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In this paper I examined the relationship between class, religion and political ideology. I proposed to show that religious beliefs and values incorporate elements of class based ideology which then serve to legitimate a militant or submissive world view. Class, in this paper, is defined as a collectivity of individuals who are conscious of their socio-economic status and interests. I distinguish between ascending, retrenching, bourgeois, and the alienated classes. Corresponding to these classes are four types of religions: inclusive and exclusive militant and submissive religions. The religious values which assume theology-like status are as follows. The religions of the ascending classes are primarily inclusive militants emphasizing the values of collectivity, equality and justice. The religions of the retrenching classes are exclusive militants which stress individualism, freedom, and Christian love. Bourgeois religions are inclusive submissive and while they incorporate the values of the above two, they also add the values of charity and decorum. The religions of the alienated classes are exclusive submissive and anti-class although they do manifest a caste-like system with an elitist self concept and a total commitment to the group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine Glock and Stark's contention that certain Christian religious beliefs are causally related to anti-Semitism, using data from a 1964 national survey. Religious orthodoxy proves to be uncorrelated with anti-Semitism at the zero-order. A path anaIysis reveals that the relationships in the causal sequace hypothesized by Glock and Stark art weak. Furthermore, the influence of religious orthodoxy, religious libertarianism, religious particularism, and religious hostility to the historic Jew is not expressed solely through the intervening step of religious hostility to modern Jews; the coefficents for the direct paths to anti-Semitism are in some cases sizable. The five religious belief variables taken together in a simple additive model account for approximately 15 percent of the variance in anti-Semitism. When socioeconomic status, a number of other social attributes, and a number of social psychological traits are held constant, however, the five religious belief variables account uniquely for only 2 percent of the variance in anti-Semitism. Even here one must be cautious inferring a causal relationship, particulaly since some of the religious measures may simply reflect a more general anti-Semitic ideology. A revised model is presented which includes socioeconomic status and social psychological variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]