I've finally made the decision to move to Mater Amabilis  from Ambleside Online, and I've changed my webring to reflect that.  I guess I had one too many antiCatholic surprises (though most were fairly mild) in their book choices.

I just finished reading Religious Literacy by Stephen Prothero.  It turns out that the long road to our nation's religious illiteracy had to do with the formation of "common schools" in the colonies that became the secondary schools of today.  Religion was essential then, but because children were of different Protestant religions, and because two key educational administrators were Unitarian, doctrine became less emphasized.  This was exacerbated by the Second Great Awakening, when scholarly study of the Bible was being looked down upon by charismatic preachers that felt everyone should interpret the Bible independently.  Still, Protestants remained united against the great wave Catholic immigrants, leading to things like mandating the KJV without commentary for all schools, and not presenting Catholicism in a favorable light.  This was the state of public schools at the turn of the Twentieth Century, a time during which many AO books were written.  Eventually, after the rise of Communism and Vatican II, Catholics joined in the de-emphasis of doctrine that led to the current US state as a nation of religious illiterates.

Now I have a comparative world religion book and comparative Christian faiths book on my list to buy at the CBD warehouse sale in September and I've changed from AO to MA!  I certainly will keep the AO book list handy, since I have found some real gems there.