This exploratory study examined the relation between conventional everyday shrine/temple/church religion and politics among a random sample of rural Japanese. In contrast to the conventional wisdom previously assumed by many Western and Japanese social scientists, presence/absence of religious identification was found to be positively associated with presence/absence of political party preference, religiosity was positively correlated with several modes of political participation, and significant differences in rates of political participation were discovered between two types of Buddhism analogous to the Western Protestant-Catholic division. Social structural factors in the community, rather than theological or doctrinal elements, are suggested as accounting for the latter findings.
