to be desirable through
+the narrative—these likely reflect prototypi-
+calities and prototypes in the minds of their
+authors” (Luomanen 2021, 103).
+
+From my viewpoint, the idea of a pro-
+totype is somewhat reminiscent of the
+concepts of representation, stereotype and
+norm, which are often used in gender-
+sensitive historical research. The funda-
+mental idea is that a general stereotype or
+representation of, for example, a man or a
+woman is constructed, which reflects the
+ideas of a community, a particular group
+or a particular individual in regard to what
+is typical, desired or undesired, but which
+no real person necessarily corresponds
+to in all respects. This sort of representa-
+tion of a man or woman is an abstraction,
+much like the prototype (see e.g. Mikkola
+2024, 233-34). Thus, SIA could also be of
+use in gender-sensitive historical research
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+in conceptualizing normative perceptions,
+attitudes, feelings and behaviours from the
+viewpoint of group sociology.!°
+
+Whereas a prototype is an abstraction,
+an exemplar is concrete: an exemplar is a
+person who is regarded as best representing
+the ideal member either of the ingroup or
+an outgroup. Thereby, an exemplar can also
+be a historical or a fictive figure (Luomanen
+2021, 92, 98, 103-4). Individual exemplars
+or exemplary characters can readily be
+examined from historical source materi-
+als. In the sources from the Reformation
+era, a host of exemplars can be found.
+They may be, for example, leading figures
+of the Reformation movements or figures
+from the past who are referred to as prime
+examples of true faith. In many of the six-
+teenth- and seventeenth-century sources,
+Luther is referred to as a prime example,
+among other means by naming him “the
+loyal worker for the gospel’, preacher of the
+gospel or apostle and a confessor of faith, as
+in Argula von Grumbach’ and Katharina
+Schiitz Zell’s writings (Grumbach 2010
+[1523], 67, 87, 121; Schiitz Zell 1999 [1524],
+29; 1999 [1548], 82).
+
+One example of constructing an exem-
+plar outside one’s own ingroup could per-
+haps be Luther’s discussion on the exem-
+plary cloistered individuals. Of course, the
+question of whether those leading a con-
+templative life belonged to Luther’s ingroup
+or outgroup can be answered differently,
+depending on the text, its timing and con-
+text; Luther’s motives and the audience to
+whom he was writing. In any case, in his
+texts calling for the reform of monastic life,
+
+10 For discussion on gender stereotyping and
+social identity, see Condor 1990, 237-38 et
+passim.
+
+
+========== PAGE 10 ==========
+
+Luther highlighted people whose exempla-
+rity would have been sufficient to preserve
+the whole monastic institution. For Luther,
+Bernard of Clairvaux was one of them, and
+he pondered, for example, how
+
+with pure faith, you are miraculously
+saved by taking the vows and living
+according to them, just like Bernard
+and many others [...] have been
+saved. [...] Therefore, it is inevitable
+that how Bernard was, all the saintly
+and devout people must have been
+[...]. And if there were [men] in the
+monasteries of Bernard’s caliber, they
+[the monasteries] could be tolerated.
+(Luther 1889 [1521], 600, 602, 622)
+
+The textm quoted from Luther’s treatise On
+Monastic Vows, was written to summarize
+his views on monastic life, and especially
+to provide advice to those nuns and monks
+who were leaving the cloister. Luther’s aim
+was to endue them with his argumentation
+that they could act with a clean conscience
+in the decision to leave. Thus, Bernard was
+an exemplar to the (very small) group of
+cloistered people who possessed the true
+and rare gift of chastity and, hence, could
+remain cloistered. Everyone else should
+leave and get married (cf. Mikkola 2024,
+12-13, 48, 148).
+
+Similar making of an exemplar of
+a member of one’s outgroups can also
+be found in other contexts, such as the
+Catholic abbess Caritas von Pirckheimer’s
+(1467-1532) letters, wherein she exalted
+Luther’s co-worker Philipp Melanchthon
+1962 [1525], 103, 136).
+Drawing attention to the processes of con-
+
+(Pirckheimer
+
+structing exemplars that transcend the
+boundaries of confessional groups, for
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+example, could perhaps bring new per-
+spectives to such historical research that
+is focused on time periods characterized
+especially by intergroup division.
+
+In the Reformation era texts, exem-
+plary characters are often biblical figures, as
+active use of biblical passages was very typi-
+cal among both theologians and lay theo-
+logians (for the latter, cf. Chrisman 1996,
+9-10 et passim). Using von Grumbach
+and Schiitz Zell as my examples again,
+they used figures particularly from the
+Old Testament as ideals and exemplars
+with whom they identified and created an
+ingroup of prophets. Schiitz Zell and von
+Grumbach constantly placed themselves
+alongside male prophets such as Jeremiah
+and Isaiah, and thus firmly in the same
+ingroup with them, as in this remark of von
+Grumbach’: “I cry out with the prophet
+Jeremiah [...]” (Grumbach 2010 [1523],
+73). Also, in Schiitz Zell's description can
+be found, among others, identification with
+Isaiah, Jeremiah and Paul—albeit implic-
+itly: “Since then the Lord drew me from
+my mother’s womb and taught me from my
+youth (cf. Isa 49:1; Jer 1:5 ; Gal 1:15), I have
+diligently busied myself with His church
+and its household affairs, working gladly
+and constantly” (Schiitz Zell 1999 [1557],
+168, transl. Elsie Anne McKee).
+
+Schiitz Zell and von Grumbach both
+referred to Paul as a point of identification
+many times in their works. Powerful female
+figures such as Esther and Judith are also to
+be found as role models. These features we
+find among other active women of the day
+as well; their role models were not just bib-
+lical women, but often biblical men. Thus,
+self-categorization with biblical characters
+in the same ingroup signalled the legiti-
+macy and long roots of one’s own actions
+
+116
+
+
+========== PAGE 11 ==========
+
+and beliefs. Indeed, one direction that
+could be explored with the help of SIA is
+the significance of (the explication of) long,
+shared history as a factor creating bound-
+aries between groups and bringing forth
+intragroup connectedness and solidarity.
+The use of the idea of a shared past, and
+the cultivation of historical myths in par-
+ticular, has been found to strengthen the
+social cohesion of an ingroup in previous
+research, which, however, generally focuses
+on the present day (cf. e.g. Sijilmassi et al.
+2024). It would, however, be one fruitful
+perspective—in addition to investigating
+past exemplary characters, for example—
+for research into historical social identities
+as well.
+
+Conclusion
+
+The Social Identity Approach offers an
+interesting perspective on understanding
+group dynamics and identity formation.
