Explaining the relationship between Christian Religion and anti-Semitism in the Netherlands

This paper addresses the question as to why many Christians hold prejudice against Jews. We try to find out whether, and to explain why the relationship between Christian religion and anti-Semitism in the Netherlands is inherent to Christian religion, spurious, or suppressed. We offer a theoretical model that combines the explanation of Glock and Stark and suggestions made by their critics. We test this theoretical model using data from a 1990-91 national Dutch survey (n = 1,134). Our findings indicate that the relationship between Christian religion and anti-Semitism is largely spurious, due to the breadth of perspective of people on social reality. However, Christian religion still is one of the determinants of secular anti-Semitism. We found no evidence of a suppressed relationship.