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aces inferior to the white races; God made the Serb different from the Croatian—which may be
taken as a reason why the Serb is Orthodox, the Croatian is Catholic; and the Bosnian is
Muslim.But what happens when we find a Lutheran Serb, a Hindu Croatian, an atheistic Bosnian?
Such people are, it would appear, anomalies; they are,to use the words of the anthropologist Mary
Douglas (1966), matter out of place—which is, to put it simply, her definition of dirt. Douglas
starts from the assumption that we need to create order out of the chaos that confronts us. We need
to decide what is what—what goes with what, and, just as importantly, what does not go with
what. We impose order by categorizing phenomena, by separating them from other phenomena by
conceptual boundaries. But although the boundaries that distinguish phenomena (objects,
concepts, ideals, peoples) from each other are necessary (we’ve got to draw the line somewhere),
how and where these boundaries are drawn are arbitrary—or, at least, relative to the society or
group that draws and maintains the boundaries. Because these boundaries are of fundamental
importance, and because (contrary to Platonic essentialism) there is no one single, unchanging
‘‘right’’ way in which they might be drawn, and they are, thus, potentially precarious, anything
that threatens them can be seen as a threat to the very fabric of society, or at least to the vested
interests of those who benefit from the line being drawn here rather than there.
Boundary Variability
Bearing this in mind, let us look at some of the ways in which boundaries can differ from each
other according to a number of variables.
Position and Content
First, obviously enough, boundaries drawn in different ways contain different phenomena within
their bounds. The concept of religion, for instance, may be confied to a belief in God, or extended
to include ideologies such as Marxism or nationalism. These positions may be regarded as
inviolable or they may be seen as negotiable. Sometimes the contents are shifted by a sleight of
hand so that the definition of religion might, for example, exclude Scientology according to
criteria that would also exclude, say, Buddhism were they (which they are not) consistently
applied. Indeed, the concept of religion has constantly been challenged by new religious
movements, the established religions and those with interests in the status quo frequently claiming
that the new religions are not really religions but ‘‘cults’’, ‘‘sects’’, money-making scams,
political fronts—or some other, purportedly non-religious phenomenon.There are several reasons
why people can have a vested interest in preserving an existing boundary: from a theological
perspective, moving the boundary position can threaten to dilute or relativize The Truth; more
pragmatically, it can risk granting newcomers access to scarce resources (to status; to tax
exemption; to radio time) and thus threaten privileges currently available to those who are
claiming their right to them in the name of ‘‘real religion’’.
Sub-divisions
Boundaries may encompass sub-boundaries that enclose a variety of subdivisions.At one point in
its history, the Children of God had seven different layers of membership, ranging from an inner
core of fully committed members to an outer fringe of people who shared many of their beliefs but
lived their own lives ‘‘outside’’ the movement. In this case an individual might have belonged to
one or other of the sub-divisions, but not to more than one at any one time, although movement
between the types of membership was possible. Alternatively, sub-divisions may subsume each
other —those with an English national identity would also be British (although a Briton is not
necessarily English), while their religious identity, if Anglican, would also be both Protestant and
Christian, although not all Christians are Protestants and not all Protestants are Anglicans.
Precision and/or Distinctiveness
Boundaries can be drawn with varying levels of precision or distinctiveness.The more important
and closer distinctions are, the greater the threat and the more stringently the boundary will be
protected. Counter-cultic Evangelical Christians are more concerned about new religions that
claim to be Christian than about Krishna Consciousness, which is obviously ‘‘beyond the