Anti-Christian prejudice and religious education

There is no doubt that in some countries in the world Christians are persecuted either because they are targeted by extremists, or because some governments are suspicious of the political influence of Christian churches. Not so often considered are more mild forms of anti-Christian sentiment and prejudice in countries with a strong presence of Christianity historically, such as England.

For teachers of religious education, the attitudes and experiences of students towards Christianity are well worth considering. This is because when teaching about Christianity, teachers need to be aware of the ‘starting point’ of their students, and also they need to understand what it is like to be a Christian in a lesson that relates to Christianity (that could be religious education, history or other subjects).

In Britain, fewer young people practice Christianity than in the past. Quantitative research shows there has been a ‘drift from the churches’ over the years (to use the words of Professor Leslie Francis whose work gives good evidence of this). The question remains however, of how students who do not practice Christianity may perceive and treat students who identify as Christians.

Christians’ experiences of anti-Christian prejudice are relatively unexplored in sociological research. In fact, starting with the work of Harvard psychologist Gordon Allport in the 1950s, the scientific study of prejudice has been largely concerned, perhaps justifiably so, with the study of Christians’ prejudices towards other religions.

In an academic paper published last week I consider the nature of anti-Christian attitudes among adolescents. The study set out to explore what kinds of anti-Christian attitudes and prejudice may exist. To know how frequent or severe incidents of prejudice or discrimination may be, we would need another kind of study.

My methods were simple. I interviewed groups of Anglican, Baptist and Catholic secondary school students who regularly attended churches and who identified as Christian. They reported incidents of anti-Christian name-calling (slurs), bullying, labelling and aggressive questioning about their faith by non-Christian peers. They also perceived some teachers and lessons to be biased against Christian beliefs and practices. This was a small-scale study, but the reported experiences of the participants had some coherence, from which I drew the following tentative findings.

1. Christianity can be perceived as ‘uncool’ by non-Christians (and therefore considered as ‘uncool’ by Christians themselves).

Adolescents often have status-hierarchies in their peer groups. This means some adolescents are considered more popular than others. Participants believed being openly Christian could contribute to them being less popular than others who had no religion.

2. Slurs and insults could be used against Christians

Participants reported incidents when peers would use anti-Christian slurs or insults. For example, ‘bible-basher’ was commonly reported as used to ridicule someone with strong religious beliefs. Sometimes these actions were considered as bullying as they were repeated and were intended to cause harm.

3. The ‘Dawkins effect’

Participants reported being challenged about their faith on intellectual grounds by their ‘non-religious’ peers. They were asked questions about the credibility of religious faith in opposition to that of science, and why would God create suffering. Some participants said their peers quoted the views of Richard Dawkins to them in order to do this.

4. Religious education lessons did not necessarily help

Some participants believed that religious education lessons could prompt their peers to question or ridicule their Christian beliefs. Topics such as the problem of evil could raise questions that they believed they were not equipped to answer satisfactorily in classroom debates.

5. Some teachers were perceived to be biased against Christianity

Research shows that some religious education teachers may position themselves as atheists in order to bring religion into the classroom. Some participants thought their teachers were biased in this regard, particularly if those teachers did not, or were unable to, justify Christian beliefs or practices to students.

6. Anti-Christian prejudice is perhaps more acceptable than other religious prejudices

Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia originate in Muslims and Jews’ historical statuses as perceived outsiders in Europe. Anti-Christian sentiment is more likely to be associated with progressive ideas that are positioned against invested power structures, however, such as the Church of England. This may mean that anti-Christian sentiment is considered more acceptable than other religious prejudices. For, if, as Gordon Allport defines it, prejudice is a case of mistaken or poor judgment, prejudice must involve an element of irrationality. However, if one presumes hostility to Christianity is rational, then it follows that anti-Christian prejudice is not a prejudice. This can be seen as a distinctive characteristic of anti-Christian prejudice.

7. Anti-Christian prejudice has some similarities with other forms of religious prejudices

While anti-Christian prejudice is not related to perceived negative racial or ethnic attributes, like other forms of religious prejudice, anti-Christian prejudice does has historical, negative tropes and stereotypes. Moreover, also like other prejudices it is based upon the perceived inferiority of a group of people.

More research is needed to understand the extent of anti-Christian prejudice among adolescents in Britain. However, this small-scale study raises pertinent questions for practitioners. Anti-Christian prejudice presents a challenge to teachers of religious education who have to teach about Christianity in a secularised context where criticism of Christianity is considered a right associated with religious freedom, or a morally or intellectually superior position. According to the perspectives of young Christians at least, the fine line between this ongoing debate within society, and the ridicule and undermining of a minority of students and their sincerely held beliefs, needs to be marked out and drawn carefully – perhaps most of all in the religious education classroom.

A full text of the academic study on which this blog is based can be found here.