Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know--And Doesn't

My friends, "Is this what you are looking for?" I guess that if you are looking for something in specific and you do not get it you might feel disappointed. Perhaps sometimes we are looking for shortcuts to gaining huge amounts of knowledge, and actually I think there aren't many. Knowledge and wisdom are acquired through a lifetime process in which each one of us need to embark in a quest for it, not necessarily depending upon one book only. What I mean is that religion, which is the theme that concerns us now and that is dealt with in this book, is a topic much too deep to be discussed in one book speaking of each of them individually. My opinion is that each religion therefore should be analyzed independently in texts written by people well versed in each of them and that actually they profess, so the information is not biased.That said, the question is, "does this book delivers what it was intended to?" I guess so, since I think that the purpose of this book basically to lead us to the understanding of the fact that we are a nation with a shameful religious ignorance that should be addressed efficiently and in a a timely manner, not only by the state, but by ourselves, and establishes the responsibility we as citizens of a multicultural society have towards it. It actually establishes the importance of such knowledge in terms of understanding the international conflicts our nation is involved in and the basics of our neighbors religions that don't necesarily has the same set of beliefs we do, in order to live together in peace with each other. It does not indicate, by any means that it is the only problem that we have, as someone suggested. There are other issues to address but there are also people with expertise in those other areas that should rather write and convince the nation upon the need to understand them and to fight for those other causes. We are voters and have a voice and thus a power that can influence our government in one way or the other. Therefore, with this information at hand we should get better educated so that we can confront the ignorance that has been taught to us.I think that the book actually tells us that there are many facts, mainly and mostly historical, that we actually ignore about our nation, the way it was founded and the laws that rules it. All of these facts should be pondered since there are actions been taken upon the misinterpretation of such laws taking advantage of our own ignorance to fulfill such purposes. We have to open our eyes towards these issues and take action.The title of the book is ironic since it is titled "Religious Literacy..." and basically it points out the contrary, "that we are very illiterate regarding religion." So what we need to know is answered; We need to know more about every religion professed in our country. What we doesn't know... well the previous premise tells us. We do not know the basics of world religion, therefore we are subject to believe what anyone wants to tell us wether it is true or not. We actually do not have the basic knowledge to discern the truth from the lie. Buy it and don't expect to get every answer about every religion. To the contrary, expect to understand the reasons why we should be more Religious literate.

As a graduate student in literature, I chose to focus on Native American contemporary literature and did concurrent studies in religious studies to better understand the deep connections between the literature and the spiritual beliefs of the writers. Thus was born a serious interest in comparative religion. I ordered Prothero's book expecting a survey of the various religions followed in America today. That's not what this book is. While there is fruitful information about various religious thought in the appendixes, Prothero basically uses this text to talk about what Americans believe, what they THINK they know about other religions, and what knowledge they sorely lack, even about their own professed spiritual paths. I found it an interesting read. I followed it up with Catherine Albanese, America, Religion and Religions which approaches American religion through historical thought and change. That text helped clarify for me WHY Americans really don't know much about the beliefs of their own religious paths, how they have changed over the years, why they are different from the paths following the same names of people in other parts of the world. The two books made a great deal of sense to me as companion texts.

The author argues that the bible as literature should be included in public school curricula because the metaphors of the bible are part of our common cultural heritage. But how that couuld be accomplished without the school curricula becoming proselytizing escapes me. One look at the new Texas textbooks shows that the Christian right wing just cannot help itself. Their god is the only god, etc etc etc, just like the other 1,000 current religions in the world. Personally, I grew up Catholic and the Catholic dogma was driven into me week after week as a child. Knowing nothing else I accepted it till college, where unbiased philosophy classes provided a much broader take on spirituality, as a consequence of which I was able to accept a different philosophy that made sense to me rather than fear-based dogma. I don't think any religeon can be taught in public schools to minors, period, because it lends itself to abuse, by its very nature. That said, this is an excellent book for adults to read.

Excellent book. This should be required reading - especially for anyone standing for office, or voting, in the USA. It should certainly be compulsory for anyone claiming to be a Christian.Prothero explains the problem - near complete ignorance of the religion so many Americans claim to follow, and complete ignorance of any other - with great clarity.Lot's of useful resources.I got a colleague - a regular church-attender (in fact, an ordained minister) - to take the religious knowledge test: he knew absolutely zero about any religion other than Christianity, and scored poorly on Christianity (he could name only four of the ten commandments!).

First class bookBook is good if you are into or studying/teaching religious studies/thought. Some very interesting ideas, love it.