+Although it was originally developed in
+social psychology to explain contemporary
+intergroup behaviour, its conceptual tools
+can also be of heuristic value for historical
+research. However, applying SIA to histori-
+cal contexts requires both theoretical sensi-
+tivity and methodological caution.
+
+On the one hand, SIA allows histori-
+ans to formulate questions and hypoth-
+eses about how collective identities were
+constructed, maintained and contested.
+Historical sources often reveal processes
+of ingroup and outgroup differentiation,
+status negotiation and boundary setting.
+Concepts such as personal and social iden-
+tity can open new interpretative horizons
+for historical identity research; and the
+concepts of prototypicality and exemplar
+can shed light on why certain individu-
+als, literary characters or practices came to
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+embody the essence of a group, and how
+leadership emerged within these dynamics.
+Similarly, the emphasis on social compari-
+son and the pursuit of positive distinctive-
+ness resonates with historical conflicts and
+reforms, and the defence of identity. Hence,
+SIA can provide a tool for a more analytical
+structuring of research findings.
+
+On the other hand, when theories based
+on experimental psychology are applied to
+the study of past societies, some important
+limitations emerge. Historians do not have
+direct access to the cognitive and motiva-
+tional processes required by SIA but work
+with mediated and often fragmentary
+source materials. This increases the risk of
+anachronism: modern concepts of iden-
+tity, individuality and group behaviour are
+used in contexts in which these concepts
+function differently. For example, histori-
+cal actors may have experienced identity in
+ways that were more hierarchical or collec-
+tive than SIA typically presumes.
+should not be
+regarded as a predictive or explanatory
+
+Consequently, SIA
+
+model in historical research, but rather as
+an interpretative framework that raises new
+questions. The use of its conceptualizations
+can be particularly fruitful when investigat-
+ing times of change, such as the Reformation
+era, when the need for self-definition of
+individuals and groups was acute, and the
+creation and preservation of boundaries
+between different groups was particularly
+important. This does not mean that I would
+limit the use of SIA to historical examina-
+tion of times of change. All in all, the value
+of SIA lies in drawing attention to patterns
+of (self-)categorization, boundary-making
+and intragroup and intergroup relations,
+but the researcher must at the same time
+remain grounded in the specific features of
+
+17
+
+
+========== PAGE 12 ==========
+
+historical sources and contexts. To achieve
+this, reflexivity is essential. Historians must
+reflect the vocabulary of SIA in relation to
+the context of their sources, acknowledg-
+ing both the insights of the theory and its
+limitations. Therefore, SIA must always be
+applied in conjunction with basic historical
+research methods such as contextualization
+and source criticism, not separately from
+them.
+
+In sum, the Social Identity Approach
+can enrich historical research when used
+critically and contextually. It encourages
+researchers to examine how identities were
+negotiated and enacted in the past, without
+assuming that the psychological mecha-
+nisms underlying these processes mirror
+those observed today. Used in this way,
+SIA offers not a rigid model but a flexible
+heuristic method,!! which can open space
+for interdisciplinary dialogue between
+social psychology and historical research.
+
+D.Th. Sini Mikkola is is
+professor of church his-
+tory at the University
+of Eastern Finland and
+is a docent in church
+history at the Univer-
+sity of Helsinki. She has
+focused especially on
+the Early Modern era, the
+Lutheran Reformation,
+Martin Luther and female
+reformers. Her research interests include gender
+and bodiliness, narrativity, religious identities,
+lived religion and use of history. Her publica-
+tions include the monograph Body and Gender in
+Martin Luther's Anthropology (1520-1530) (Mohr
+Siebeck, 2024), the anthology Lived Reforma-
+tion: Protestant Religiosity in Early Modern Europe
+
+11 For similar notions of the heuristic value
+of SIA, see e.g. Abrams and Hogg 1990, 9;
+Jokiranta 2012, 87-88.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No. 1 * March 2026
+
+Cin Finnish, edited with Paivi Raisanen-Schroder,
+Finnish Society of Church History, 2023) and
+articles such as “Lutheranism in Finnish Soci-
+ety—From State Church to Social Resource”
+(with Ilkka Huhta, in Global Lutheranism in the
+Contemporary World: Luther's Realm, edited by
+Richard Cimino, 79-95. Routledge, 2025) and
+“The Conditio Humana in 16th Century Society”
+(Lutherjahrbuch 90, 161-78).
+
+References
+
+Archival material
+
+Ericus Erici Sorolainen. 1621. Postilla eli Ulgos-
+toimitus / nijnen Ewangeliumitten pdadlle
+cuin ymbdri aiastaian /saarnatan Jumalan
+Seuracunnasa, I. Osa. Stockholm.
+
+Ericus Erici Sorolainen. 1625. Postilla eli Ulgos-
+toimitus / nijnen Ewangeliumitten pdadlle
+cuin ymbdri aiastaian /saarnatan Jumalan
+Seuracunnasa, II Osa. Stockholm.
+
+Grumbach, Argula von. 2010. Argula von Grum-
+bach: Schriften, edited by Peter Matheson.
+Translated by Peter Matheson. Quellen und
+Forschungen zur Reformationsgeschichte,
+Band 83. Giitersloher Verlagshaus.
+
+Luther, Martin. [1521] 1889. “De votis monas-
+ticis Martini Lutheri iudicium.” In D. Mar-
+tin Luther’ Werke. Kritische Gesamtaus-
+gabe. Band 8, 573-669. Hermann Bohlaus
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+
+Pirckheimer, Caritas. 1962. Die “Denkwiirdig-
+keiten” der Caritas Pirckheimer. Caritas
+Pirckheimer Quellensammlung II, edited by
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+
+Schiitz Zell, Katharina. 1999. The Writings.
+A Critical Edition, edited by Elsie Anne
+McKee. Studies in Medieval and Reforma-
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+
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+
+Abrams, Dominic, and Michael A. Hogg. 1990.
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+Backus, Irena. 2003. Historical Method and Con-
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+
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diff --git a/ocr-output/The Social Identity Approach/txt/The Social Identity Approach_page_0001.txt b/ocr-output/The Social Identity Approach/txt/The Social Identity Approach_page_0001.txt
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+SINI MIKKOLA
+
+The Social Identity Approach and Historical
+Research on the Early Modern Era
+
+Review article
+
+doi.org/10.30664/ar.179053
+
+his review article explores the applicabil-
+i of the Social Identity Approach (SIA)
+
+in historical research, focusing on research
+and sources from the Early Modern era, particu-
+larly the context of the Lutheran Reformation.
