Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2
Summary by James R. Martin, Ph.D., CMA
Professor Emeritus, University of South Florida
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Prothero begins by describing a paradox. American undergraduates are very religious, but they know nothing about religion. European students on the other hand are well versed in religion, but wouldn't be caught dead in a church or synagogue. Europeans are far less likely to join houses of worship or to believe in heaven and hell. The paradox is that Americans are simultaneously deeply religious and profoundly ignorant about religion. We are a nation of religious illiterates.
Bible Babble
This section includes several examples of where more knowledge of the Bible and religion would have helped the individuals involved make better decisions. The 1993 raid on the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas could have turned out differently if the FBI had given David Koresh more time. The FBI attacked the compound with tear gas and combat vehicles and the building burned killing about seventy-five followers including twenty-one children. The author referred to it as case of death by religious ignorance. Another case involved an Indian American man who was shot and killed in 2001 by a vigilante who thought the man was a Muslim. The moral of this story is that the world's religions are not quarantined in the nations of their birth. Another case includes post 9/11 where it was obvious that no one understood the basics of Islam. President Bush kept stating that Islam is peace while Jerry Falwell told viewers that Muhammad was a terrorist, and conservative commentators Paul Weyrish and William Lind called Islam a religion of war. Americans didn't know who to believe because we knew very little if anything about Islam.
Cultural Literacy
In the early twentieth century a new educational model was developed that emphasized a skills-based approach that replaced the previous content-based approach to education. This in turn lead to a cultural illiteracy. The problem is that cultural illiteracy prevents a person from being able to form judgments and contribute to debates about what happened in the past. Religious illiteracy is more dangerous because although religion has been one of the greatest forces for good in the world, it has also been one of the greatest forces for evil. Very little in history can be understood in a religion vacuum including for example the American Revolution, the Civil War, abolitionism, temperance, women's rights, civil rights, environmentalism, abortion, stem cell research, capital punishment, animal rights, global warming, intelligent design, state lotteries, birth control, euthanasia, gay marriage, welfare policy, military policy and foreign policy.
Many thinkers believe that we live in a post-Christian country and a secular world, but in the United States religion matters and it is emerging with race, gender, and ethnicity as one of the key identity markers of the twenty-first century.
"A Nation of Biblical Illiterates"
If religion is important to Americans then we should know something about it, particularly in a democracy. However, the average voter knows very little about Christianity and other religions. Most cannot name one of the four Gospels and many believe Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife. Most cannot even name the other major religions.
Religion as a Chain of Memory
The rise of secularism in Europe illustrates the idea. According to Daniele Hervieu-Leger religion is a chain of memory and Europeans have broken the chain. Although faith is more robust in the U.S., Americans are forgetful as well. In 1955 sociologist Will Herberg wrote in Protestant-Catholic-Jew that American religion had lost much of its authentic Christian or Jewish content. Religion has become empty, contentless, conformist, utilitarian, sentimental, individualistic, and self-righteous. Most Americans cannot think and speak confidently about religion.
A Civic Problem
Theology and religious studies are different things with different purposes. Theologians practice religion. Scholars of religion study religion in a fair and objective way to understand what religious people say, believe, know, feel, and experience. They see the study of religion and religious literacy as an indispensable part of a liberal education. The author views our current inattention to religion in secondary and higher education as a failure of the highest order. His argument is that we need religious literacy in order to be an effective citizen. Religious illiteracy makes it difficult if not impossible to understand a world where people kill and make peace in the name of Christ or Allah. It is also difficult to evaluate the merits of Supreme Court rulings on religious liberty if we know nothing about the legacies of anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, anti-Mormonism, and anti-fundamentalism in American history. Without religious literacy Americans are easily swayed by demagogues on the left or the right.
The Roots of Religious Illiteracy
How was the chain of memory that transmitted religious knowledge from parents to children, priests to parishioners, and schoolteachers to students severed? This book answers these questions and the answers are not what you might expect. It was the nation's people of faith who caused religious faith and religious knowledge to go their separate ways.
Defining Religious Literacy
Religious literacy refers to the ability to understand and use in one's decisions the basic building blocks of religious traditions, terms, symbols, doctrines, practices, sayings, characters, metaphors, and narratives. We can be literate in one religion, but not in all religions. In the United States Christian literacy is more important than other religious literacies when it comes to understanding U.S. politics. Christian literacy is not enough however to understand foreign policy. Understanding the "under God" language in the Pledge of Allegiance requires one to know something about atheism and polytheism. Understanding the war in Iraq requires one to know something about jihad and the Islamic tradition of martyrdom adapted from the Christians and Jews. The war on terrorism is a war of religious ideas.
