Rich Kao

Subtitle:  What Every American Needs to Know - and Doesn't  by Stephen Prothero

A very well researched and documented book.  Just reading the introduction and chapter one (A Nation of Religious Illiterates) is enough to make you laugh and cry at the same time.  The statistics are stunning and head-shaking regarding the religious ignorance of the American populace, when arguably it's the most "Christian nation" on the earth.  Here's just a few samplers:  only one half of American adults can name even ONE of the four gospel; most Americans cannot name the first book of the bible; only one third know that Jesus (no, not Billy Graham)  delivered the Sermon on the Mount; most Americans don't know that Jonah is a book in the bible. 

On the "I-want-to-cry" side:  ten percent of Americans believed that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife; eight percent of teens thought Moses was one of the twelve apostles; and results from Professor Proethero's own freshman literacy quiz found students thinking Paul bound Issac, Noah led the Exodus, and Abraham was blinded on the road to Damascus.

The book does a fantastic job of showing the amazing role Christianity has played in American history, politics and religious life, and the now equally amazing incongruence to the populace's general knowlege of the bible.

Mr. Prothero also makes a wider case for not just Christian literacy, but religious literacy in general (what are the top five religions of the world?).

While the book is very well written (and well regarded; see his website link given above), the downside is the book doesn't actually equip the reader to become more literate (aside from a mini dictionary of religious terms and concepts - chapter six) even though the title alludes to it ("what every American needs to know").  In that sense the book is misleading, and leaves one feeling a bit empty, like getting the appetizer and salad, but no entree.  But left to building a case for why Americans need to be more religiously literate, he's done that in spades. 

 

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