+The study argues that while identity is often
+treated as self-evident in religious historical
+research, SIA offers conceptual tools that can
+enrich historical interpretation. Using examples
+from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writ-
+ers’ texts, the article demonstrates how bounda-
+ries of “true Christianity” were negotiated and
+maintained, and how the conceptualizations of
+SIA could be used in these discussions. It also
+highlights methodological challenges: historians
+lack direct access to human cognitive processes
+and must rely on mediated, fragmentary sources,
+which necessitates contextualization and source
+criticism to avoid anachronism. SIA should
+therefore be employed as a heuristic framework
+rather than a predictive model. When applied
+critically, it enables nuanced analysis of iden-
+tity construction and group dynamics, fostering
+interdisciplinary dialogue between history and
+social psychology.
+
+Introduction
+In November 2025, I participated in a
+entitled Christianity and
+arranged by the
+
+symposium
+Education, Finnish
+Theological Literature Society. The topics
+were both historical and contemporary,
+discussing Christian upbringing and edu-
+cation from various viewpoints. I detected
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+©)@ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
+
+one theme that characterized many of the
+presentations: that of defining the borders
+of one’s own convictional group and oth-
+ering of other convictional or religious
+groups. Whether in seventeenth-century
+Catechisms and sermons, nineteenth-
+century oral-history material or question-
+naires concerning contemporary Orthodox
+catechetical training, the drawing of bor-
+ders between “us” and “them” or “others”
+kept popping up. In other words, in many
+source materials, the aim of creating clear
+borders between the ingroup and out-
+groups was evident (cf. e.g. Hornsey 2008,
+205-6; Newsom 2008, 13).
+
+In my research, this phenomenon of
+categorization, or partitioning of the world
+(cf. Abrams and Hogg 1990, 2), has become
+apparent when examining sources both
+from sixteenth-century Germany and six-
+teenth- and seventeenth-century Finland.!
+Although the phenomenon of partition-
+ing the world and of categorizing oneself
+as part of different groups is familiar to
+
+1 For short discussion on identifying one-
+self in the group of “true Christians” in
+sixteenth-century Germany, see Mikkola
+2023a, 173-77.
+
+107
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+every historian, it is seldom discussed with
+a theoretical approach. This may have to do
+with the strong empirical emphasis that has
+been dominant in the field of history. As the
+Finnish historians Mirkka Danielsbacka,
+Matti O. Hannikainen and Tuomas Tepora
+have noted: “Researchers often focus pri-
+marily on accurately describing past events
+without using difficult concepts or complex
+theoretical constructs” However, they con-
+tinue, “historical research also contains a
+theoretical dimension, which has already
+been explicitly expressed in some studies”
+(Danielsbacka et al. 2018, 9).
+
+In historical research, the choice of
+theoretical framework is guided primar-
+ily by the question of which framework
+is the most fruitful tool for conceptual-
+izing observations drawn from historical
+sources and for giving meaning to them. As
+in other humanities, and in contrast to the
+natural sciences, for example, the order in
+historical research is that the source mate-
+rial and research questions are consid-
+ered first, after which a suitable theory is
+selected heuristically. Consequently, histo-
+rians often use theories in a rather eclectic
+manner, selectively and in combination (cf.
+e.g. Danielsbacka et al. 2018, 11; Lahtinen
+2018, 184, 195).
+
+In this text, I will ponder how the Social
+Identity Approach (SIA) suits research
+on historical sources. The Social Identity
+Approach encompasses Social Identity
+Theory (SIT, Tajfel and Turner 2004) and
+Self-Categorization Theory (SCT, Turner
+1987) and is first and foremost an approach
+concentrating on intragroup and _ inter-
+group relations (Luomanen 2021, 88). I
+will consider both opportunities and chal-
+lenges that the approach might offer for a
+historian. To keep the discussion concise, I
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+will delimit my examples to Early Modern
+German and Finnish sources from the con-
+text of the Lutheran Reformation as these
+are the ones I have worked with most
+extensively. I will highlight some discus-
+sions from my previous research on the
+Early Modern era, reflecting on them in
+relation to the conceptualizations of SIA.
+My highlights are examples only; hence,
+they are not intended as a comprehensive
+presentation of the applicability of SIA in
+historical research. Finally, I will conclude
+with some remarks of the usefulness of SIA
+in historical studies and hope that it will
+inspire further discussion.
+
+(Social) identity and historical sources
+
+In historical research focused on examining
+religious or confessional groups and identi-
+ties in one way or another, identity is not
+often theorized or even defined in detail.”
+For example, in the monograph by Michele
+Zelinsky Hanson, entitled Religious Identity
+in an Early Reformation Community:
+Augsburg, 1517 to 1555, the writer notes
+that “religious identity was dependent on
+various factors and conditions. Thus, iden-
+tity is not a simple category” (Hanson 2008,
+8). She refers to articulating, constructing
+and expressing one’s religious identity, yet
+does not offer any theoretical approach
+to conceptualize her discussion (Hanson
+2008, 8, 24). In a similar vein, other stud-
+ies on Reformation history talk about, for
+example, “shaping and expressing” iden-
+tity (Willis 2025, 789), sense of identity
+(Walsham 2016, 589) or affirming and
+struggling for religious identity (Backus
+
+2 The same observation has been made with
+regard to exegetical research. See Jokiranta
+and Luomanen 2020, 67.
+
+108
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+2003, 3). In many religious historical stud-
+ies, identity—especially religious identity—
+seems to be considered a self-evident con-
+cept, and hence a concept that does not
+need to be defined. However, all the depic-
+tions cited above are ways of defining iden-
+tity narratively and some of them offer a
+relational perspective on identity.
+
+In psychological research, identity
+broadly refers to an individual’s percep-
+tion of himself or herself. However, there
+are various interpretations of the nature
+of identity; for example, whether identity
+is permanent or changeable by nature, or
+whether it is primarily internal or interper-
+sonal, that is, constructed through social
+interaction. In SIT, identity is conceptual-
+ized on two levels: intergroup and interper-
+sonal, whereas in SCT, identity is divided to
+three levels: the superordinate, the interper-
+sonal and the intergroup levels (Hornsey
+2008, 208; Luomanen 2021, 89-90). The
+superordinate level means one’s human
+identity: the understanding of the self as
+human being—in comparison to other
+creatures. The interpersonal level refers to
+personal identity, which is based on inter-
+personal comparisons—that is, oneself
+in comparison to other persons. Finally,
+the intergroup level refers to social iden-
+tity, which, according to Tajfel and Turner
+means “those aspects of an individual's self-
+image that derive from the social categories
+to which he perceives himself as belonging”
+(Tajfel and Turner 2004, 376-77). Thus, it
+means the self-conception of the person “as
+a group member” in comparison to other
+
+3 For concise presentation of these differ-
+ent interpretations, see Pauha and Haim-
+ila 2024, 209-214. See also e.g. Leary and
+Tangney 2003; Schwartz et al. 2011.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+groups (Jokiranta 2012, 78; see also Abrams
+and Hogg 1990, 2). This sense of belonging
+includes cognitive, evaluative and affective
+significance, as Henri Tajfel has described:
+“The two necessary components are: a cog-
+nitive one, in the sense of awareness of
+membership; and an evaluative one, in the
+sense that this awareness is related to some
+value connotations. The third component
+consists of an emotional investment in the
+awareness and evaluations” (Tajfel 1982, 2;
+see also Jokiranta 2012, 78; Hornsey 2008,
+206). Hence, on all the levels of identity,
+SIA emphasizes the relationality of identity.
