Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Americans get an 'F' in religion
Religion News Blog ^ | 03/07/2007 | Cathy Lynn Grossman

Posted on 03/09/2007 6:45:18 AM PST by Sopater

Sometimes dumb sounds cute: Sixty percent of Americans can’t name five of the Ten Commandments, and 50% of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were married.

Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University, isn’t laughing. Americans’ deep ignorance of world religions — their own, their neighbors’ or the combatants in Iraq, Darfur or Kashmir — is dangerous, he says.

His new book, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — and Doesn’t, argues that everyone needs to grasp Bible basics, as well as the core beliefs, stories, symbols and heroes of other faiths.

Belief is not his business, says Prothero, who grew up Episcopalian and now says he’s a spiritually “confused Christian.” He says his argument is for empowered citizenship.

“More and more of our national and international questions are religiously inflected,” he says, citing President Bush’s speeches laden with biblical references and the furor when the first Muslim member of Congress chose to be sworn in with his right hand on Thomas Jefferson’s Quran.

“If you think Sunni and Shia are the same because they’re both Muslim, and you’ve been told Islam is about peace, you won’t understand what’s happening in Iraq. If you get into an argument about gay rights or capital punishment and someone claims to quote the Bible or the Quran, do you know it’s so?

“If you want to be involved, you need to know what they’re saying. We’re doomed if we don’t understand what motivates the beliefs and behaviors of the rest of the world. We can’t outsource this to demagogues, pundits and preachers with a political agenda.”

Scholars and theologians who agree with him say Americans’ woeful level of religious illiteracy damages more than democracy.

“You’re going to make assumptions about people out of ignorance, and they’re going to make assumptions about you,” says Philip Goff of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University in Indianapolis.

Goff cites a widely circulated claim on the Internet that the Quran foretold American intervention in the Middle East, based on a supposed passage “that simply isn’t there. It’s an entire argument for war based on religious ignorance.”

“We’re impoverished by ignorance,” says the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, former general secretary of the National Council of Churches. “You can’t draw on the resources of faith if you only have an emotional understanding, not a sense of the texts and teachings.”

But if people don’t know Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities destroyed for their sinful ways, Campbell blames Sunday schools that “trivialized religious education. If we want people to have serious knowledge, we have to get serious about teaching our own faith.”

Prothero’s solution is to require middle-schoolers to take a course in world religions and high schoolers to take one on the Bible. Biblical knowledge also should be melded into history and literature courses where relevant. He wants all college undergrads to take at least one course in religious studies.

He calls for time-pressed adults to sample holy books and history texts. His book includes a 90-page dictionary of key words and concepts from Abraham to Zen. There’s also a 15-question quiz — which his students fail every year.

But it’s the controversial, though constitutional, push into schools that draws the most attention.

In theory, everyone favors children knowing more. The National Education Association handbook says religious instruction “in doctrines and practices belongs at home or religious institutions,” while schools should teach world religions’ history, heritage, diversity and influence.

Only 8% of public high schools offer an elective Bible course, according to a study in 2005 by the Bible Literacy Project, which promotes academic Bible study in public schools. The project is supported by Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center, a Washington, D.C., non-profit that promotes free speech.

The study surveyed 1,000 high schoolers and found that just 36% know Ramadan is the Islamic holy month; 17% said it was the Jewish day of atonement.

Goff says schools are not wholly to blame for religious illiteracy. “There are simply more groups, more players. Students didn’t know Ramadan any better in 1965, but now there are as many Muslims as Jews in America. It’s more important to know who’s who.”

Also today, “there is more emphasis on religious experience as a mark of true religion and less emphasis on doctrine and knowledge of the faith.”

Still, it’s the widely misunderstood 1963 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that may have been the tipping point: It removed devotional Bible reading from the schools but spelled out that it should not have been removed from literature and history.

“The decision clearly states you can’t be educated without it, but it scared schools so much they dropped it all,” Goff says.

“Schools are terrified of this,” says Joy Hakim, author of several U.S. history textbooks. She’s in her 70s but remembers well as a Jewish child how she felt like an outsider in schools that pushed Christianity in the curriculum.

But she says the backlash went too far. “Now, you can’t use biblical characters or narrative in anything. We’ve stopped teaching stories. We teach facts, and the characters are lost.”

Religion, like the arts, has become an afterthought in an education climate driven by “the fixation on literacy and numeracy — math and reading,” says Bob Schaeffer of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, a group critical of the standards-based education movement. “If the ways schools, teachers, principals and superintendents are judged all depend on math and reading scores, that’s what you’re going to teach,” he says.

Still, it’s a tough tightrope to walk between those who say the Bible can be just another book, albeit a valuable one, and those who say it is inherently devotional.

