General and Organizational Religious Elites: The Case of Lutherans in Indiana

Abstract

Using data on Lutherans in Indiana, the validity of some of Blau's (1977) propositions on heterogeneity is tested, after first refining his concept of the elite into two subtypes — an organizational elite, which is formed out of a group's own formal organization; and a general elite that is part of the wider society. Because of differences in the relative cosmopolitanism of the role sets of these two sets of individuals, members of the general elite should come disproportionately from areas where the base group is thinly scattered, while the organizational elite should come disproportionately from areas where the base group is heavily concentrated These hypotheses receive support from the data examined, and certain implications of the pattern are discussed.