University of Virginia Library

Protestant Ethics

NEW YORK (LNS)-The
Sunday School Board of the
Southern Baptist Convention, the
nation's largest Protestant
denomination, recently recalled
160,000 copies of Becoming, a
Sunday School quarterly, because it
contained a picture of a black
teenage boy talking to two white
girls.

The picture, explained Allen
Comish, a spokesman for the
Board, "was subject to
misinterpretation as was some of
the textual material."

But it did reflect the assumption
of Twyla Wright, its white Baptist
author, that "churches have a
responsibility to help break down
racial barriers."

And that is precisely what
Comish and the Board found
objectionable.