+Moreover, the three levels of identity are
+deemed to be activated with varying inten-
+sity in different situations (Hornsey 2008,
+208).
+
+Let me first consider the issues of per-
+manent/changeable identity and internal/
+interpersonal identity from the viewpoint
+of historical research, as I regard it as essen-
+tial for further discussion. From the per-
+spective of historical research, the question
+of the internal nature of human identity is
+particularly problematic. First, historical
+sources do not provide direct access or an
+“open window” into the mind of the author
+of the text: we cannot access the minds of
+people from the past by investigating writ-
+ten or material sources. To put it another
+way, historians do not have access to an
+individual's internal cognitive and moti-
+vational processes but work with medi-
+ated and often fragmentary source mate-
+rial. Thus, detecting the sense of the self in
+the sources is at least problematic, if not
+impossible.
+
+Of course, preserved historical sources
+can be perceived as reflecting the expe-
+riences, feelings and thoughts of their
+authors. However, a characteristic feature
+
+109
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+of the majority of source materials—let-
+ters, polemical writings and even admin-
+istrative records—is that they were often
+written with a specific recipient in mind,
+and the motives for writing arose from
+this interactive relationship—whether
+real or imagined—and the desired out-
+come. Descriptions of oneself and others
+were also written to serve these motives. In
+addition, many texts, such as letters, were
+governed by certain conventions, such as
+prescribed formal modes of expression.
+Autobiographical material, such as dia-
+ries, memoirs and chronicles, is also sub-
+ject to the same source-critical observa-
+tions, as it does not fall outside the scope
+of the aforementioned constraints.4 Hence
+historians cannot assume that the author's
+experiences, feelings or thoughts were in
+fact such as the text suggests. Thus, from
+the perspective of identity research, histor-
+ical sources can be analysed to determine
+what kind of self-image the author—or the
+person who dictated the text°—wanted to
+give the target readership. The (religious)
+identities of people in the past must there-
+fore be examined primarily from the per-
+spective of relationality and narrativity,
+bearing in mind the limitations of histori-
+cal sources.
+
+Secondly, and related to the previous
+constraints, the fragmentary nature of his-
+torical sources makes it impossible in most
+cases to assess the changeability of iden-
+tity of people in the past. Some historical
+figures, often belonging to upper social
+
+4 For these source-critical questions, see, for
+example, Mikkola and Raisaénen-Schréder
+2022, 21-22 and the literature cited therein.
+
+5 In the Early Modern era, it was common to
+employ scribes, and members of the upper
+estates regularly made use of their services.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+strata, such as the reformer Martin Luther,
+have left behind a vast number of textual
+documents, including autobiographical
+ones (Mikkola 2014, 76-7). On the basis
+of these, it may be possible to observe to
+some extent the changes in his identity
+narrative. Only a small amount of mate-
+rial has survived from other historical fig-
+ures. For example, only a single letter has
+survived from the martyr Maeyken Wens
+and the noblewoman Elisabeth Cruciger
+left behind a single hymn.© Many people
+from the past, especially those from the
+lower classes, have been forgotten because
+they left no written documentation behind,
+or because such documentation has been
+lost or destroyed. For example, only a few
+letters have survived from the probably
+quite extensive correspondence of Martin
+Luther's wife, Katharina von Bora (Jurgens
+2022, 53). In many cases, therefore, the
+limited amount of source material, or other
+constraints related to its nature, does not
+allow us to analyse the identity narratives
+of people from the past from the perspec-
+tives of change and continuity.
+
+When a historical text containing either
+self-narrative or descriptions of people
+and groups of people is under investiga-
+tion, it is of course possible to examine, for
+example, whether writers’ descriptions of
+themselves relate to interpersonal or inter-
+group comparisons, and thus make inter-
+pretations about personal and social iden-
+tity. However, one must be careful when
+drawing conclusions from different source
+materials. For example, court records may
+not directly reveal the social identity of a
+
+6 For Maeyken Wens, see e.g. Raisanen-
+Schréder and Mikkola 2023. For Elisabeth
+Cruciger, see e.g. Haemig 2022.
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+person accused of being an Anabaptist, if
+and when social identity is understood as
+an individual’s own experience of belong-
+ing to a particular group, since the records
+were written through intermediaries. In the
+case of autobiographical sources of narra-
+tive content that reveal personal experi-
+ences, it is possible to examine the identities
+of people from the past, but one must care-
+fully bear in mind the identities’ performa-
+tive or narrative nature, which was always
+determined by the historical and personal
+circumstances and the context in which
+the text was written. These basic elements
+of historical research—such as source criti-
+cism and contextualization—must there-
+fore always be exercised when testing and
+applying new theoretical frameworks such
+as SIA.
+
+Self-categorization as a true Christian:
+reflections on the ingroup/outgroup
+divisions
+
+Bearing in mind the above considera-
+tions, the Early Modern era and the con-
+text of the Reformations may prove to be
+a fruitful period for applying the Social
+Identity Approach. This is because the
+period is characterized by disputes, divi-
+sions and drawing of borders between dif-
+ferent groups. Thus, one of the questions
+that constantly arises in the sources is that
+of who represented “true Christianity”. The
+division between true and false Christians
+could be made in the personal or group
+level.
+
+For example, in the letter of the Bavarian
+noblewoman and lay reformer Argula von
+Grumbach (1492-1557), explication of the
+levels of both personal and social identity
+can be detected in the following remarks:
+“I am called Lutheran, but I am not. I was
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+baptized in the name of Christ; it is him I
+confess, not Luther. But I confess that as
+a faithful Christian, Martin also confesses
+Him” (Grumbach 2010 [1523], 121, transl.
