Much wailing and gnashing of teeth followed the recent release of the Pew Forum's survey of Americans' religious knowledge. The news that, on average, most of us know only half the answers to questions on the Bible, world religions and religion in civic life reveals (pick one) a lax commitment to diversity; a blind spot in religious education; our fear (or at least our willful ignorance) of people not like ourselves; or yet another failure of the public school system.
But really, how important is it to know that Jonathan Edwards was an 18th-century revivalist or that nirvana is the Buddhist experience of freedom from suffering? The focus on factoids obscures a central challenge of the 21st century: negotiating the absolute conflict of multiple religious absolutes.
That's a hard lesson for many Americans, whose deepest religious value is a laissez-faire tolerance for religious difference -- except when those differences threaten the small-"c" conservative status quo, as Muslims, Mormons and some gay Christians can attest. But sociologists say the trend overall, and especially among the young, is to live and let live. In "American Grace: How Religion Unites and Divides Us," authors Robert Putnam and David Campbell call that the "Aunt Susan effect." Aunt Susan may be a lesbian, Sufi or atheist, but her innate goodness makes it hard to believe she'll spend an eternity in hell.
"You know that your faith says ... she's not going to heaven, but I mean come on," Putnam recently told NPR. "[It's] Aunt Susan, you know, and if anybody's going to heaven it's Aunt Susan. So every American is sort of caught in this dilemma, that their theology tells them one things, but their personal experience tells them to be more tolerant."
The authors say increased tolerance may explain why so many Americans claim no religious affiliation. According to Putnam and Campbell, a growing number of young people are opting out of church, enacting a "quiet backlash" against the increasing identification between conservative religion and the Republican Party. The number of "nones," as the unaffiliated are called, used to hover around 5 percent of the population. Now between 35 and 40 percent of younger Americans say belong to this group.
"American Grace" looks to be a treasure trove for coverage on religion and American life. Among its findings are that young people are more opposed to abortion than their families but more accepting of gay marriage; that Jews are the most broadly popular religious group in America today; and that personal interfaith ties are growing. All these developments sound much more promising for intelligent reporting than the river of recent laments about religious illiteracy.
In fact what's most vexing about Americans' religious illiteracy barely made headlines. Armed only with our ignorance, are we ready for a world that daily manifests the absolute conflict of multiple religious absolutes? Writers like Graham Fuller and Eliza Griswold argue that religion is a side-show for geopolitical issues ranging from water rights to territorial claims -- but tell that to Hindus and Muslims in Northern India or to equally angry Jews, Christians and Buddhists around the world. Even if cynical leaders do use religion to manipulate the masses, it's critical to understand why it catches and compels so many people. Knowing a bit of theology and religious history is good a first step.
Then again, it could be that Americans don't have time to learn about other people's religions because they are too busy studying their own. I don't mean the old faiths like Judaism or
Christianity. I'm referring to the new ones: Apple, Converse and Juicy. Researchers at Duke, New York University and Tel Aviv University found that brands provide the same sense of self-worth that religions do. Folks who won't wear Jesus' cross may find contentment sporting Abercrombie's moose. Could it be that religious leaders who call American consumerism the poisoned fruit of our secular democracy are onto something?
The deep connections between conservative religion, politics and economics currently play out in congressional campaigns in Delaware, Nevada, New York and Alaska. But rather than untangle the ideological skeins, journalists are content to simply handicap these races.
I doubt PBS' new series "God in America" will do much exploration of this avenue when it airs this week. Rather, the six-hour special looks to be a crash course on American religious history. With swelling music, lush visuals and historical re-enactments, the producers seem to be celebrating both the majesty of American religious diversity and the mystery of our abiding religiosity. "It's all good" is the underlying message. But what's needed is not another romantic narrative about American religion and politics. Instead we need solid journalism that informs us about our messy world, its conflicting faiths and our own responsibility to facts on the ground -- if we can stop obsessing about the brands on our chests.
Follow Diane Winston on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dianewinston
Marilyn Mellowes: 'God in America:' A House Divided Twice (VIDEO)
U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey - Who Knows What About Religion ...
Most Americans believe in God but don't know religious tenets ...
1.)It's a fraud
2.) ???
3.) PROFIT
I find it all but impossible to understand the total lack of curiosity exuding from these "believers."
2. When adults, what they choose for themselves to find out.
There are difficulties with both these statements yet they summarize the current position regarding freedom, rights and the family.
That it's perfectly fine to say you are an atheist and a critical thinker.
First let's stop all childhood indoctrination.
Then teach children that verifiable evidence and peer review form the basis of science.
Next give children a variety of examples of claims made that are not supported by verifiable evidence and that all these are called superstition.
Once they have learned the basics of critical thinking, they are ready to for examples: tooth fairies, pink unicorns, ... and a comparative study of religions. By covering all superstitions, we do not single out any particular one.
Along the way, teach them the basics of science but do not drown them in details (they can learn them when they get older) but focus on how to separate science from nonsense and superstition.
Maybe by the time they are adults, they will be better equipped to reject all superstitions.
That would be indoctrinating them into atheism. Schools already teach critical thinking through math and science courses. To learn science is to learn the scientific method of theory and proof. When I was in school 20 years ago we studied other religions in social studies class. In high school.
There are two kinds of people in the world, leaders and followers. A leader thinks and asks questions. A follower just accepts what he is told by those he considers 'authorities' and follows accordingly. No amount of scholastic pressure is going to change that reality.
And if more people actually studied history comprehensively and in context, they would know that any set of beliefs that has the power to sway the hearts and minds of humans can be used by the unscrupulous and opportunistic as a political tools.
This has been true of political systems from the modern form of Republicanism that creates its own version of Christianity that has little to do with the actual teachings of Jesus to Marxist communism, which recognizes only atheism as a rational form of spiritually-related belief.
Not to recognize this is to fall into the trap of thinking that one's own belief system could never be co-opted and distorted, used and abused as others. And if you fall for that trap, you may find yourself enabling the self-interests of people you may never realize were out to keep you mistrustful, disrespectful and divided from your best allies.
And then when one comes to a conclusion of some kind, even that the possibility of there being a deity is so remote that it's irrelevant, then that would seem to out of the lack of opinion category and into the belief category.
Jesus saves.