Religious Literacy
Laura Kringler
Stephen Prothero’s work entitled Religious Literacy covers a topic that is inherently
controversial, but really should not be, and this book aims to offer a logical take on this
topic. In the United States, as Prothero points out, people are highly religious, but without
the knowledge to back it up. Europe, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. This is due to
mandatory religious education in European schools, and the essential removal of all
mentions of religion in American schools. Prothero goes on to explore the topic of this
beginning with the Puritan traditions of the first American colonists, through his solution to
the problem. He states his case for showing why it is so necessary for Americans to
reeducate themselves on religion through showing why the Bible was so important to early
Americans colonies, to how Americans forgot their religion, and how Americans should
begin to redeem themelves.
Generally, the United States has been fighting to maintain it’s seemingly
contradictory united religious and secular ideal since “George Washington put his hand on
a Bible and swore to uphold a godless Constitution”1 and the birth of the nation. But much
before that, being able to read the Bible meant being able to read. Basic literacy meant
religious literacy. The first colonial schools were in the home, and children were educated
through recitation and memorization of Bible verses and stories, firstly by hearing their
parents and siblings daily, and then learning to read it themselves. It was truly ingrained
into early colonial daily life, and children carried this with them. The de-facto official
colonial religion of Puritanism greatly emphasized the importance of the scripture and
knowledge of it, and their sermons could last up to two hours. These sermons stayed
focused on the doctrine and “rarely colored their sermons with tales from their own lives
or the lives of their parishioners.”2 Once the U.S. had established it’s goal of universal free
education, schoolhouses looked to the Protestant standard and children learned to read
from primers & spellers that were inherently religious and moral. They used religious
examples in teaching the alphabet and basic spelling, and illustrate how literacy meant
religious literacy in this era. These learning tools were wildly popular; they are some of the
most popular books in American history. This would remain the standard until the Second
Great Awakening of the early 19th century, and began to shake things up.
Americans were hit with a religious explosion in the early 1800’s driven by
Southern & Western Evangelicals, whom rejected the Puritan notion of predestination, or
that an individual had no free will to choose their own religious beliefs. These revivalists
decided that individuals should focus on religion as an experience or belief, rather than
based on doctrinal knowledge. This seeking of a more spiritual and emotional religion led
to the doubling of the Christian population in America, from 17% around the Revolution to
34% in 1850.3 The evangelical leaders and preachers of these revivals stressed the passion
of religion, and dismissed biblical knowledge as unimportant. Their sermons also became
1
Stephen Prothero, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know – And Doesn’t (New York:
HarperOne, 2007), 29.
2 Prothero, 83.
3 Prothero, 113.
more and more comparable to those of today, in which preachers use everyday examples
and minimal biblical reference. They sought to make the church entertaining, and sought
theology in everyday life. Schools had also been changing. This was firstly due to the rise of
Catholicism in the United States, and their competition with the Protestants in life and in
the classroom. Students no longer needed to learn to read from a Bible, but the schools
wanted to continue to produce good, moral citizens, and morality, they believed, came from
some sort of religious context. At this point, schools attempted a switch to a school with 5
generically religious principles that directly excluded religions other than the Protestant
ones, created by religious reformer Horace Mann. The implementation of these principles
led Catholics to protest in favor of their own doctrine, and problems emerged. At it’s most
dramatic in 1844, Catholic churches were burned down in Philadelphia due to riots that
also left 12+ people dead.4 The controversy with these and other events led to the eventual
separation of church in state in the public school, and morality taking the place of religion.
Similar issues took hold in higher education as well. This is where America is left at today,
with American religious knowledge embarrassingly low.
Prothero offers in the final chapter his solution to America’s problems with religion,
and why they are so necessary to overcome, and rightly so. Americans are guilty of lacking
the world knowledge that would allow them to better understand world events and in an
effective manner. Prothero wonders how we can “expect to participate fully in the politics
of the nation or the affairs of the world” when we don’t have a basic religious knowledge.
His solution is to offer a bible class to high school students as well as a world religions class
in order to build a solid foundation on which Americans can hope to rejoin the world
religious-knowledge wise.
4
Prothero,