Religious Illiteracy

By Brad Henderson

The comments on the subject of ignorance are almost endless. Horace Mannʼs “There is nothing so costly as ignorance. ” Or Ben Franklinʼs “The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance. ” Or perhaps you have read Stephen Protheroʼs “Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know---and Doesnʼt”, which draws our attention to the religious ignorance in our midst. Ours isnʼt the first generation to realize that perhaps we have come to find ease and comfort in our ignorance, especially in the realm of what we believe.
A survey released last week by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life revealed surprising facts about our American religious illiteracy and ignorance. Hereʼs a good synopsis from Rachel Zoll (Yahoo! News): “A new survey of Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons outperformed Protestants and Roman Catholics in answering questions about major religions, while many respondents could not correctly give the most basic tenets of their own faiths. ”

I suppose I should not be surprised, but wow.

Thereʼs a difference between being comfortable with not knowing what cannot be known and what can. Itʼs one thing to be at ease, realizing we will never fully know/understand the mystery of the Trinity. Itʼs another to be comfortable with not knowing that the Trinity is the way we express our belief that God, Jesus and Spirit are separate yet one. We only impoverish ourselves when we cease learning about what we believe because such learning leads us to discover who we really are, what paths are before us, and who the Divine Presence is that accompanies us along the way. In short, ignorance only hurts... us. This is why comfort zones can become so very dangerous and unhealthy: they are often artificial at best, and false at the worst.

In the words of Alvin Toffler, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. ”