+Peter Matheson). On a personal level, von
+Grumbach compared herself to Martin
+Luther, whom she nevertheless at the
+same time categorized together with her-
+self as belonging to the group of followers
+of Christ. The letter was addressed to von
+Grumbach’s relative Adam von Thering,
+who opposed the evangelical movement
+and whom von Grumbach tried to convince
+that she was on the right path in her faith.
+Therefore, it was important to emphasize to
+the recipient, who represented a different
+interpretation of faith, that it was neither
+a new doctrine nor the worship of Luther,
+but rather the traditional faith in Christ
+that all true Christians throughout history
+had confessed.
+
+In another letter, which was directed to
+the University of Ingolstadt, von Grumbach
+noted:
+
+And even if it came to pass—which
+God forfend—that Luther were to
+revoke his views, that would not
+worry me. I do not build on his, mine,
+or any person’s understanding, but on
+the true rock, Christ himself [...]. [I
+write] as a member of the Christian
+Church, against which the gates of
+Hell cannot prevail. (Grumbach 2010
+[1523], 74-75, transl. Peter Matheson)
+
+The Christian Church was von Grumbach’s
+ingroup, a member of which Luther also
+was, and the group was grounded in
+Christ himself. Her own as well as Luther's
+views were based solely on Christ, as von
+Grumbach seems to argue, which could
+
+MM
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+perhaps be understood as minimizing
+intragroup differences (cf. e.g. Hornsey
+2008, 208). Thus gender, social position,
+education or other personal features of
+the like were not important in this group
+of “Christian Church” but joint interpreta-
+tion of faith. Indeed, von Grumbach cited
+in other contexts biblical passages, such as
+Galatians 3:28, that underlined the irrel-
+evance of possible differences within the
+ingroup of true believers.
+
+A passage from von Grumbach’s con-
+temporary, the lay reformer Katharina
+Schiitz Zell (1498-1562) from Strasbourg,
+is worth quoting when discussing the influ-
+ence of personal and social identities in the
+context of defining true Christians. Schtitz
+Zell narrated her religious identity in a
+letter in 1553:
+
+with His [God’s] help that is what I
+will do: I will demonstrate my love
+and service everywhere to whoever
+seeks it, but I will not give myself as
+a prisoner to anyone. [...] for St. Paul
+said, “Why is one an ‘Apolloian; the
+other a ‘Pauliar’ or a ‘Peterian’? Were
+these men crucified for you? Was not
+Christ crucified for you?” [cf. 1 Cor
+1:12-13]. Neither Schwenckfeld nor
+the dear Dr. Luther nor any devout
+minister, none of them ever sought
+that; I also will not do it. I do not want
+to be theirs, but with them I want to be
+Christ’s. (Schutz Zell 1999 [1553], 128,
+131, transl. Elsie Anne McKee)
+
+I have formerly argued that
+Schiitz Zell acknowledged her uncom-
+
+fortable position in a situation where
+a host of interpretations of right faith
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+and living were competing and posi-
+tioned herself on neutral ground, as
+it were, thus reinforcing her religious
+identity as a seeker of reconciliation
+[...]. Hence, her narration can be
+understood as emphasizing her inde-
+pendent status as a religious and the-
+ological thinker, though firmly basing
+her faith on Scripture and Christ him-
+self. (Mikkola 2023a, 174-75)
+
+From the viewpoint of SIA, it could per-
+haps be argued that Schiitz Zell narrated
+first and foremost her personal identity
+as a follower of Christ and renounced all
+groups, including those led by the spir-
+itualist Caspar Schwenckfeld and Luther.
+This interpretation seems to be justified in
+light of other passages in her production, in
+which she strongly emphasized her unique
+position among Christians as the one to
+have received a special calling from God
+to be a mediator between other people and
+God, that is, His prophet (cf. e.g. Pak 2015,
+104-5; Mikkola 2021, 300).7
+
+The salience of her personal identity
+can be detected from her wording of offer-
+ing her “love and service everywhere to
+whoever seeks it”. Thus, in the quoted pas-
+sage she quite straightforwardly rejected
+intergroup differences. She did not com-
+municate emotional bonds or awareness
+of belonging vis-a-vis any particular con-
+temporaries (cf. Jokiranta 2012, 78, 218),
+though she referred to Luther as “dear”.
+Her evaluation of herself vis-a-vis others
+
+7 The other passages could perhaps also be
+interpreted to reveal a sense of belonging
+to an ingroup that included Old Testament
+prophets, especially Isaiah and Jeremiah,
+the New Testament’s Paul, and Schiitz Zell
+herself. Cf. Mikkola 2023b, 133-35.
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@@ -0,0 +1,92 @@
+emphasized _ differentiation. However,
+when rejecting ingroups and outgroups,
+she could be interpreted as having at the
+same time narrated a sort of a wide ingroup
+that included, in addition to herself, all
+the other followers of Christ, such as Paul,
+Luther and Schwenckfeld, despite their dif-
+ferences in theology, periods they lived in
+or other features. This could perhaps be
+called a “superordinate ingroup identity in
+Christ” to borrow Jutta Jokiranta’s (2012,
+86) wording, or common group identity,
+which contains the idea that a person rede-
+fines the boundaries of ingroup and out-
+group, and embraces the idea of an inclu-
+sive group (cf. Gaertner et al. 1993). Both
+of these explanations correspond also to
+Argula von Grumbach’ identity narrative
+described above.
+
+Schiitz Zell’s way of narrating her iden-
+tity is at least partly explained by the his-
+torical situation. She was at the time in the
+middle of a conflict between the Lutheran
+pastor Ludwig Rabus, the successor to her
+late husband Matthew Zell, and the spir-
+itualist Caspar Schwenckfeld and his suc-
+cessors (Mikkola 2023a, 174). Her empha-
+sis on independence especially vis-a-vis
+Schwenckfeld could be deemed strategical
+as Lutheran orthodoxy gained more ground
+in Strasbourg.8 To avoid being identified
+with one group or the other, and to maintain
+the position in Strasbourg she had achieved
+with her husband—which had been charac-
+terized by interaction with representatives
+of different interpretations of faith—Schitz
+Zell's strategy was to reject groupings.
+
+However, if we examine her other writ-
+ings from different contexts, we find very
+
+8 For the situation in Strasbourg in the 1550s,
+see McKee 1999, 149-51.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+explicit ingroup self-categorization and
+defining of outgroups. To put it another
+way, in this passage Schiitz Zell acted first
+and foremost as an individual but in other
+contexts she could also narrate herself as a
+member of a group (cf. Abrams and Hogg
+1990, 4; Jokiranta 2012, 79-80). In this case
+as well as in many others, it becomes evi-
+dent that categorization may change, and
+most often changes, as the context changes
+(cf. e.g. Hogg 2016, 9). This premise reso-
+nates well with the general principles of his-
+torical research, which place a key empha-
+sis on examining the source material in its
+context at all times.
