DO CHRISTIAN BELIEFS CAUSE ANTI-SEMITISM?

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]