Religion ethnicity and self identity : nations in turmoil Ethnicity and religion at the end of this century are fused in surprising creative and ominous ways. News stories connect words like Orthodox Muslim Jewish Catholic and Protestant with various movements of peoples. Whereas ethnicity and religion have in the past succumbed to secular urban technological ideological educational and mass communication influences they now surface as a freshly volatile force in world cultures. To overcome these conventional influences people establish personal and group identity mutual security and empowerment by creatively merging their ethnicity and religion. This collection of essays examines in Martin Martys terms the explosion of public faith and aggressive action