Many kinds of literacy - in this case, Bible Literacy

See Update below: (should updates go at the top?)

This post has been sitting on my desk for nearly two months, but I am determined to share this. Time Magazine on April 2 ran a great cover story by David Van Biema "The Case for Teaching the Bible" in which he argues that the "Holy Book" should "be on the public-school menu" because "It's the bedrock of Western Culture." And, he says "it's constitutional - as long as we teach but don't preach it."

Van Biema's point is well taken that many Americans today do not know the Bible well enough to understand the positions of those in society whose values and politics are closely driven by what they read and understand in the Bible. Van Biema quotes Stephen Prothero, new author of Religious Literacy, as evidence:

In the late '70s, [students] knew nothing about religoin, and it didn't matter. But then religions rushed into the public square. What purpose could it possible serve for citizens to be ignorant of all that?"

Prothero's book will be out soon. According to Lisa Miller's March 12 Newsweek article "The Gospel of Prothero" the professor at Boston University bemoans the fact that "In spite of the fact that more than 90 percent of Americans say they believe in God, only a tiny portion of them knows a thing about religion. "

Miller points out that when Prothero "began teaching college 17 years ago, Prothero writes, he discovered that few of his students could name the authors of the Christian Gospels."
What happens when I teach Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech or his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" is that students do not recognize the references. Many don't notice the epistolary form and connect that to the New Testament or get many of the allusions. So I tell them. They don't recognize "every valley shall be exalted" from Isaiah, even after I sing to them from Handel's "Messiah." This makes me sad. College is supposed to be a time to broaden horizons, so I explain about cultural and religious literacy and urge them to become more informed.

I agree with Van Biema's claim that "knowledge of [the Bible] is essential to being a full-fledged, well-rounded citizen." And my motivation accords with Prothero's position as reported by Miller:

His motivation is more than pedagogical. In a world where nearly every political conflict has a religious underpinning, Prothero writes that Americans are selling themselves short by remaining ignorant about basic religious history and texts, by not knowing the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite or the name of Mormonism's holy book. "Given a political environment where religion is increasingly important, it's increasingly important to know something about religion," he says. "The payoff is a more involved [political] conversation."

Right now one of my students is writing an essay claiming that public high schools should offer electives in intelligent design but continue to teach evolution in the required science classes. He and I talked about whether these proposed courses should only feature the Christian perspective or creation as explained by all religions.

Well -- it's getting late and I want to head home for the Memorial Day weekend to grade papers. I have one more short blog post to make up for being absent for so long. Have a great weekend.

Note: Prothero now has a 15 question "religious literacy" quiz on Newsweek. The quiz would not launch for me at first, but then it did, and I scored 87, missing 2 questions.

UPDATE: MAY 29:
According to Chronicle of Higher Ed (but an article I don't have a subscription for)

Secularism in the Elimination Round By JACQUES BERLINERBLAU

Christopher Hitchens closes his subtly titled God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything with the following directive: "It has become necessary to know the enemy, and to prepare to fight it." The enemy in question would be religion. All religion, all manifestations of religion — Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and all their sundry denominations, too. It's all bad! And unless Hitchens's grand strategy is to taunt religion so mercilessly that it packs its bags and storms, red faced, out of the cosmos, his book provides little of use for the coming struggle.

Here's a link to an excerpt of Hitchens' book, entitled "Religion Kills."