Religious Literacy in Practice
Religious literacy is not just the accumulation of facts or the memorizing and regurgitation of dogma. It includes knowing the key characters, images, and stories in the scriptures and the history of the church. Religious literacy is both doctrinal and narrative and more of a fluid practice than a fixed condition. Understanding the basics of Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism is more important today than it was a half century ago.
Although many who speak about religion are out to promote religion, the author says his agenda is civic and secular. He admits that he finds more questions than answers in the world's religious traditions. His purpose is to write, not as a believer or unbeliever, but as a citizen to help others participate fully in social, political, and economic life in a nation and world where religion counts. To empower them to talk about religion and to ask questions about their own faiths and the religious views of others. Many people feel that they cannot talk about religion because it will show how little they actually know about religion. This book is offered as a partial solution to this problem.
What to Do?
Two barriers stand in the way. These include misinformation about the constitutionality of teaching about religion in schools, and a misguided approach to religious studies in colleges and universities. The author argues for the constitutionality and the necessity of teaching about religion in public schools and higher education. Knowledge of religion is part of the civic education needed by a nation's citizens for self-government in a constitutional democracy. The purpose should not be to inculcate virtues, but instead to spread knowledge. Teaching about religion is an essential task for our educational institutions, the primary purpose should be civic, and this civic purpose should be to produce citizens who know enough about Christianity and the world's religions to participate meaningfully in public debates. Religious literacy makes the world more interesting and perhaps more importantly less dangerous.
Chapter 1: A Nation of Religious Illiterates
Both the Religious Right and the Secular Left feel like the other side is seizing control of the country, but neither faith or faithlessness approaches bankruptcy or monopoly. We are not a secular America or a Christian America. America has always been both. The United States is by law a secular country. God is not mentioned in the Constitution and the First Amendment forbids the state from engaging in the church business. However, the First Amendment includes a free exercise clause safeguarding religious liberty. The long standing debate about whether the U.S. is secular or religious is confused. The American government is secular by law, but American society is religious by choice. However, the separation of church and state has been breached nearly as often as it has been respected.
Churched and Unchurched Believers
While Europeans now dismiss many theological doctrines as fables (e.g., heaven and hell, angels and the devil) these doctrines are affirmed by the vast majority of Americans. Half of Americans claim to be Protestants, one quarter describe themselves as Catholics, and ten percent as Christians of some other type.
A Nation of Religions
As indicated above the U.S. is both secular and religious, but it is also both Christian and pluralistic.
Note: According to The Pew Research Center reports, religious beliefs are changing.
Change in U.S. religious affiliations from 2007 to 2014:
Christian 78.4% decreased to
70.06%
Non Christian 4.7% increased to 5.9%
Unaffiliated 16.1%
increased to 22.8%
The unaffiliated group includes:
Atheist 1.6% increased to 3.1%
Agnostic 2.4%
increased to 4.0%
Nothing in
particular 12.1% increased to 15.8%
Although most Americans are still committed to Christianity they lack a basic understanding of their own religious traditions. They are "stupefyingly dumb about what they are supposed to believe."
Religious Literacy Quiz
The following is a quiz the author has given to his Boston University classes on "Death and Immortality."
1. Name the four Gospels. List as many as you can.
2. Name a sacred text of Hinduism.
3. What is the name of the holy book of Islam?
4. Where according to the Bible was Jesus born?
5. President George W. Bush spoke in his first inaugural address of the Jericho road. What Bible story was he invoking?
6. What are the first five books of the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Old Testament?
7. What is the Golden Rule?
8. "God helps those who help themselves": Is this in the Bible? If so where?
9. "Blessed are the poor in sprit, for their is the kingdom of God": Does this appear in the Bible? If so, where?
10. Name the Ten Commandments. List as many as you can.
11. Name the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism.
12. What are the seven sacraments of Catholicism? List as many as you can.
13. The First Amendment says two things about religion, each in its own "clause." What are the two religion clauses of the First Amendment?
14. What is Ramadan? In what religion is it celebrated?
15. Match the Bible characters with the stories in which they appear. Some characters may be matched with more than one story or vice versa.
Most of the students failed the quiz. Surveys have indicated that most Americans cannot name five of the Ten Commandments. The answers are in the Appendix.
Joan of Arc
The evidence on Biblical illiteracy has been documented fairly well. Although nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the Bible holds the answers to all or most of life's basic questions, very few appear to know much about it. In a survey conducted in New York by Tonight Show host Jay Leno, interviewees told him God created Eve from an Apple, Jacob gave his son Joseph a new car, and that Matthew was swallowed by a whale. Other surveys have shown that only half of American adults can name even one of the four Gospels, most cannot name the first book of the Bible, many believe Billy Graham delivered the Sermon on the Mount, that Jesus was born in Jerusalem, and that Joan of Ark was Noah's wife.
