An Identity Quagmire: Ontarian and Victorian Religious Education after 1950

Abstract

This chapter continues the story of religious education into the 1960s and 1970s, when the consensus support for the strengthened systems of Protestant instruction of the World War II years largely vanished. Religious minorities, civic organizations, and many educators attacked religious education as anti-democratic, discriminatory, and a relic of the past. Yet many churches and several public opinion polls demonstrated continued support for religious education in the 1960s. Ultimately, reform committees were set up in both Ontario and Victoria designed to address the issue. But, for a variety of political and legal reasons, these committees spurred controversy more than consensus, and proved largely ineffective at initiating any lasting reform. By the late 1970s despite official disapproval, religious education remained on the books largely unaltered from the measures passed in the 1940s.