Dumbed Down: What Americans Don't Know About Religion

by Timothy Renick
excerpted from The Christian Century

"On many levels our is still a very Christian nation. Statistically the nation is more Christian, than Israel is Jewish or Utah is Mormon.
Yet surveys show that the majority of Americans cannot name even one of the four Gospels, only 1/3 know that it was Jesus who delivered the Sermon on the Mount, and 10% think that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife....Many high school seniors think that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife.
Devout Christians are, on average, at least as ignorant about the facts of Christianity as are other Americans. 60% of evangelicals think that Jesus was born in Jerusalem; only 51% of the Jews made the same mistake.
When it comes to knowledge of Islam and Asian religions, the picture is even bleaker. There are now over 1,200 mosques in the U.S. and more Hindu temples than in any country other than India, but most Americans cannot name a single Hindu scripture, let alone describe the basic tenets of the religion; nor can they articulate the difference between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims.*
President Bush told Americans that Islam is peace. Jerry Falwell said that Muhammad was a terrorist. Not only does one suspect that Bush and Falwell would have been hard pressed to offer any informed basis for opposing characterizations, but Americans had no way to judge who was right, because, when it comes to understanding the Islamic tradition, most Americans are kindergarteners at best.
Since most Americans don't know Sodom, Shi'ites, or Sunnis from Adam, the debate is reduced to empty sloganering and appeals to emotion, and citizens are increasingly disenfranchised by their ignorance. How can Americans formulate concrete opinions about what should be done in Iraq when they have no understanding of the situation more nuanced than a perception that lots of people are killing each other?
Prothero, [author of Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know--And Doesn't], proposes that all American public high school students should be required to take a course in world religions. Such courses would teach about the religions, not denigrate them or indoctrinate students. As such, the courses would have a civic rather than a theological goal."**

* For the record, while I can describe the basic tenets of the Hindu religion, and articulate the difference between Shi'ite and Sunni muslims, and while I have read portions of the Hindu Upanishads, I cannot, by memory, name a single Hindu scripture. So color me ignorant.

** Also for the record, I have mixed feelings about introducing world religions in high school. On the one hand, I think it is vitally important for Americans to have some basic knowledge of world religions because of the enormous impact religions have on the world, our decision making, and our motivations. On the other hand, I really don't think I trust high school teachers to teach world religions without attempting to indoctrinate. I simply can't imagine it being successful in, say, Texas or Georgia, for example, and probably not in Kansas either. A better idea, I think, is to make world religions a required course in junior college and universities. I could see that moving down to high school in a couple of decades, but I think it would need to start at the college level, not the highschool level.