Mount Cyanide
Religious illiteracy appears to have increased as indicated by answers on students papers and exams. Some answers related to questions about the Old Testament include the following:
"Moses led the Jews to the Red Sea where they made unleavened bread which is bread without any ingredients."
"The Egyptians were all drowned in the dessert. Afterwards, Moses went up to Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Commandments."
"Moses died before he ever reached Canada. Then Joshua led the Hebrews in the Battle of Geritol."
A few answers from questions about the New Testament include:
"Jesus enunciated the Golden Rule, which says to do one to others before they do one to you. He also explained, 'A man doth not live by sweat alone.'"
"The epistles were the wives of the apostles."
"St. Paul cavorted to Christianity. He preached holy acrimony, which is another name for marriage."
Religiously Befuddled
Many American Christians do not know that Easter commemorates the resurrection of Jesus, or that the Trinity includes the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Many Methodists do not understand the doctrine of sanctification. Many Lutherans do not know who Martin Luther is. Americans confuse evangelicals with fundamentalists and do not know what evangelicalism means. One study showed that the majority of Americans admitted knowing little if anything about Islam, Buddhism, or Hinduism. Americans are befuddled about religion.
Is the Pope Catholic?
One survey found that nearly half of American Catholics said they could not explain their faith to others. Some authors have attributed this problem to a shift in emphasis from participating in the sacraments to loving Jesus and reducing religion to moral behavior. Catholic education has been referred to as cafeteria Catholicism where selective Catholics choose to discard the narratives, doctrines and symbols of the church. To address this crisis in religious literacy Catholic leaders have called for a renewed pedagogy of the basics, and encouraged Catholics to read the Bible. Entrepreneurs have developed innovative ways to instruct wayward Catholics such as Trivial Pursuit type board games called Is the Pope Catholic?
The Greatest Story Never Read
Evangelicals have also complained about religious illiteracy in their own ranks. Although convinced that the Bible is the Word of God, evangelicals appear to have little interest in learning what the scripture has to say or what it might mean. One evangelical referred to the Bible as "The Greatest Story Never Read." Jews also complain about the lack of basic understanding of Judaism among Jewish youth. Even atheists and agnostics had indicated concern about religious illiteracy with the argument that religious literacy is essential for liberation from religious bullies and inoculation against fanaticism. Their view is that the more you know about religion the less likely you are to fall for one of its elaborate cons.
An Eye for an Eye
This section describes a court case where the jury referred to the eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth passage in Leviticus that concludes "He that killeth a man, he shall be put to death." The jury was unaware that Jesus explicitly rejected the eye for and eye passage in the New Testament by saying that if someone smite you on the right cheek, you should turn the other cheek. The point of the story is that if jurors are going to consult the scripture they should try to get the Bible right.
This chapter begins with a short discussion of secularization theory predicting that religion, or the demand for religion will decline as societies develop. The idea is that God is Dead or as good as dead.
Pop Goes Jesus
The author argues that secularization theory has run aground on the shoals of historical facts. The U.S. Supreme Court rulings in 1962 and 1963 that outlawed prayer and Bible reading in public schools, and that upheld abortion in 1973 caused religion to become a player again in American political life. This lead to the election of Jimmy Carter who brought religion into the White House and later Ronald Reagan who's speeches invoked biblical themes from New England's Puritans. By the mid-1980s the distinction between religion and politics had become fuzzy at best. Religion had become more conservative, more public, and more political. Democrats were viewed as the secular party, and Republicans in turn as the faith-based alternative.
Jesus-Loving Politicians
Washington DC is full of Jesus-loving politicians. From the perspective of who gets elected, secularization theory is mistaken. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 generated an even greater level of evidence for the public power of religious ideologies. Americans began to see the relevance of religion in world affairs. They began to see that religion matters. The author argues that what needs explaining is the emergence of unbelief in Europe and among leaders in the media, law, and higher education.
Textbook Ignorance (American Style)
High school students learn very little if anything about the historical and current effects of religious beliefs, practices, people, and institutions. One study of U.S. history textbooks revealed more discussion of railroads than of religion. Some textbooks show what the author refers to as a secular myth that American civilization is moving from religion to reason, superstition to science.
A Very Short History of Religion in U.S. History
In spite of how religion has been treated in U.S. history textbooks, the classic events in American history (the Revolution, the Civil War, the New Deal, the Reagan Revolution) cannot be understood without some knowledge of the religious views and motivations of the people involved. In The Protestant Ethic and the Rise of Capitalism (1904-1905) Max Weber argued that capitalism was born from the "Protestant ethic" of the Puritans that included a divine mandate for hard work, savings, and other essentials of a capitalist economy. Although this might be stretching the effects of Puritanism a bit, it is clear that Puritanism influenced American literature, art, economics, society, and politics.