+
+In multiple contexts, the positive dis-
+tinctiveness of one’s ingroup was accen-
+tuated. For example, the Lutheran bishop
+of Turku (Abo) diocese Ericus Erici
+Sorolainen (1546-1625) named _ several
+outgroups in his book of homilies in the
+1620s. The outgroups were heathens and
+other sects, Catholics and Sacramentarians,
+including Calvinists and Zwinglians. The
+bishop defined heathens and sects as blind
+and stupid. Catholics, or as the bishop
+expressed it, “the pope in Rome and his
+lot’, lived in darkness since they had aban-
+doned Christ and lived according to human
+decrees. The distinctive marks of their mis-
+takenness were, among others, veneration
+of saints, pilgrimages and rosaries. The
+Reformed had also, according to Ericus
+Erici, abandoned God and begun to follow
+their own reason and “fleshly wisdom” In
+this way, the Reformed were like Catholics,
+as the bishop noted. In the very same
+context, he elevated his own ingroup by
+reminding his readers to thank God for
+“bringing us to the brightness of the gospel
+/ through that holy man Martinus Luther”.
+Not only Luther and the gospel but also the
+
+113
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+purity of the preached word were distinc-
+tive to his own ingroup, the true follow-
+ers of Christ (Ericus Erici Sorolainen 1621,
+Epistola Dedicatoria; see also Ericus Erici
+Sorolainen 1621, 284; 1625, 185, 843).
+
+In this example, it becomes evident
+that “groups are not islands; they become
+psychologically real only when defined in
+comparison to other groups’, as Matthew
+J. Hornsey (2008, 207) has remarked.
+Bishop Ericus Erici categorized himself as
+belonging within “us’, those illuminated
+by the gospel, and—in my interpreta-
+tion—offered Luther as an exemplar of his
+ingroup. In Ericus Erici’s text, the empha-
+sis on intergroup differences between his
+ingroup and those defined as outgroups is
+also markedly present. The intergroup dif-
+ferences were accentuated, perhaps even
+maximized. Moreover, the outgroups were
+portrayed very stereotypically, and the
+ingroup’ positive distinctiveness—or pos-
+itive social identity—was highlighted (cf.
+Abrams and Hogg 1990, 3; Jokiranta 2012,
+80-5, 147-8; Hornsey 2008, 207-8). From
+the bishop's narrative, it can be noticed that
+
+¢.
+
+social group defines for its members “who
+they are, what they should believe and how
+they should behave” (Hogg 2016, 6). When
+investigating Ericus Erici’s book of homilies
+more closely, these models of behaviour,
+virtues and correct content of belief can all
+be found (see e.g. Ericus Erici Sorolainen
+1621, 21, 652; 1625, 473 et passim). In all
+this, Ericus Erici’s rhetoric was similar to
+that of many other writers of the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries and, conse-
+quently, investigating those texts with SIA
+would probably produce similar findings.
+When analysing the bishop's text, it is
+again essential to consider the historical
+context. Lutheranism had become the state
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+religion of the Swedish realm and thus also
+of Finland at the end of the sixteenth cen-
+tury, and Catholicism was banned in 1617,
+a few years before the publication of Ericus
+Erici’s book of homilies. The beginning of
+closer cooperation between the church and
+the state and the preservation of Lutheran
+doctrinal purity meant a separation not
+only from the Catholic Church but also
+from Calvinism, the influence of which did
+not actually reach its peak until the 1660s
+(Laasonen 1998, 215). In addition to this
+general situation, Ericus Erici himself was
+accused of supporting the policies of the
+previous Catholic-leaning ruler, John III,
+and even dismissed from office for a while
+for it. The bishop, in fact, changed his stance
+more than once, always in accordance with
+the conviction of the ruler in power (Kouri
+2012). In the preface to his book of hom-
+ilies, he clearly seeks to position himself
+within the dominant confessional ingroup
+of the realm, which was obviously essential
+in his episcopal office. By doing so, he not
+only categorized himself within this group
+but also participated in maintaining the
+group’s status quo.?
+
+Exemplary figures and prototypes
+I noted
+Sorolainen, Martin Luther seems to have
+
+above that for Ericus Erici
+
+been an exemplary individual. Luther’s
+position as a true follower of Christ also
+emerged in the short text samples from
+Argula von Grumbach and Katharina
+Schiitz Zell. For my other theme, I will
+examine exemplary figures and proto-
+types vis-a-vis my previous research on
+Reformation and gender history.
+
+9 For the general notion of maintaining the
+status quo, see Abrams and Hogg 1990, 4.
+
+14
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+Petri Luomanen has convincingly dis-
+tinguished between the concepts of proto-
+type and exemplar. Prototype refers to “an
+abstraction of group features” (Luomanen
+2021, 92). It is a construct to which certain
+features are attached, and which changes
+in content depending on the context. The
+set of attributes is most often fuzzy and
+mirrors what is considered as representa-
+tive within the group. Most importantly
+from the viewpoint of historical research,
+a prototype is an abstraction in the per-
+sons mind. Consequently, it is impossible
+to access prototypes from textual records,
+and Luomanen’s central argument is that
+“textual phenomena should not be termed
+as prototypes” (Luomanen 2021, 92-93,
+98, 103; see also Hogg and McGarty 1990,
+13-14). However, he has also noted that “as
+far as the texts signal normative percep-
+tions, attitudes, feelings and behaviours—
+by showing these to be desirable through
+the narrative—these likely reflect prototypi-
+calities and prototypes in the minds of their
+authors” (Luomanen 2021, 103).
+
+From my viewpoint, the idea of a pro-
+totype is somewhat reminiscent of the
+concepts of representation, stereotype and
+norm, which are often used in gender-
+sensitive historical research. The funda-
+mental idea is that a general stereotype or
+representation of, for example, a man or a
+woman is constructed, which reflects the
+ideas of a community, a particular group
+or a particular individual in regard to what
+is typical, desired or undesired, but which
+no real person necessarily corresponds
+to in all respects. This sort of representa-
+tion of a man or woman is an abstraction,
+much like the prototype (see e.g. Mikkola
+2024, 233-34). Thus, SIA could also be of
+use in gender-sensitive historical research
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+in conceptualizing normative perceptions,
+attitudes, feelings and behaviours from the
+viewpoint of group sociology.!°
+
+Whereas a prototype is an abstraction,
+an exemplar is concrete: an exemplar is a
+person who is regarded as best representing
+the ideal member either of the ingroup or
+an outgroup. Thereby, an exemplar can also
+be a historical or a fictive figure (Luomanen
+2021, 92, 98, 103-4). Individual exemplars
+or exemplary characters can readily be
+examined from historical source materi-
+als. In the sources from the Reformation
+era, a host of exemplars can be found.
