In this paper, I discuss the theological significance of the processes of negotiation, differentiation, and exclusion that accompany the shaping of collective religious identity. Even in a world marked by migration, colonialism, and transnational interactions, the meaning and effects of such processes are often still considered secondary to religion's own self-understanding and theological essence. On the contrary, religion as matter of collective identity and practice is always already constituted, shaped, and regulated in and by the negotiation of difference. Difference thus becomes recognizable not as a secondary context in which a (conceptually pre-existent) religion finds itself, but as the ambiguous site of its formation, for better or for worse. In the words of Daniel Boyarin, "the borders between Judaism and Christianity have been historically constructed out of acts of discursive (and too often actual) violence," especially directed against those persons and collectivities who embody "our terrifying bleeding into each other." Religious difference is not only conceptually not secondary to religious identity and (supposed) essence—its non-secondary character also de-centers the proud confidence of essence as an unruly insistence. Though this is on the one hand a commonplace observation, theology on the other hand still by and large does not take this realization to heart. Even so, the realization of such an unruly difference does not necessarily mean bad news for theologians. Indeed, we may find the ambiguous depths of difference, reminiscent of the Tehom of Genesis (in Catherine Keller), not merely threatening, but also the site (or non-site) of an unlikely promise. In Homi Bhabha's words, an "interstitial future" may unveil in and through the complicated relatedness and murky dislocation of such difference: Thus "newness enters the world." We may thus yet discern here a divine call, calling forth relationship and solidarity from the depths of difference.