The religious symbolism, and especially the closely related rites and worship forms, constitute a powerful bond for the members of the particular faith. The religion, in fact, is an expression of the unity of the group, small or large. The common codes, for religious action as such and in their ethical aspects for everyday moral behavior, bind the devotees together. These are ways of jointly participating in significantly symbolized, standardized, and ordered religiously sanctified behavior. The codes are mechanism for training in, and directing and enforcing, uniform social interaction, and for continually and publicly reasserting the solidarity of the group.

Durkheim noted long ago that religion as ``a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things -- unite [s] into one single moral community -- all those who adhere to them.'' His view is that every religion pertains to a community, and, conversely, every community is in one aspect a religious unit. This is brought out in the common religious ethos that prevails even in the denominationally diverse audiences at many secular semi-public and public occasions in the United States; and it is evidenced in the prayers offered, in the frequent religious allusions, and in the confirmation of points on religious grounds.

The unifying effect of religion is also brought out in the fact that historically peoples have clung together as more or less cohesive cultural units, with religion as the dominant bond, even though spatially dispersed and not politically organized. The Jews for 2500 years have been a prime example, though the adherents of any world or inter people religion are cases in point. it might be pointed out that the integrating function of religion, for good or ill, has often supported or been identified with other groupings -- political, nationality, language, class, racial, sociability, even economic.