The First Amendment Center also published a guide to “The Bible and the Public Schools,” which praised a ninth-grade world religions course in Modesto, Calif., and cited a study finding students were able to learn about other faiths without altering their own beliefs. But it also said the class may not be easily replicated and required knowledgeable, unbiased teachers.

Leland Ryken, an English professor at evangelical Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., tested a 2006 textbook, The Bible and Its Influence, underwritten by the Bible Literacy Project. Ryken favors adding classes in the Bible and literature and social studies. But he cautions, “Religious literacy and world religions are not the same as the Bible as literature. It’s a much more loaded subject, and I really question if high school students can get much knowledge beyond a sense of the importance of religion.”

The Bible and Its Influence has been blasted by conservative Christians such as the Rev. John Hagee, pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio. Hagee calls it “a masterful work of deception, distortion and outright falsehoods” planting “concepts in the minds of children which are contrary to biblical teaching.”

Hagee wrote to the Alabama legislature opposing adoption of the text, citing points such as discussion questions that could lead children away from a belief in God. Example: Asking students to ponder if Adam and Eve got “a fair deal as described in Genesis” would plant the seed that “since God is the author of the deal, God is unfair.”

Hagee prefers the Bible itself as a textbook for Bible classes, used with a curriculum created by a group of conservative evangelicals, the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, based in Greensboro, N.C. The council says its curriculum is being offered in more than 300 schools.

Mark Chancey, professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, looked last year at how Texas public school districts taught Bible classes. His two studies, sponsored by the Texas Freedom Network, a civil liberties group, found only 25 of more than 1,000 districts offered such a class.

“And 22 of them, including several using the Greensboro group’s curriculum, were clearly over the line,” teaching Christianity as the norm, and the Bible as inspired by God, says Chancey. One teacher even showed students a proselytizing Power Point titled, “God’s road map for your life” that was clearly unconstitutional, he says.

The controversies, costs and competing demands in the schools have prompted many to turn instead to character education.

But classes promoting pluralism and tolerance fail on the religious literacy front because they “reduce religion to morality,” Prothero says, or they promote a call for universal compassion as if it were the only value that matters.

“We are not all on the same one path to the same one God,” he says. “Religions aren’t all saying the same thing. That’s presumptuous and wrong. They start with different problems, solve the problems in different ways, and they have different goals.”


TOPICS: Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-46 next last

1 posted on 03/09/2007 6:45:20 AM PST by Sopater
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Sopater

If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it? -- Ben Franklin



I am impelled to write you concerning the responsibilities laid upon you to live as Christians in the midst of an unChristian world. That is what I had to do. That is what every Christian has to do. But I understand that there are many Christians in America who give their ultimate allegiance to man-made systems and customs. They are afraid to be different. Their great concern is to be accepted socially. They live by some such principle as this: "everybody is doing it, so it must be alright." For so many of you Morality is merely group consensus. In your modern sociological lingo, the mores are accepted as the right ways. You have unconsciously come to believe that right is discovered by taking a sort of Gallup poll of the majority opinion. How many are giving their ultimate allegiance to this way.

But American Christians, I must say to you as I said to the Roman Christians years ago, "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Or, as I said to the Phillipian Christians, "Ye are a colony of heaven." This means that although you live in the colony of time, your ultimate allegiance is to the empire of eternity. You have a dual citizenry. You live both in time and eternity; both in heaven and earth. Therefore, your ultimate allegiance is not to the government, not to the state, not to nation, not to any man-made institution. The Christian owes his ultimate allegiance to God, and if any earthly institution conflicts with God's will it is your Christian duty to take a stand against it. You must never allow the transitory evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (from his St. Paul's letter to America speech)




2 posted on 03/09/2007 6:50:06 AM PST by The Spirit Of Allegiance (Public Employees: Honor Your Oaths! Defend the Constitution from Enemies--Foreign and Domestic!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Sopater
Religion, like the arts, has become an afterthought in an education climate driven by “the fixation on literacy and numeracy — math and reading,”

An education lacking in the classics is unworthy of the name. One cannot be a well-rounded adult without them.

That having been said, where are these kids' parents?

3 posted on 03/09/2007 6:50:16 AM PST by highball ("I never should have switched from scotch to martinis." -- the last words of Humphrey Bogart)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Sopater
“confused Christian.”

Yes, isn't just EVERYONE a confused Christian now days..../sarc

4 posted on 03/09/2007 6:50:31 AM PST by Hi Heels (cleverly disguised as a responsible adult....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Sopater

Since the "Purpose Driven" Movement, the Ten Commandments are now known as the "few suggestions".


