I’m not denying that Christians have been, and are still, prejudiced. What I’m pointing out is that in a letter where Dawkins is arguing against judging a group (namely Darwinists) because of what their beliefs can be associated with, he should not have been doing the same thing himself (about Christianity). If someone wants to perform an in-depth look at Christianity and the holocaust, I would be interested in reading it. But Dawkins’ casual, off hand implication that Christianity caused the Holocaust, with no consideration given to the historical background or other facts, is just as bad as the assertion that Darwinism did.

Also, you have to give Dawkins a little more credit. Prejudice of Jews was something that was ingrained into the chatecism of the catholic and many protestant churches. I’m no big fan of the blind zionism that dispensationalism is causing in the church today, but it did help to overcome the prejudice against Jews that flowed naturally out of replacement theology. We’re talking about a systematic theology that was taught by the church which caused thousands of Christians to look the other way when they were persecuted. And as Dawkins said, it’s not like Hitler made it up–he was borrowing from our own theologians– Luther, etc.

I agree with your core point that you can’t dismiss the belief system because of the actions of its members, but I do think there was more going on in the case at hand. This was a church teaching that was widely accepted and taught, not some fringe radical idea. So in this case, the institution itself was the problem.
Stacey