Religious Identity in Italian Evangelicals: Constructing Religious Identity using Hermans’ Dialogical Self Theory

Background: Religious identity affects many spheres of life. It has been studied as a social construct and as an individual construct however religious identity is both. To better understand religious identity, both aspects should be considered simultaneously to avoid oversimplification. Hermans’ Dialogical Self Theory (DST) does just this. This study therefore uses DST to examine the construction of religious identity amongst 10 Italian Evangelicals. Method: A mixed methods approach was employed using the Personal Position Repertoire analysed by biclustering (Krotofil, 2013) and a semi-structured interview analysed by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Results: “I as religious” was found to be a meta-position for seven individuals and God seemed to be a promoter position for eight of them. Rationality was not an anti-position for religious identity despite previous research (Adams, 2004) and neither was doubt. Depositioning and transcendent experience were also not key to their religious identity despite previous findings (Cahn & Polich, 2006). Discussion: Hermans (2018) had suggested religious identity might be a core position but these findings suggest a meta-position fitted better. The findings on rationality and on the lack of importance of depositioning suggest religious experiences are not all monolithic so future research should carefully examine differences between and possibly within faiths too