The revolution was motivated by religious dissenters who saw Anglicanism and monarchy as parts of a tyrannical force and called the rebellion "the cause of heaven against hell." American Protestantism became more egalitarian and the First Amendment helped ordinary people take control of their churches as they had taken control of their government. The movements to abolish slavery, reform the prison system, prohibit alcohol consumption, care for the insane, win women the right to vote, and to bring education to the masses were all led by evangelical Protestants and based on biblical grounds. During the Civil War some argued that slavery was sanctioned in the Bible while others criticized slavery as sinful.
After the Civil War Americans debated the pros and cons of capitalism in much the same way. Some viewed getting rich as a religious obligation and believed that making money honestly was like preaching the gospel. Others saw capitalism as sinful and ask what would Jesus do? The implication is that Jesus would be caring for slum dwellers, not selling steel.
Religion also mattered during World War II, the Cold War, in America's waves of immigration, and in the culture wars of the 1980s when the Supreme Court banned school prayer and upheld abortion and eliminated the tax-exempt status of segregated Christian schools. All of these events put evangelicals back into U.S. politics.
Presidential Piety
Many presidents have been explicitly religious including George W. Bush who was criticized for seeking to transform the U.S. into a theocracy. James Garfield was known as the Preacher President and James Polk forbade liquor and dancing in the White House and refused to conduct official business on the Sabbath. Of course some presidents have shown more religious inclination than others, but it is clear that a presidential candidate has to be a person of faith. Only 49 percent of Americans say they would even consider making an atheist commander-in-chief.
Textbook Ignorance (Global Style)
History text lead students to believe that religion belongs to the past and the present belongs to secularity. However, much of the conflicts in world history have been largely or partially religious including the conflicts between Protestants and Catholics in Europe, Communists and Buddhists in Tibet, and Christians, Jews and Muslims in fifteenth century Spain. Religion affects Indian tourism because some Hindus consider traveling outside of India as polluting. Religion affects AIDS in Africa because the Catholic Church forbids artificial birth control. Religion affects banking in the Muslim world because Islamic law prohibits the giving or receiving of interest. Religion matters, but it is a classroom pariah and reflects the view that religion is too hot to handle in the public schools. Textbook authors and publishers are probably just trying to avoid controversy rather than disrespect religion, but the perception of conservative Christians that public schools have become secular has caused a boom in homeschooling and evangelical private schools. Conservatives view the absence of religion in schools as another case of antireligious bias. Religion, traditional family values, and conservative political and economic positions have been excluded from children's textbooks. The First Amendment requires that public schools remain neutral with respect to religion and not take sides among the various religions, e.g., Christianity over Buddhism, or Baptists over Lutherans. It also means that public schools cannot preach the religion of secularism. However, pretending that world history can be understood without religion comes close. Ignoring the influence of religion on world history is not neutral. It is like ignoring black history and women's literature. It betrays a prejudice and is discriminatory.
Reasons for Neglect
It is likely that U.S. and world history textbooks have neglected religion for a variety of reasons. Avoiding controversy as mentioned above is one possibility. Another reason is a misinterpretation of Supreme Court decisions on religion in public education. Many authors and publishers appear to be unaware that the Court explicitly gives a constitutional seal of approval to teaching about religion when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education. There also appears to be confusion about the difference between theology and religious studies. The teaching of religion is unconstitutional, but teaching about religion is not. Perhaps another reason is the secular biases of those who write and publish school textbooks.
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Go to the next Chapter: Prothero, S. 2007. Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know - And Doesn't. Harper San Francisco. Chapter 3: Eden (What We Once Knew).
Related summaries:
Dawkins, R. 2008. The God Delusion. A Mariner Book, Houghton Mifflin Company. (Summary).
Martin, J. R. Not dated. Religious Affiliations Surveys 1972-2018 (Summary).
Martin, M. and K. Augustine. 2015. The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death. Rowland & Littlefield Publishers. (Note and Contents).
Miller, E. L. 1992. Questions That Matter: An Invitation To Philosophy, Third Edition. McGraw-Hill, Inc. (Summary).
Paine, T. 2006. The Age of Reason. The Echo Library. (Rebuff of church dogma originally published in 1796. Summary).
Shermer, M. and P. Linse. 2001. The Baloney Detection Kit. Altadena, CA: Millennium Press. Ten questions to ask when examining a claim. 1. How reliable is the source of the claim? 2. Does the source make similar claims. 3. Have the claims been verified by someone else? 4. Does this fit with the way the world works? 5. Has anyone tried to disprove the claim? 6. Where does the preponderance of evidence point? 7. Is the claimant playing by the rules of science? 8. Is the claimant providing positive evidence? 9. Does the new theory account for as many phenomena as the old theory. 10. Are personal beliefs driving the claim? baloney detection kit