Christian Teachings Found Still Fostering Anti-jewish Bias in U.S.

Christian teachings which played “a crucial historical role in the rise of anti-Semitism” continue “to reinforce and foster” anti-Jewish prejudice in the United States despite an increasing spirit of good will between the faiths and a willingness on the part of most American churchmen “to take action to combat anti-Semitism.”

This was the major finding of a sociological study, “Christian Beliefs and Anti-Semitism, ” conducted by the University of California Survey Research Center under a $500, 000 grant from the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. The study, based on five years of research into all aspects of anti-Semitism in American life, was made public by the ADL at a press conference here today. It was carried out by Charles Y. Glock, director of the Research Center, and Rodney Stark, a research sociologist at the University of California.

The study reveals that at least one-fourth of those in the United States with anti-Semitic attitudes “have a religious basis for their prejudice while nearly another fifth have this religious basis in considerable part,” that “only 5 percent of Americans with anti-Semitic views lack all rudiments of a religious basis for prejudice.”

The sociologists refute the “comfortable and complacent view” that anti-Semitism is no longer a real problem in the United States. Declaring that “there are no grounds for complacency, and especially none for churches,” they call for “a systematic reappraisal of Christian education, both as it teaches its history and doctrines and in the way it deals with the question of anti-Semitism as such.”

37% PROTESTANTS AND 22% CATHOLICS SCORE HIGH IN ANTI-SEMITISM

The study is based on a three-hour questionnaire which was answered by 2, 326 Protestants in 97 congregations and by 545 Catholics in 21 parishes, all in four counties in and around San Francisco. The study was then tested against a sample of 1,976 interviews representative of the entire population of the United States.

In the California counties, 33 percent of the Protestants and 29 percent of the Catholics queried “scored high and medium high” in their anti-Semitism. Nationally, 37 percent of the Protestants and 22 percent of the Catholics scored high, “with the amount of anti-Jewish prejudice varying from one region of the country to another, especially among Protestants, ” the study reported.

“It is least common on the West Coast,” the sociologists reported, “followed by the East, and much higher in the Midwest and South where a majority of orthodox and particularist Christians still blame the Jews for the death of Jesus.” But, the report stated, the implication of the Jews in the crucifixion “remains a common belief” and “provides an important basis for generating hostile religious images of the modern Jews.” The data showed that 43 percent of the Protestants and 50 percent of the Catholics queried nationally identified the Jews as “the group most responsible for the crucifixion.”

The study showed that social class among the Christian orthodox and particularistic believers has no direct or independent impact on attitudes toward Jews. “No matter how high their education or occupational status,” the report declared, “persons remain very likely to foster anti-Jewish prejudices so long as they retain a religious perspective which facilitates an image of the Jew as a religious outsider.”

The study hailed the recently proclaimed Catholic decree, adopted by the Ecumenical Council, repudiating the charge of the collective guilt of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus. That decree, the sociologists stated, “goes to the heart of Christian anti-Semitism” and its effect will be “to arm the lower clergy with appropriate theological means to denounce anti-Semitism in its religious trappings.”