Los Angeles Times Op Ed: We Live in the Land of Biblical Idiots

March 20, 2007

Here’s something I found at the website of another Presbyterian blogger: Denis Hancock’s The Reformed Angler. The LA Times published an Op Ed a few days ago from Stephen Prothero, the chair of the Religious Studies department at Boston University. Its worth a read…
http://www.latimes.com/…/la-oe-prothero14mar14,1,3102398.story
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Here’s the key quote:

ALTHOUGH THE 110th Congress has brought to Capitol Hill 43 Jews, two Buddhists and a Muslim — Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who took his oath of office on Thomas Jefferson’s Koran — Washington remains a disproportionately Christian town. More than 90% of federal legislators call themselves Christians, making Congress more Christian than the United States itself. The president is an evangelical Protestant. Catholics enjoy a majority on the Supreme Court. Biblical references — from the Jericho Road to the golden rule to the promised land — permeate political speech. Yet U.S. citizens know almost nothing about the Bible. Although most regard it as the word of God, few read it anymore. Even evangelicals from the Bible Belt seem more focused on loving Jesus than on learning what he had to say.

In a religious literacy quiz I have administered to undergraduates for the last two years, students tell me that Moses was blinded on the road to Damascus and that Paul led the Israelites on their exodus out of Egypt. Surveys that are more scientific have found that only one out of three U.S. citizens is able to name the four Gospels, and one out of 10 think that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. No wonder pollster George Gallup has concluded that the United States is “a nation of biblical illiterates.”

Biblical illiteracy is not just a religious problem. It is a civic problem with political consequences. How can citizens participate in biblically inflected debates on abortion, capital punishment or the environment without knowing something about the Bible? Because they lack biblical literacy, Americans are easily swayed by demagogues on the left or the right who claim — often incorrectly — that the Bible says this about war or that about homosexuality.

One solution to this civic problem is to teach Bible classes in public schools. By Bible classes I do not mean classes in which teachers tell students that Jesus loves them or that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, but academic courses that study the Bible’s characters and stories as well as the afterlife of the Bible in literature and history. Last week, the Georgia Board of Education gave preliminary approval to two elective Bible courses designed to teach religion rather than preach religion. As long as teachers stick to the curriculum, this is a big step in the right direction. …

Here’s my view: Religious subjects taught in in public schools is something that ought to be considered only with great care. Its not the school’s responsibility to teach faith; its the church’s. And public schools ought be safe places for all children, of every faith: Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or even no faith at all. We Presbyterians believe in the importance of respecting the conscience of everyone, and we should respect the separation of church and state on this matter.

But there is a point here: knowledge of sacred texts can be very important, particularly for understanding other religions and for engaging in civic discourse on subjects that are heavily influenced by religious communities. For this reason, I support this proposal in general, and I’d expand it to offer a class on major sacred literature from the world religions: the Bible, the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, etc. The goal would be towards some knowledge of how these “sacred” stories influence public discourse, and discussion on why that might be important to know. And I’d keep a close eye on it to ensure that communities didn’t see this as an extension of what the church is doing…

Oh, and don’t miss the indictment in the story about the church’s failure here: beyond the fact that there are fewer people attending churches these days, what else can we say about this claim about biblical illiteracy? Maybe we in the church should be doing better…

Posted in Religion and Culture