Teaching for Religious Literacy

Abstract

Stephen Prothero's Religious Literacy makes a strong case that minimal religious literacy is an essential requirement for contemporary U. S. citizens. He argues further that high schools and colleges should offer required courses in the study of religion in order to help students reach that baseline literacy. Beyond the general recommendation that such courses focus on biblical literacy and the history of Christianity, however, Prothero does not sketch out his proposal for teaching religious literacy. This essay argues that in addition to providing factual knowledge, teaching for religious literacy needs to involve sustained attention to how religious people use that factual information to orient themselves in the world, express their individual and group selfunderstanding, and give their lives direction and meaning. Such attention to the dynamics of religious life can also help students understand why human beings have persisted in this mode of behavior.Perhaps the most provocative recent book concerning teaching about religion is Stephen Prothero's Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -and Doesn't (2007). The book is important because it makes a strong case that minimal religious literacy is an essential requirement for effective citizenship in the contemporary United States. It is alternately delightful and appalling in documenting how many college students fall hilariously short of even rudimentary religious literacy. But for teachers of religion in higher education, it is also consistently frustrating in its broad prescriptions for remedying the current dismal state of religious literacy in our country. That frustration stems in large part from Prothero's relentless focus on the specific information that religiously literate people need to know. Religious literacy, I hope to show, is more complicated than that.Despite a few nods in other directions Prothero focuses too exclusively on the what of religion and not enough on the how. That is, religious literacy must involve not only a degree of mastery of basic information (such as when to perform the prescribed actions during a Roman Catholic Mass or during Muslim daily prayers -what Prothero calls ritual literacy) but also some insight into how people use that basic information to orient themselves in the world, express their individual and communal self-understanding, and give their lives direction and meaning. To be literate about religion, one needs to know something about religious dynamics, mechanics, and processes -the how of religion. A clear understanding of both the what and the how is necessary to grasping the why of religion -why human beings have persisted in this mode of behavior, even as it has imposed extraordinary demands on them and as frequently brought them to tears as to joy. ARTICLES

Conversation with 2017 American Academy of Religion Excellence in Teaching award winner Lynn Neal

“…So, if they take one thing away from my class, it's having a more complicated vision or definition of what religion is, and a more complicated sense of how religion works in the world. This entails some understanding of content, but also, as Gene has written about, having some context for how people live their religion (Gallagher, ).…”

Teaching the Millennial Generation in the Religious and Theological Studies Classroom

“…Prothero suggests that the remedy lies in teaching basic religious literacy, especially biblical literacy and the history of Christianity, to the current generation of students in public schools and in colleges. Eugene Gallagher agrees that we must accept Prothero's challenge and teach for religious literacy at the collegiate level, noting: “whether they are deeply or shallowly involved in the practice of a religion, hazily conscious of some of the roles religions play in American civic life or simply vaguely aware that religion is something that some other people do, they are unaccustomed to thinking critically about religion” (, 210). Given that most of the undergraduate students in our classes are not religious studies majors and therefore most of our classes serve as introductory courses to the discipline, Gallagher argues that it is imperative that we teach students not just the what of religion (such as basic facts about Christianity or other world religions), but also the why of religion: “why human beings have persisted in this mode of behavior, even as it has imposed extraordinary demands on them and as frequently brought them to tears as to joy” (2009, 208) .…”

Learning to Drink Deeply from Books: Using Experiential Assignments to Teach Concepts

“…I do think that if all our courses do is introduce students to basic content about religion, we will have failed. Gene Gallagher made a powerful case that “religious literacy must involve not only a mastery of basic information [the what of religion], . .…”