Religious pluralism, postmodern religious movements and Croatian identity

One of the fundamental features of Croatian society and its identity is certainly traditional belonging to the Catholic Church. The interweaving of the traditional Catholic identity with the national belonging to the Croatian people is an indisputable historical fact. Even in the most difficult times of the repressive atheistic system, that is, in the times of communist rule, the dimension of the Catholicism of the Croatian people is among the strongest, and perhaps the strongest feature of its identity. Moreover, it can be stated that it was precisely the traditional Catholic identity that greatly contributed to the preservation of the national consciousness of the Croats at that time. With the establishment of the Croatian state and defense against aggression, the religious component of Croatian identity was further strengthened. However, at the same time, Croatian society is affected by transitional, globalization processes and the pluralism of numerous ideas, worldviews, as well as postmodern religious movements. There are numerous diverse sacred societies, alternative religious groups, communities and movements that assemble their own religious mosaic from different and diverse both Western and Eastern religious systems (the so-called bricolage religion), or else as a selective choice (a la carte) according to their own discretion. All of this necessarily has a direct impact on the traditional religious affiliation of the Croatian people, and thus on their identity. For the purposes of the project, along with the construction of appropriate methodological instruments, empirical, field research was planned, which would attempt to investigate the very phenomenon of contemporary religious-religious “revival”, the causes of its emergence, fundamental religious features, structure, methods of operation of new religious and church movements, and socio- cultural and spiritual characteristics of their members. Special emphasis would be placed on discovering the influence of the contemporary movement of the global religious scene on the traditional Croatian (Catholic) identity, that is, determining the characteristics of the contemporary (religious) Croatian identity. The importance of the research is that it would create a basis for an appropriate, scientifically based judgment about the (stronger or weaker, socially acceptable or otherwise unacceptable) influence of new religious movements on Croatian society, and thus for an appropriate attitude towards new religious movements. In the same way, the influences on the traditional Croatian identity, and then society as a whole, would be determined, that is, the guidelines that determine and direct changes in the Croatian identity on the religious level would be determined.