It can be a badge of identity, an inheritance of upbringing or a statement of moral intent.

BBC: 2011 Census: Is Christianity shrinking or just changing?

Moreover, unlike some travel writers he is refreshingly honest about the tricks he plays, reflecting harshly on the moral weakness that leads him, briefly, to feign a Jewish identity in order to win the trust of the surviving Jews of Bukhara.

ECONOMIST: The lost people of Central Asia