Full disclosure up front – The following may take the form of a rebuttal, more than a review.Stephen Prothero is a professor of religious studies, and in the introduction to “Religious Literacy,” he makes very clear the difference between engaging in religious studies, and preaching. How strange then that a significant fraction of the book reads much like a sermon. It preaches the virtues of religious knowledge, laments its decline, and proffers a solution, while all the time being excessively selective in the enumeration of relevant facts and factors.The book is roughly a decade old, and a lot has happened since it was written. Yet, I don’t think that the most salient points discussed in the book have changed all that much. The opening chapters outline the author’s interpretation of the ‘problem.’ It seems that a great many US school-children cannot name the four (canonical) Christian gospels, or list the seven pillars of Islam, or recite the four noble truths of Buddhism. (I admit that the last one got me too – I knew they were about suffering, but couldn’t quote them in detail.) The author also throws in some factoids of questionable veracity, such as; “10 percent of American high-school students think that Noah’s wife was Joan… of Arc.” Frankly, I hypothesize that this only suggests that about 9.9 percent of American high-school students saw right through the question and were goading the questioner, but anyway...Following his selective enumeration of the things that young Americans do not know, (a section entitled “The Problem”), he continues by describing the way things used to be (in a chapter called “Eden”), then proceeds to offer his analysis as to how we got to where we are today; (“The Fall”). The ‘sermon’ is biased heavily toward Christianity – which is in no way the author’s fault. This is the way it was in the USA. Religion did indeed, and most unquestionably, play an enormous role in the past. Stephen Prothero is absolutely correct in his observation that in America, as well as Europe, and other nations which are the offspring of European colonialism, the group of faiths which had the greatest impact on history could be collectively referred to as Christianity. Where I do criticize the author is in his implication, not explicitly stated but not at all subtle, that the past religious ‘Eden’ in America represented some sort of a halcyon heritage, and that ‘The Fall’ from this supposed ideal is like another fall of man.From my own perspective (as admittedly defined by my own subjective prejudices), I argue that any individual human’s most persistent enemy is time. Whether we are children or adults, or, as I happen to be, “hoary with the hair of eld” (Google it), there are unmerciful constraints allotted upon the hours of our lives. We must prioritize everything, including the elements that make up the syllabus of our education. So very long ago in my formative years, I was instructed in the Christian faith. In those days, which the author refers to as the “Eden”, the Lord’s Prayer was recited every morning in my public school, and we were subjected to a carefully cherry-picked Bible reading over the crackling public address system. I truly cannot say that tales of any god, or threats of any hell, contributed manifestly to the successes or failures in my life, but I do freely admit, as the author correctly argues, that my understanding of history, literature and other media, has been positively enhanced by my religious literacy.Nevertheless, given the demands upon our all too finite hours, I am in general agreement with the admittedly difficult decisions that have relegated religious knowledge to a lesser importance in the modern age. Still, it is not all bleak for religion. That same modernity means that any individual wishing to learn more about any world religion can find libraries of information (and disinformation) no more remote than their nearest Internet-connected device. Usually, it is in their own pocket. I would not condone the dedication of valuable school time to the subject, especially in light of other deficiencies in education, many of which, (in my subjective evaluation at least,) appear significantly more dire. There is even a suggestion (in a later chapter) that the time to teach religion could be found at the expense of mathematics. This is the author quoting someone else, not speaking himself, but the fact that he would even include such a quote in his book is worrying.By way of illustration, there is apparently a recent study, (which various news sources choose not to link,) stating that 4 out of 5 students in Oklahoma City can’t tell time on an analog clock. Regardless of the doubtful veracity of this news, (one source was FOX), I have witnessed this specific ignorance several times myself – youth and young adults stating unashamedly that they “can’t tell time on old clocks”. I personally view the ability to read a clock in the classroom, or in the town square, as far more important than being able to recount the seven pillars of Islam. In similar dismay, I would wager that if one were to ask an average 60-something-year-old to bisect an angle with straightedge and compass, or to use a tape measure to ensure that two pieces of wood are joined squarely, one would be greeted with only blank stares from the vast majority. Why then, in light of this modern eschewing of knowledge in general, does the author expect that everyone will continue to be imbued with a journeyman’s knowledge of religion? Pythagoras will help people build square walls – Moses will not. While religion might indeed have been pivotal in the history of America, so have square walls. And square walls remain critical and relevant today.After defining his view of the problem, the author offers a solution. He points out, entirely correctly, that there is nothing unconstitutional in America about teaching about religion in public schools, so long as the lessons do not become vehicles for indoctrination. He also observes, quite correctly, that most teachers steer almost completely clear of religion. He then quotes a study suggesting that three-quarters of Americans would not object to the study of world religion in schools. Conversely, that means that one quarter would object. The parents of 25% of the students in any