Protestantism: How Prejudice Is Taught

Some Protestant Sunday schools, as recently as five years ago, were still teaching that the Catholics were "papists" and "enemies of the Gospel," and that the Jews had suffered through history under a curse because their ancestors had murdered Jesus. Most of such obvious examples of church baiting have now been blue-penciled away, often because they were singled out and criticized by Dr. Bernhard Olson, a Methodist who teaches at Union Theological Seminary. In a new book, Faith and Prejudice (Yale; $7.50), Olson shows how religious-text writers have often carried teaching beyond the statement of the essential doctrines into the terrain of slurs that offend other faiths.

Olson's book is an analysis of religious lessons that have been used by four representative Protestant* groups: the Unitarians and Universalists, the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and the fundamentalist churches that sub scribe to the materials issued by the independent Scripture Press. Olson makes clear that all four church groups are officially and staunchly opposed to anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism, and that most religious texts do provide a healthy antidote to prejudice. Nonetheless, he argues, there still exist lessons that can subtly evoke unfavorable attitudes to other faiths in pupils' minds. Olson blames textbook writers and editors who rely on outdated history, interpret their church's theology too narrowly, and who seem to lack "an awareness of their responsibilities" as teachers to present a fair picture of what other people believe.

Against Catholics. "The scars left by the Reformation struggle are still evident in the treatment Protestants give Roman Catholic attitudes and behavior toward them not only in the past but in the present," Olson observes. Although properly noting that many Catholics are opposed to religious persecution, one Presbyterian text warned: "The Roman Catholic Church has never formally disavowed the principle behind the Inquisition." Another read: "Personal relationships with clerical and lay Catholics can be cordial and cooperative, but ecclesiastical relationships are almost impossible."