+They may be, for example, leading figures
+of the Reformation movements or figures
+from the past who are referred to as prime
+examples of true faith. In many of the six-
+teenth- and seventeenth-century sources,
+Luther is referred to as a prime example,
+among other means by naming him “the
+loyal worker for the gospel’, preacher of the
+gospel or apostle and a confessor of faith, as
+in Argula von Grumbach’ and Katharina
+Schiitz Zell’s writings (Grumbach 2010
+[1523], 67, 87, 121; Schiitz Zell 1999 [1524],
+29; 1999 [1548], 82).
+
+One example of constructing an exem-
+plar outside one’s own ingroup could per-
+haps be Luther’s discussion on the exem-
+plary cloistered individuals. Of course, the
+question of whether those leading a con-
+templative life belonged to Luther’s ingroup
+or outgroup can be answered differently,
+depending on the text, its timing and con-
+text; Luther’s motives and the audience to
+whom he was writing. In any case, in his
+texts calling for the reform of monastic life,
+
+10 For discussion on gender stereotyping and
+social identity, see Condor 1990, 237-38 et
+passim.
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+Luther highlighted people whose exempla-
+rity would have been sufficient to preserve
+the whole monastic institution. For Luther,
+Bernard of Clairvaux was one of them, and
+he pondered, for example, how
+
+with pure faith, you are miraculously
+saved by taking the vows and living
+according to them, just like Bernard
+and many others [...] have been
+saved. [...] Therefore, it is inevitable
+that how Bernard was, all the saintly
+and devout people must have been
+[...]. And if there were [men] in the
+monasteries of Bernard’s caliber, they
+[the monasteries] could be tolerated.
+(Luther 1889 [1521], 600, 602, 622)
+
+The textm quoted from Luther’s treatise On
+Monastic Vows, was written to summarize
+his views on monastic life, and especially
+to provide advice to those nuns and monks
+who were leaving the cloister. Luther’s aim
+was to endue them with his argumentation
+that they could act with a clean conscience
+in the decision to leave. Thus, Bernard was
+an exemplar to the (very small) group of
+cloistered people who possessed the true
+and rare gift of chastity and, hence, could
+remain cloistered. Everyone else should
+leave and get married (cf. Mikkola 2024,
+12-13, 48, 148).
+
+Similar making of an exemplar of
+a member of one’s outgroups can also
+be found in other contexts, such as the
+Catholic abbess Caritas von Pirckheimer’s
+(1467-1532) letters, wherein she exalted
+Luther’s co-worker Philipp Melanchthon
+1962 [1525], 103, 136).
+Drawing attention to the processes of con-
+
+(Pirckheimer
+
+structing exemplars that transcend the
+boundaries of confessional groups, for
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+example, could perhaps bring new per-
+spectives to such historical research that
+is focused on time periods characterized
+especially by intergroup division.
+
+In the Reformation era texts, exem-
+plary characters are often biblical figures, as
+active use of biblical passages was very typi-
+cal among both theologians and lay theo-
+logians (for the latter, cf. Chrisman 1996,
+9-10 et passim). Using von Grumbach
+and Schiitz Zell as my examples again,
+they used figures particularly from the
+Old Testament as ideals and exemplars
+with whom they identified and created an
+ingroup of prophets. Schiitz Zell and von
+Grumbach constantly placed themselves
+alongside male prophets such as Jeremiah
+and Isaiah, and thus firmly in the same
+ingroup with them, as in this remark of von
+Grumbach’: “I cry out with the prophet
+Jeremiah [...]” (Grumbach 2010 [1523],
+73). Also, in Schiitz Zell's description can
+be found, among others, identification with
+Isaiah, Jeremiah and Paul—albeit implic-
+itly: “Since then the Lord drew me from
+my mother’s womb and taught me from my
+youth (cf. Isa 49:1; Jer 1:5 ; Gal 1:15), I have
+diligently busied myself with His church
+and its household affairs, working gladly
+and constantly” (Schiitz Zell 1999 [1557],
+168, transl. Elsie Anne McKee).
+
+Schiitz Zell and von Grumbach both
+referred to Paul as a point of identification
+many times in their works. Powerful female
+figures such as Esther and Judith are also to
+be found as role models. These features we
+find among other active women of the day
+as well; their role models were not just bib-
+lical women, but often biblical men. Thus,
+self-categorization with biblical characters
+in the same ingroup signalled the legiti-
+macy and long roots of one’s own actions
+
+116
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+and beliefs. Indeed, one direction that
+could be explored with the help of SIA is
+the significance of (the explication of) long,
+shared history as a factor creating bound-
+aries between groups and bringing forth
+intragroup connectedness and solidarity.
+The use of the idea of a shared past, and
+the cultivation of historical myths in par-
+ticular, has been found to strengthen the
+social cohesion of an ingroup in previous
+research, which, however, generally focuses
+on the present day (cf. e.g. Sijilmassi et al.
+2024). It would, however, be one fruitful
+perspective—in addition to investigating
+past exemplary characters, for example—
+for research into historical social identities
+as well.
+
+Conclusion
+
+The Social Identity Approach offers an
+interesting perspective on understanding
+group dynamics and identity formation.
+Although it was originally developed in
+social psychology to explain contemporary
+intergroup behaviour, its conceptual tools
+can also be of heuristic value for historical
+research. However, applying SIA to histori-
+cal contexts requires both theoretical sensi-
+tivity and methodological caution.
+
+On the one hand, SIA allows histori-
+ans to formulate questions and hypoth-
+eses about how collective identities were
+constructed, maintained and contested.
+Historical sources often reveal processes
+of ingroup and outgroup differentiation,
+status negotiation and boundary setting.
+Concepts such as personal and social iden-
+tity can open new interpretative horizons
+for historical identity research; and the
+concepts of prototypicality and exemplar
+can shed light on why certain individu-
+als, literary characters or practices came to
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No.1 * March 2026
+
+embody the essence of a group, and how
+leadership emerged within these dynamics.
+Similarly, the emphasis on social compari-
+son and the pursuit of positive distinctive-
+ness resonates with historical conflicts and
+reforms, and the defence of identity. Hence,
+SIA can provide a tool for a more analytical
+structuring of research findings.
