The student’s brow furrowed in concentration. His mind wandered into the deep recesses of his brain struggling to pluck out a bit of long-forgotten information.
Eventually, the sophomore new media major stammered a few phrases and got the question – name the Ten Commandments – wrong.
While 25 percent of Americans know the ingredients to a Big Mac, only 14 percent know the Ten Commandments, according to a survey by Kelton Research in the Sacramento Bee .
The article argues that people today know more about pop culture than religion, a fact that others have also supported.
Stephen Prothero, author of “Religious Literacy” and chair of Boston University’s Religious Studies department, gives his students a religious literacy quiz before taking his class.
“Virtually everyone’s failed: evangelicals, Catholics, mainline Protestants, everyone,” he told the Bostonia .
A recent Jewish Fairfield graduate, Ben Doody ’07 said that Americans in general have a limited knowledge of religions other than their own.
“In high school, people asked me if I celebrated Thanksgiving,” said Doody. “They also asked ‘Do you believe in God?’ I think this demonstrates a very widespread ignorance.”
Some current Fairfield students also said that students did not know enough about religions other than their own.
“The majority of Fairfield students have a good background in some Christian religions, but most people have not been taught about the background or beliefs about other religions in the world,” said Shelby Mayor ’09.
Dr. Paul Lakeland, the chair of the Catholic Studies program at Fairfield, has also noticed a decline in the general knowledge of religion.
“Most Catholics under 50, through no fault of their own, do not possess the basic ‘religious literacy’ that earlier generations seem to have had,” he said.
“It’s generational,” said Fr. Rick Ryscavage S.J., director of the Center for Faith and Public Life at Fairfield. He said there was a “great break in the 70s” when younger people’s knowledge of religions began to decline.
Fr. Walter Colan S.J., agreed saying that it was normal for families to discuss religion at the dinner table while parents would hope their children would become priests or nuns. However, he has been hard-pressed to find families that even share a meal together anymore.
“When you have a good support mechanism, then you probably have more value or knowledge in religion,” he said.
Zhenya Vyatchaninova, a Ukrainian foreign exchange student studying at Fairfield this semester, said that while Americans are extremely aware of religion, they do not seem interested in talking about religious topics, especially when dealing with other cultures.
“Many know some of the traditions because of their history,” she said, citing Ukraine’s close ties with Turkey as giving her native county’s citizens some knowledge of Islam. She also said that people in Eastern Europe are more willing to discuss religion than Americans, especially since there is controversy amongst the different religions in Ukraine.
Despite the American public’s general lack of knowledge, there are some positives; Fairfield students are overall more conversant in religious topics.
“Students at Fairfield tend to know more than the general public about religion in general because we require them to study it, but not necessarily about Catholicism,” said Lakeland. “Though given that about half of our students were educated privately, the level of religious literacy is probably a bit higher on average.”
Doody agreed that Fairfield students were more knowledgeable than the general public due in part to Fairfield offering a wide variety of religion courses and the religion core.
“Fairfield is much better than the average citizen,” said Doody. “People who are educated tend to know more.”
Vyatchaninova also said that between Americans and Ukrainians, the more educated, the more knowledgeable the person would be about religions, no matter where they live.
Matt Brennan ’10 also cited the core, which requires students to take at least two courses in religion, enhancing Fairfield’s religious literacy.
It is important for students to know about religious topics especially in today’s political climate, according to Lakeland.
“You cannot understand the world without understanding what is important to people and it is still true that the majority of the world’s citizens see the world religiously,” said Lakeland. “So the study of religion remains indispensable.”
Leave a Reply