Religious Literacy [Hardcover]

"Religious Literacy" is about the paradox that Americans are both deeply religious and profoundly ignorant about religion. Stephen Prothero himself is not religious but is a scholar of religious studies. That is to say, he writes 'about' religion and not 'within' religion.

This book is significant because while a majority of Americans consult their religious beliefs in their everyday decision-making, what informs those decisions is a profound ignorance of the doctrines that founded those beliefs. According to Prothero, ignorance leads to dangerous misunderstandings. During the FBI siege on Waco, Prothero argues that had FBI authorities been more knowledgeable in the apocalypse of the end of days, they would have interpreted the Branch Davidions intentions more accurately and perhaps avoided the terrible loss of life.

True to his word, Prothero includes an extended glossary, 100 pages worth explaining such terms like Exodus, Sermon on the Temple Mount, Hadith, and Orthodox Judaism. It is a great reference, and is reason alone to buy the book.

Overall, I think Prothero makes some very interesting obvervations about the role of religious education in today's society. From a literary perspective, religious references are used by almost every writer, a basic knowledge would obviously be crucial in understanding such references and parallels. Definitely recommend "Religious Literacy" for anyone wanting to learn more about the world's five major religions.

Prothero has written an interesting and informative book about the historical role of religion and attempts to inculcate religious ideology, values, and morals into American society. What I found most surprizing was his claim that the growth of evangelical churches and their influence in US society has led, at least in part, to the present state of religioius illiteracy in the United States of North America (There are the United States of Brazil, Mexico, etc. so I seek to indicate that book is concerned with the situation in North America, excluding Mexico and Canada).

However, his central argument is that unlike secularized Europe the United States is a highly religious society where in fact religion is at the centre of public affairs even though the state is not to prohibit or encourage any one religion in place of another. This being the case it is scandalous that the American public education system has manifestly failed to provide Americans with the basic knowledge about what various different religious groups, often including one's own tradition, actually believe. Consequently, since Americans are practioners of religion, mostly Christianity, and that this frequently is found employed in the public square, then citizens should be educated in the bare bones basics of religious beliefs so that they can follow the religious allusions when made by politicians, e.g. Bush's Jericho road reference.

However, Pothero is not arguing for a return to the teaching of religion or indoctrination, but about religion, that is learning what various groups believe and how this affects their practioners behaviours, another example, the forbidding of the paying and collecting of interest in Islam and might I add also in medieval Western Christian Europe where the Jews were the money lenders, but Christian could pay interest just not collect it.
Prothero rightly criticizes the "deceivers" (my words) who would have us believe that all religions teach the same thing and have the same ultimate goal in mind (utter nonsense). He informs the reader that the Supreme Court has not been quashing the teaching about religion, but the use of schools to promote the teaching of one religion over others, and has been in fact pleading for the teaching about religion in the public education system. The need is for religion to be described and interrogated just an in any other field of inquiry in the social sciences and humanities.

I love his description of the fact that most students spend 12 years studying maths and not a single year of religion is included, yet many people forget about trigonmetry once they are out (certainly true for me) and yet religion is a continuous and ongoing part of our lives (also true for me).

At least one caveat. Philosophy is also a major underpinning of our society but I did not have the option of studying that in public school either (now changed thankfully). So should one make an appeal for philosophical education alongside of religious education? - the French have the study of philosphy as mandatory in school and tend to be quite non-religious in the participation sense. Perhaps to make his argument stronger he could explain the links between philosophy and religion since Confucianism for example tends to border the boundary lines on this issue. If George W. Bush had said that Confucius was his favorite philosopher rather Jesus Christ, would people have been as nearly as perturbed or just said something like "oh that's interesting" and taken no seeming offense? Certainly makes me wonder about the motives of some of the objections raised.