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Jewish World Review Sept. 28, 2010 / 20 Tishrei, 5771 Survey: Many Americans are religious illiterates By Annysa Johnson
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Did you know that most people in Indonesia are Muslim? That American public school teachers can read from the Bible as an example of literature? That only Protestants traditionally teach that salvation comes through faith alone?
Chances are you did not.
A new survey being released today by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life suggests that large numbers of Americans know little about the world's major religions, including their own.
It comes at a time when religion underlies some of the most contentious social and political issues of the day, from immigration reform and the construction of a mosque near ground zero to efforts to craft a lasting peace in the Middle East.
The U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey, a first-of-its-kind attempt to gauge the nation's religious literacy, found wide gaps in Americans' understanding of the beliefs, practices, history and leading figures of the major faith traditions, according to the Pew Forum.
"It confirms the fact that the United States is a nation of religious illiterates," said Boston University professor Stephen Prothero, whose 2007 book "Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — And Doesn't" inspired the survey, and who served as an adviser on it.
Prothero and others say the findings raise troubling questions about Americans' understanding of their own history and culture; their ability to take part in the political process at home, and understand developments abroad.
"That's the more urgent; that's where illiteracy is dangerous," said Prothero.
"If people around the world were motivated purely by greed and power, economics would be enough to understand the world. But people all over the world are motivated by their religious convictions."
The Pew survey of more than 3,400 people asked 32 questions over seven topics: the Bible; elements of Christianity, Judaism and Mormonism; knowledge of world religions; atheism and agnosticism; and the role of religion in public life.
On average, respondents correctly answered half of the questions, according to Pew, with 10 percent getting 25 to 28 right, and 11 percent getting five to eight questions right.
Among the findings:
"Just the other day, I asked my students, 'Who said: Man shall not live by bread alone and in what context?'" said Lakshmi Bharadwaj, associate professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
"And only one person — out of 36 or 38 students — could answer," he said.
Bharadwaj and Susan Wood, chairman of the Theology Department at Marquette University, say they've seen an erosion of religious knowledge among students over the last 30 to 40 years — brought on, they say, by the growing secularism of society.
"This is enormously important," even beyond the religious implications, said Wood.
"You can't understand Western civilization unless you understand religion," she said. "How can you understand your cultural heritage in terms of art? How do you understand literary allusions in novels? Even a non-religious person needs religious literacy to understand he artifacts of our civilizations."
In an effort to improve religious literacy, advocates have developed a set of guidelines and standards for teaching about religion in public schools, and there's been some progress. A number of school districts across the country offer elective courses on religion, said Charles Haynes, director of the Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.
"Still," he said, "teachers in many places are afraid to tackle religion. ... and teacher education programs do not prepare them to do so."
And even if they did, is improving religious literacy enough?
No, says, Mark Silk, director of the Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.
"As a matter of general education, and in multicultural, pluralistic society, it's good to know something about other religions," Silk said.
"The bottom line is: If it's not accompanied by values, including the value of truth-telling and good judgment, and humanity, knowing some facts won't get you anywhere."
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