5 posted on 03/09/2007 7:04:37 AM PST by TommyDale (What will Rudy do in the War on Terror? Implement gun control on insurgents and Al Qaeda?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All
Related story: Georgia Close to Approving Bible Classes in Public Schools

This would be a good start, but in teaching the Bible as literature, I'm sure the school systems will also teach it as myth.
6 posted on 03/09/2007 7:45:47 AM PST by Sopater (Creatio Ex Nihilo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Sopater

If Americans get a failing grade, I wonder what the rest of the world gets?


7 posted on 03/09/2007 7:49:54 AM PST by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TommyDale
Since the "Purpose Driven" Movement, the Ten Commandments are now known as the "few suggestions".

Wow. The ACLU brings lawsuits against any mention of Jesus in schools or public displays of Christianity. People for the Separation of Church and State go after every public Christian expression (while leaving other religions alone for some reason). Popular media denigrates Christians, Protestant and Catholic alike. And you blame Biblical illiteracy on a recent evangelism movement?
8 posted on 03/09/2007 10:13:47 AM PST by dan1123
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Sopater

I think Bible as literature classes in schools should be supported by all Christians. I have found most people who are hostile to Christianity have worse than zero Bible knowledge. They have popular misconceptions of the Bible as their only Biblical knowledge.


9 posted on 03/09/2007 10:17:18 AM PST by dan1123
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Sopater
Hollywood is the Main Reason Why Americans Get an F For Religion Cites Christian Filmmaker
10 posted on 03/09/2007 10:19:36 AM PST by Between the Lines (I am very cognizant of my fallibility, sinfulness, and other limitations. So should you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Sopater
This would be a good start, but in teaching the Bible as literature, I'm sure the school systems will also teach it as myth.

Some people actually see it as that, which is their right to believe or not. That's why the schools have no business in teaching it. That's the parents' or churches' job.
11 posted on 03/09/2007 10:24:56 AM PST by BritExPatInFla
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Sopater
This would be a good start, but in teaching the Bible as literature, I'm sure the school systems will also teach it as myth.

You would rather the school system teach a particular version of religion as fact?
12 posted on 03/09/2007 10:31:49 AM PST by Stone Mountain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: BritExPatInFla
Some people actually see it as that, which is their right to believe or not.

Correct, but it's no better to teach it as myth than it is to teach it as fact. If it's a "Bible as Literature" class, then just teach it as literature. Teachers should leave their opinions at the door.
13 posted on 03/09/2007 10:36:31 AM PST by Sopater (Creatio Ex Nihilo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: BritExPatInFla
That's why the schools have no business in teaching it. That's the parents' or churches' job.

So Biblical literacy basics that are alluded to in much of western literature is unimportant for schools to teach? Or are you proposing that atheist and agnostic parents teach Biblical literacy to their children?

I don't even see a problem with asking whether Adam and Eve got a fair deal as in the objection in the article. If they just teach the book with similarly to the works of Sophocles, Mark Twain, or Arthur Miller, then it would be a huge improvement to the current state of affairs.
14 posted on 03/09/2007 10:36:36 AM PST by dan1123
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Stone Mountain
You would rather the school system teach a particular version of religion as fact?

See post 13
15 posted on 03/09/2007 10:39:07 AM PST by Sopater (Creatio Ex Nihilo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: dan1123
"And you blame Biblical illiteracy on a recent evangelism movement?"

No, that is ridiculous. These new movements have compromised Christianity to the point where no one even knows the difference! Their theme is to "make the church appear as the world, so the world will come to the church" instead of separating themselves FROM the world and letting God bring the people in.

16 posted on 03/09/2007 10:47:05 AM PST by TommyDale (What will Rudy do in the War on Terror? Implement gun control on insurgents and Al Qaeda?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Sopater; dan1123; BritExPatInFla; All
Here is an article about how our local school district is doing Bible classes:

S.C. clears way for religion courses

17 posted on 03/09/2007 10:48:07 AM PST by Between the Lines (I am very cognizant of my fallibility, sinfulness, and other limitations. So should you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Sopater
Correct, but it's no better to teach it as myth than it is to teach it as fact.

I disagree. Treating any religious text as fact is ridiculous in (non-religious) schools. Most Christians don't even believe in a completely literal translation of the bible and that everything in it is fact. Stories evolve, translations alter and memories fade. The bible should be treated as a book that is greatly significant to a large percentage of the population and important because of that. But not as a textbook that states facts.
18 posted on 03/09/2007 10:51:09 AM PST by Stone Mountain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: TommyDale

"separating themselves FROM the world and letting God bring the people in."

You're not too big on evangelism are you?


19 posted on 03/09/2007 10:53:25 AM PST by dan1123
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: dan1123

Actually I'm quite large on it. Just not in the phony stuff you see on TV or read about in a Rick Warren book.


20 posted on 03/09/2007 10:54:47 AM PST by TommyDale (What will Rudy do in the War on Terror? Implement gun control on insurgents and Al Qaeda?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-46 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson