Religious Literacy, Stephen Prothero
Religious Literacy, Stephen Prothero
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Religious Literacy
What Every American Needs to Know--And Doesn't

Author: Stephen Prothero

Narrator: Stephen Prothero

Unabridged: 10 hr 8 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperOne

Published: 03/13/2007

Synopsis

What's Your Religious Literacy IQ? Quick—can you:Name the four Gospels?Name a sacred text of Hinduism?Name the holy book of Islam?Name the first five books of the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Old Testament?Name the Ten Commandments?Name the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism?If you can't, you're not alone. We are a religiously illiterate nation, yet despite this lack of knowledge, politicians continue to root public policy arguments in religious rhetoric whose meanings are missed—or misinterpreted—by the vast majority of Americans.""We have a major civics education problem today,"" says religion scholar Stephen Prothero. He makes the provocative case that to remedy this, we should return to teaching religion in the public schools.Alongside ""reading, writing, and arithmetic,"" religion ought to become the fourth ""R"" of American education. Many believe that America's descent into religious illiteracy was the doing of activist judges and secularists hell-bent on banishing religion from the public square. Prothero reveals that this is a profound misunderstanding. ""In one of the great ironies of American religious history,"" Prothero writes, ""it was the nation's most fervent people of faith who steered us down the road to religious illiteracy. Just how that happened is one of the stories this audio has to tell."" Religious Literacy reveals what every American needs to know in order to confront the domestic and foreign challenges facing this country today.

About Stephen Prothero

Stephen Prothero is the New York Times bestselling author of Religious Literacy and God Is Not One and an emeritus professor of religion at Boston University. His work has been featured on the cover of TIME magazine, and he has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, NPR, and all the major networks. He has written and reviewed for the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Salon, Slate, and other publications. Visit the author at www.stephenprothero.com and follow him at sprothero.bsky.social.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Eric on December 15, 2007

Once, I (a Buddhist) had to explain to my Christian co-worker that the movie "Babel" referred to the Old Testament tale of the Tower of Babel and the origin of languages. We've gotten ignorant in the US, and Mr. Prothero shows us the dangers and some of the causes of our religious ignorance. The book......more

Goodreads review by Adam on July 21, 2007

This book offers an interesting take on the existence of religious knowledge (or the apparent lack there-of) in society today. Essentially, Prothero has identified religious literacy as an important issue facing the United States today as it plagues all levels of society. In order to correct these i......more

Goodreads review by Chris on January 30, 2025

I went into this book hoping to learn what I do not know about religious literacy. My problems with this book is that only the last 1/3 of this book is geared toward actually educating the reader. The first 2/3 of the book goes over why/how America "lost" its religious literacy and how/why it should......more

Goodreads review by Terence on September 12, 2010

I've been looking for something to listen to on the drive to work and this is just the ticket. _________________________________________ I listened to the audio version of this book so, as usual, I wasn't able to take notes and succeeded only in jotting down some thoughts when I got to work or back ho......more

Goodreads review by Marissa on November 05, 2007

Another listened-to-in-the-car-book, and a pretty good one, too, if you're at all interested in religion and especially if you aren't for, as the author explains, Americans are woefully ignorant about religion in general even as they claim to be a religious nation. He begins the book by explaining j......more

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