Another political aspect of religion is the support of a national identity, similar to a shared ethnicity, language, or culture.
Nation-states whose borders are relatively recent or that have experienced colonialism may be more prone to religious nationalism, which may stand as a more authentic or "traditional" rendering of identity.
In such a scenario, appealing to a national sense of Islamic identity, as in the case of Pakistan (see two-nation theory), may serve to override regional tensions.
Thus, appeals to religion as a marker of ethnicity create an opening for more strident and ideological interpretations of religious nationalism.
Many ethnic and cultural nationalisms include religious aspects, but as a marker of group identity, rather than the intrinsic motivation for nationalist claims.
Buddhist Nationalism is mainly prevalent and influential in Sri Lanka and Myanmar, and is also present in Cambodia and Thailand.
Commentators have noted that in modern India, a contemporary form of Hindu nationalism, or Hindutva, has been endorsed by the Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
[23] Paganism resurfaces as a topic of fascination in 18th to 19th-century Romanticism, in particular in the context of the literary Viking revivals, which portrayed historical Celtic, Slavic and Germanic polytheists as noble savages.
Some northern European neopagan groups, such as Theods, Ásatrúarfélagið, and Viðartrúar, have explicitly stated that neo-Nazism is not common among their members.
[26]: 133 [27]: 97 By refusing to ban Shinto practices outright, Japan's post-war constitution was thus able to preserve full freedom of religion.