particular class would be opposed to this type of instruction. In a class of 30, the parents of 7 or 8 of them would be angered; some threatening lawsuits, some pulling their children out of school, etc. One can certainly understand why teachers don’t want to touch this with a ten-foot pole. Furthermore, it is unreasonable to expect a teacher with no specialized education in religious studies to be entirely objective on such a matter. Many – one might even estimate, the majority – of teachers will have personal beliefs and prejudices, and these will be brought into the classroom, either intentionally or subconsciously. I myself probably couldn’t teach such a course without eventually betraying my personal views. The author states that the fear of controversy over religious studies is overblown – I argue that it is understated.If an elementary- or high-school educator were to put together a basic course on religion – for simplicity’s sake, let’s just say a segment focusing on the Christian Bible – what parts would he/she be expected to teach? Would the syllabus include the story of Jephthah murdering his beloved daughter to please God? Or of Jesus telling slaves to obey their masters? Do we lecture on the rape of Tamar, and how she was thereafter forced to “remain desolate” for the rest of her days? What about how the world will end with seven-headed, ten-horned dragons? Do young kids learn about the law stating that those engaging in homosexual acts shall be put to death, or that a rape victim must marry her rapist? Or that only 144,000 will ever get into heaven, everyone else being doomed to burn for all eternity? Somehow, I think that in most schools, all of these subjects would be censored in favour of the Sermon on the Mount or the Ten Commandments. Of course, I know that most Christians do not believe in many of the dark tales in the Bible, but most do believe in, for example, the resurrection of Jesus. So, which stories are to be taught? Generally, the response to that question is that one should teach exactly as much of the Bible as, either, a) – the teacher, or course designer, personally believes in, or, b) – as portrays the Christian religion in a positive, peace-loving, charitable light, thereby offending no one. While the example of the Christian Bible is cited, the same could be stated for any religious text or concept. Sure, higher education at the university level might succeed at breaking through these constraints, but such fully-rounded teaching of religion is not going to occur in an elementary setting.Cherry-picking religion is surely worse than not teaching it at all. I argue that it better serves the duty of the pursuit of truth to offer no instruction on the subject of religion, rather than to spout misleading, out of context snippets designed to create a sugar-coated misunderstanding. (That’s what churches and other places of worship are for.) By way of analogy, most Americans received very little elementary-school instruction on, for example, the history of the City of Warsaw. Would we be right to simply describe the lovely parks and museums found there today and leave it at that, without mentioning WWII or the Communist era? That would be more dishonest than simply saying that there is no time to teach about the history of Warsaw.Those who have an interest in religion, either in an academic sense or a theological one, have a plethora of opportunities to find information, especially in our modern, connected world. Every child or adult with access to the Internet can have his or her own Bible, or any other holy book that may be desired. Their local library probably has a book or two about world religions, or even about the history of Warsaw.Later in the tome, there is a dictionary of religious terms and concepts. It is largely useless. Even in my youth, we had Encyclopædia Britannica, and now, we have Wikipedia. Either of these sources, along with many others, can offer simple summaries such as those presented therein. It is unworthy of a book authored by a distinguished professor of religious studies to reduce the complexity of religion to such banalities.Despite all said above, I do sympathize somewhat with of the author’s frustration over America’s lack of religious literacy. But I see this as one aspect of a broad illiteracy; one spanning a multitude of subjects. Not all learning is done in school. Today, with vast libraries at the fingertips, people of all ages can study any subject that interests them. I absolutely accept that religion is a perfectly valid subject for such independent study, but so are many other equally valid subjects.Perhaps a joy in learning, a reveling in knowledge, is an attitude we should strive to impart on young people. We could give them input on the the direction of their elective studies, with some sage guidance from their elders. I know that such a concept is pie-in-the-sky, but drilling facts into youthful brains by rote, simply to prepare them for the next test, is not a productive alternative. Even if we can’t obtain such a lofty ideal, would not future generations better served if we worked toward it, instead of away.Stephen Prothero’s book made me think, and any book that succeeds at doing this is not a terribly bad book. I’ve given it a middling rating since it is well written – neither condescending nor unnecessarily technical, and it does put forward some factual, and some controversial points. If the matters it touches upon are of interest to an individual, it is worth a read.

Prothero's book is a long complaint about the lack of religious literacy in America today. The author is particularly upset because of the supposed importance of religion in modern American society has not led to a better understanding of what people say they believe. The problem with the book is that it is, too a very large degree just saying the same thing over and over again.There are nevertheless two good reasons to read the book: (1) it shames you into wanting to understand all religions better and (2) it provides some real head-slapping examples of people's total ignorance of the religion they feel strongly about. The book is worth reading for its collection of "bloopers" alone like the statement from students that the epistles were the wives of the apostles.

Great book