Praying to an Absent God: A Comparative Critique of Religious Nationalism

The modern emergence of nationalism is often interpreted as evidence of the modern decline of religion. Nationalism can be understood as the defining of a political community in terms of a single territory or ethnic group, and as ruled by a single state that predicates itself on the legitimacy and consent of its nation. What has made this conception of human community so compelling, from the nineteenth century to the present, is the decentering of religious faith.