Ethno-religious identities of immigrants
A sociological analysis with theological implications

 Ethno-religious identities of immigrants
A sociological analysis with theological implications

 An exposition of Professor R. Stephen Warner’s theoretical position on new immigrant religion 

Keerthisiri Fernando  

The Rt Rev’d Keerthisiri Fernando (Sinhala කීර්තිසිරි ප්‍රනාන්දු හිමිපාණන්) is the sixth Bishop of Kurunegala,Sri Lanka of the Anglican Church of Ceylon. He is an expert in inter-faith dialogue and has written extensively on Christian-Buddhist relationships.

Introduction and background

From the writings of Warner it is very clear that he is a qualitative sociologist of religion who is involved in doing research among various ethno religious immigrant communities, very especially in the USA. He is a professor of sociology at the Department of Sociology, University of Illinois in Chicago, USA. The bulk of his research has been done in multi religious and ethnic context where different religious and ethnic immigrant groups meet in the same place of the society in the USA. It could be noticed that most of his researches have been done according to the “participant observation” method and his personal extensive exposures in the multi cultural, ethnic and religious contexts have enriched his academic positions. He points out how certain identities of religions are fast changing making ethno religious identities very complex and complicated. He elaborates this by showing how different religions come in all colours and the traditional association of religions are fast changing in the modern society in the USA. Therefore, according to him today in the USA Asians may be packed in a traditional Christian church while white Westerners may fill a Buddhist temple to get involved in meditation.  In analysing the new immigrant religion Warner cautious that it should not be assumed that the new immigrants are entirely different or similar to their predecessors. Although in many ways they are different from their predecessors yet they have many similarities and share the common heritage of their predecessors.

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