Ryan Chartrand
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Here’s a fairly simple quiz for you: Can you name the four Gospels? What about the first five books of the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Old Testament? The Ten Commandments? The two religion clauses of the First Amendment?
Well, if you can, you’re more religiously literate than most of your American peers.
According to recent surveys used for his newest book, “Religious Literacy: What Every American Should Know – and Doesn’t,” Stephen Prothero found that, although America is very much a land of religious adherents, that ultimately means nothing in terms of what they actually know about both their own religions and those of others.
He found that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that the Bible holds the answers to all or most of life’s basic questions, yet only half of American adults can name even one of the four gospels, and most Americans cannot name the first book of the Bible.
Other significant findings: Ten percent of Americans believe that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. Only one-third know that Jesus (as opposed to Billy Graham) delivered the Sermon on the Mount. And a majority of Americans wrongly believe that the Bible says that Jesus was born in Jerusalem.
In my religion and violence class, only eight in a class of 38 scored in the 60 to 69 percent range of Prothero’s religious literacy test. We were thankfully, though somehow pitifully, the highest scorers. That means that only 21 percent of the class passed the timed, multi-faceted, 15-question test.
But we still scored higher, on average, than the rest of America (thank God).
Apparently, we have become a nation that “believes God has spoken in scripture but can’t be bothered to listen to what God has to say,” as Prothero writes. And that is a sad but telling truth.
Despite this paradox, the ignorance of “religious” America has far wider and more severe consequences than merely leading to a nation of idiots. We live in a time when religious jargon is strewn about loosely in the political sphere especially; without much knowledge of the religious basics, this can lead to dire consequences.
In the April edition of Mother Jones magazine, for example, the editors decided to “hit the books,” compiling “An Iraq Handbook for Dummies” as their centerpiece. Editors Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery explained the catalyst for the article as this:
“A few months ago, Congressional Quarterly’s Jeff Stein toured Capitol Hill asking a pretty simple question: ‘Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?’ The national security leadership drew a collective blank: Silvestre Reyes, the new Democratic chair of the House intelligence committee, averted that al-Qaida is mostly Shiite and crumbled when asked which sect Hezbollah is affiliated with: ‘Why do you ask me these questions at five o’clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you know Spanish?’ . Why have Americans been left so clueless?”
The fact that there are myriad of factors surrounding the so-called war on terror in Iraq and the doings of Hezbollah in Lebanon is true. But the role of religion in current (and most historical) conflicts cannot be downplayed or swept aside. Religion is very much a prevalent force in society today, as seen in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Afghanistan and even much closer to home.
If we, as a nation, are going to use the teachings from the Sermon on the Mount or the Ten Commandments or the tenants of any other sacred text to apply to our involvement in foreign affairs or our standings on same-sex marriage, abortion, the death penalty, etc., then we must have a firm grasp of what these texts and the religions behind them set forth.
For Prothero, that means teaching religion in schools (gasp!). Yes, separation of church and state is a vital, fundamental component in a nation that prides itself on religious pluralism. But so is having a country of semi-intelligent people who at least know the basics of both their own religion and those of others.
As college students, we have the responsibility to make the effort to educate ourselves, be that through taking a religious studies class, attending a religious service of some kind, or by simply engaging in religious conversations with friends.
The questions on Prothero’s quiz (and in Jeff Stein’s interview) are not difficult-to-grasp theological musings. They are just simple questions about the fundamentals of various religions -things that everyone, myself included, needs to know.
The statistics he found may be dismal, but it’s not too late or too hard to brush up on basics. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be known as a nation of religiously ignorant illiterates.
Janelle Eastridge is a journalism junior and Mustang Daily staff writer.