Posted:04/04/07

Fundamental ignorance: American religion
BU professor examines religious understanding in America

Kara MacKeil | contributing writer
kmackeil@smcvt.edu

Stephen Prothero, professor at Boston University, says Americans need to be informed about religion to participate more fully in their government and society. (Colin Vallance, photo)

Quick quiz: Were Sodom and Gomorrah a married couple or two Biblical cities? What is the Islamic holy book called? What religion do the Four Noble Truths come from? And why is Lent 40 days long?

For some, these may be easy questions, but Boston University professor Stephen Prothero says many Americans, religious or not, can’t answer them. According his book, “What Every American Needs to Know – And Doesn’t,” Americans have very little concept of their own religions, much less the religions of others. Prothero thinks this problem needs to change.

“I am convinced that one needs to know something about the world’s religions in order to be truly educated,” Prothero said in a March 4 Boston Globe article.

 

The ten what?

As part of his book, Prothero conducted a survey on standard elements of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Questions were drawn from the texts of the religions themselves, not modern commentary.

Among other things, participants were asked to name a Hindu sacred text, explain the meaning of Ramadan, and name at least four of the Ten Commandments. Most participants could not complete the test.

“Many Protestants can't name the four Gospels, many Catholics can't name the seven sacraments, and many Jews can't name the first five books of the Bible. And yet politicians and pundits continue to root public policy arguments in religious rhetoric whose meanings are missed, or misinterpreted, by the vast majority of American citizens. This is in my view a major problem in contemporary civic life,” Prothero wrote on his Web site, www.stephenprothero.com.

Bringing the message home

"Most of the students here who have no interest in religion have no education about religion," Joanne Nelson, director of Edmundite Campus Ministry says. (Colin Vallance, photo)

Saint Michael's College director of Edmundite Campus Ministry Joanne Nelson says she has seen the effects of this ignorance firsthand.

“Many of the students that I work with, I have to start at a very basic, basic level,’ Nelson says. However, Nelson says many students she knows are very active in their religion, and she credits understanding with this attitude.

“Most of the students here who have no interest in religion have no education about religion,” Nelson says.

She also says that while many students might want to know more, often they have not had an opportunity to do so until coming to St. Michael’s.

Nelson says she feels that while there are options on campus for curious students to explore Catholicism and other faiths, there is only so much that outside influence can lead to.

“All we can do is invite,” she says.

Junior Mallory Wood says she is very involved in her faith, but says that before coming to Saint Michael's, she had very little religious education and was mostly self-taught. While Wood describes herself as Catholic and attributes much of her current knowledge of her faith to her education at Saint Michael’s, she says that many of her peers have a very different approach to faith.

“Our generation definitely mixes and matches what they want to form a personal religion,” Wood says.

She says she feels that while a broad understanding like this is beneficial, some of the standard elements are being left out.

“We’re picking and choosing what we want to know,” Wood says.

Sophomore Dave Breeckner is one of the many young people today who has altered traditional religion to fit his personal beliefs.

“I’ve always viewed religion as highly personal,” he says. “You don’t have to go to church to be religious.”

Breeckner, who is Catholic, says he was raised in a very faith-oriented home and that religion has always been a part of his life. As he grew older, he began to question some of the things he had been taught.

Eventually, Breeckner returned to Catholicism, but he says he doesn’t follow every detail.

“I can understand the ideas behind the religion,” he says. “Just not some of the teachings of the organization.”

Junior Matt Scanlin says he has a similar view. While raised Protestant, Scanlin says he is now an Agnostic.

“In all of these texts, there are contradictions,” he says. “You can pick and choose words to support any idea.”

The repercussions of ignorance

While Breeckner doesn’t describe himself as a textbook Catholic, he says that he knows the essential parts of Catholicism and says he is familiar with other religions as well. Still, he says that he wonders if he is an unusual case.

“I can imagine a lot of people not understanding the similarities between Islam and Christianity,” Breeckner says. “They don’t understand this connection that should be there.”

“Religion can be great, but it can be interpreted many different ways. People might interpret it in different ways and assume that they’re right when they’re not, and it causes problems.” -Junior Matt Scanlin

On his Web site, Prothero said he fears that this lack of understanding is creating more problems than Americans realize. His solution? Put religion back in schools. However, his mission is not to convert, but to teach.

Prothero also said he would like to see world religion classes made a standard part of public education, along with Bible study classes, given the particular importance of the Bible in conjunction with American history.

"You need religious literacy in order to be an effective citizen,” he told the Boston Globe. “When biblical teachings are invoked by politicians and activists on issues from abortion and same-sex marriage to poverty and global warming, how can a person engage in political debate without at least some fluency in the language being spoken?”

Wood says she agrees with this concept.

“People do things for certain reasons and sometimes they’re religiously motivated,” she says. “If we don’t understand the religions we don’t understand [their actions]."

Scanlin says that he seconds this view and adds that dogmatic views are another problem in today’s religious environment.

“Religion can be great but it can be interpreted many different ways,” Scanlin says. “People might interpret it in different ways and assume that they’re right when they’re not, and it causes problems.”

Scanlin says he agrees with Prothero’s idea of a world religions class.

“I think it would be good to get more exposure at the college level, and in grade school if we could, ” he says.

Prothero also said he hopes his book, complete with a mini-glossary of important religious terms, will give Americans the tools they need to participate more fully in their government and society.

As he said to the Boston Globe, "The hope is that we can have more and better political conversations. My hope is that a huge portion of the American population won't feel disengaged from political debates because they don't know enough about religion.”