+
+On the other hand, when theories based
+on experimental psychology are applied to
+the study of past societies, some important
+limitations emerge. Historians do not have
+direct access to the cognitive and motiva-
+tional processes required by SIA but work
+with mediated and often fragmentary
+source materials. This increases the risk of
+anachronism: modern concepts of iden-
+tity, individuality and group behaviour are
+used in contexts in which these concepts
+function differently. For example, histori-
+cal actors may have experienced identity in
+ways that were more hierarchical or collec-
+tive than SIA typically presumes.
+should not be
+regarded as a predictive or explanatory
+
+Consequently, SIA
+
+model in historical research, but rather as
+an interpretative framework that raises new
+questions. The use of its conceptualizations
+can be particularly fruitful when investigat-
+ing times of change, such as the Reformation
+era, when the need for self-definition of
+individuals and groups was acute, and the
+creation and preservation of boundaries
+between different groups was particularly
+important. This does not mean that I would
+limit the use of SIA to historical examina-
+tion of times of change. All in all, the value
+of SIA lies in drawing attention to patterns
+of (self-)categorization, boundary-making
+and intragroup and intergroup relations,
+but the researcher must at the same time
+remain grounded in the specific features of
+
+17
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+historical sources and contexts. To achieve
+this, reflexivity is essential. Historians must
+reflect the vocabulary of SIA in relation to
+the context of their sources, acknowledg-
+ing both the insights of the theory and its
+limitations. Therefore, SIA must always be
+applied in conjunction with basic historical
+research methods such as contextualization
+and source criticism, not separately from
+them.
+
+In sum, the Social Identity Approach
+can enrich historical research when used
+critically and contextually. It encourages
+researchers to examine how identities were
+negotiated and enacted in the past, without
+assuming that the psychological mecha-
+nisms underlying these processes mirror
+those observed today. Used in this way,
+SIA offers not a rigid model but a flexible
+heuristic method,!! which can open space
+for interdisciplinary dialogue between
+social psychology and historical research.
+
+D.Th. Sini Mikkola is is
+professor of church his-
+tory at the University
+of Eastern Finland and
+is a docent in church
+history at the Univer-
+sity of Helsinki. She has
+focused especially on
+the Early Modern era, the
+Lutheran Reformation,
+Martin Luther and female
+reformers. Her research interests include gender
+and bodiliness, narrativity, religious identities,
+lived religion and use of history. Her publica-
+tions include the monograph Body and Gender in
+Martin Luther's Anthropology (1520-1530) (Mohr
+Siebeck, 2024), the anthology Lived Reforma-
+tion: Protestant Religiosity in Early Modern Europe
+
+11 For similar notions of the heuristic value
+of SIA, see e.g. Abrams and Hogg 1990, 9;
+Jokiranta 2012, 87-88.
+
+Approaching Religion * Vol. 16, No. 1 * March 2026
+
+Cin Finnish, edited with Paivi Raisanen-Schroder,
+Finnish Society of Church History, 2023) and
+articles such as “Lutheranism in Finnish Soci-
+ety—From State Church to Social Resource”
+(with Ilkka Huhta, in Global Lutheranism in the
+Contemporary World: Luther's Realm, edited by
+Richard Cimino, 79-95. Routledge, 2025) and
+“The Conditio Humana in 16th Century Society”
+(Lutherjahrbuch 90, 161-78).
+
+References
+
+Archival material
+
+Ericus Erici Sorolainen. 1621. Postilla eli Ulgos-
+toimitus / nijnen Ewangeliumitten pdadlle
+cuin ymbdri aiastaian /saarnatan Jumalan
+Seuracunnasa, I. Osa. Stockholm.
+
+Ericus Erici Sorolainen. 1625. Postilla eli Ulgos-
+toimitus / nijnen Ewangeliumitten pdadlle
+cuin ymbdri aiastaian /saarnatan Jumalan
+Seuracunnasa, II Osa. Stockholm.
+
+Grumbach, Argula von. 2010. Argula von Grum-
+bach: Schriften, edited by Peter Matheson.
+Translated by Peter Matheson. Quellen und
+Forschungen zur Reformationsgeschichte,
+Band 83. Giitersloher Verlagshaus.
+
+Luther, Martin. [1521] 1889. “De votis monas-
+ticis Martini Lutheri iudicium.” In D. Mar-
+tin Luther’ Werke. Kritische Gesamtaus-
+gabe. Band 8, 573-669. Hermann Bohlaus
+Nachfolger.
+
+Pirckheimer, Caritas. 1962. Die “Denkwiirdig-
+keiten” der Caritas Pirckheimer. Caritas
+Pirckheimer Quellensammlung II, edited by
+Josef Pfanner. LSolanus-Druck.
+
+Schiitz Zell, Katharina. 1999. The Writings.
+A Critical Edition, edited by Elsie Anne
+McKee. Studies in Medieval and Reforma-
+tion Thought 69. Brill.
+
+Literature and other sources
+
+Abrams, Dominic, and Michael A. Hogg. 1990.
+“An Introduction to the Social Identity
+Approach.” In Social Identity Theory: Con-
+structive and Critical Advances, edited by
+Dominic Abrams and Michael A. Hogg.
+Harvester Wheatsheaf.
+
+Backus, Irena. 2003. Historical Method and Con-
+fessional Identity in the Era of the Reforma-
+tion (1378-1615). Brill.
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/ocr-output/The Social Identity Approach/txt/The Social Identity Approach_page_0013.txt	
@@ -0,0 +1,127 @@
+Chrisman, Miriam Usher. 1996. Conflicting
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+Condor, Susan. 1990. “Social Stereotypes and
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+
+Danielsbacka, Mirkka, Matti O. Hannikainen
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+Gaertner, Samuel L., John F. Dovidio, Phyllis A.
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+Haemig, Mary Jane. 2022. “Elisabeth Cruciger
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+Hanson, Michele Zelinsky. 2008. Religious Iden-
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+Hogg, Michael A. 2016. “Social Identity The-
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+
+Hogg, Michael A. and Craig McGarty. 1990.
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+Hornsey, Matthew J. 2008. “Social Identity The-
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+org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00066.x.
+
+Jokiranta, Jutta. 2012. Social Identity and Sec-
+tarianism in the Qumran Movement. Stud-
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+Brill.
+
+Jokiranta, Jutta, and Petri Luomanen. 2020.
+“Sosiaalisen identiteetin nakékulma.” In
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+tutkimukseen, edited by Petri Luomanen,
+Jutta Jokiranta and Outi Lehtipuu. The
+Finnish Exegetical Society.
+
+Jurgens, Laura. 2022. ”Katharina von Bora:
+Morning Star of Wittenberg” In Women
+Reformers: Profiles, Texts, and Contexts,
+edited by Kirsi Stjerna. Fortress Press.
+
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