From: "* irenic *" 

March 27, 2007


Can You Pass the Religious Literacy Test?

Dr. James Emery White

Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department of Boston University,
has written a new book titled Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs
to Know û and DoesnÆt.  For the last two years, Prothero has administered a
fifteen-question quiz he gives his undergraduate students - one which they
consistently fail.

Game to give it a try?

HereÆs the test (answers below):

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-

Directions:  Tally your points and multiply by two to get your score out of 100.

1 point each:

a.. Name the Four Gospels.

1 point:

a.. Name a sacred text of Hinduism.

1 point:

a.. What is the name of the holy book of Islam?

1 point:

a.. Where, according to the Bible, was Jesus born?

1 point:

a.. President George W. Bush spoke in his first inaugural address of the
Jericho road.  What Bible story was he invoking?

1 point each:

a.. What are the first five books of the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Old Testament?

1 point:

a.. What is the Golden Rule?

2 points:

a.. ôGod helps those who help themselves.ö  Is this in the Bible?  If so, where?

2 points:

a.. ôBlessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.ö
Does this appear in the Bible?

10 points:

a.. Name the Ten Commandments.

4 points:

a.. Name the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism.

7 points:

a.. What are the Seven Sacraments of Catholicism?

1 point each:

a.. The First Amendment says two things about religion, each in its own
ôclause.ö  What are its two religion clauses?

2 points:

a.. What is Ramadan?  In what religion is it celebrated?

7 points:

a.. Match the Bible characters with the stories in which they appear. Some
characters may be matched with more than one story or vice versa.
Characters:  Adam and Eve, Noah, Paul, Moses, Jesus, Abraham, Serpent.
Stories:  Exodus, Binding of Isaac, Olive Branch, Garden of Eden, Parting
of the Red Sea, Road to Damascus, Garden of Gethsemane.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-

Prothero argues, and rightly so, that everyone needs to grasp Bible basics,
as well as the core beliefs, stories, symbols and heroes of other faiths.
In a commentary for the Los Angeles Times, titled ôWe Live in the Land of
Biblical Idiots,ö Prothero (who grew up Episcopalian and now calls himself
a spiritually ôconfused Christianö) maintains that biblical illiteracy is
not just a religious problem.  It is a civic problem with political
consequences.  ôHow can citizens participate in biblically inflected
debates on abortion, capital punishment or the environment without knowing
something about the Bible?à an entire generation of Americans is growing up
almost entirely ignorant of the most influential book in world history,
unable to understand the 1,300 biblical allusions in Shakespeare, [or] the
scriptural oratory of President Lincoln and the Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr..ö Such admonishments are hardly new.  In the late 1980Æs, E.D. Hirsch
burst onto the scene with his idea of ôcultural literacy,ö which detailed
the importance of having a core of background knowledge for functional
literacy and effective national communication, much of it including
religion.  In my own A Mind for God, I argue for the importance of
foundational biblical, historical, and theological literacy, and the
importance of churches serving the pursuit of such literacy.

As Winston Churchill presciently stated in his address to Harvard
University in 1943, ôThe empires of the future will be empires of the
mind.ö Alister McGrath, reflecting on ChurchillÆs address, notes that
ChurchillÆs point was that a great transition was taking place in Western
culture with immense implications for all who live in it. The powers of the
new world would not be nation-states, as with empires past, but ideologies.
It would now be ideas, not nations, which would captivate and conquer in
the future. The starting point for the conquest of the world would now be
the human mind. Adds John Stott, ôWe may talk of æconqueringÆ the world for
Christ.  But what sort of æconquestÆ do we mean?  Not a victory by force of
arms... This is a battle of ideas.ö

ProtheroÆs challenge is a call to learn about those ideas.

So how did you score?

James Emery White (Ph.D.) is president and professor of theology and
culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Prior to becoming president
of Gordon-Conwell, Dr. White was the founding and senior pastor of
Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Dr. White holds
the B.S., M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees, along with additional work at
Vanderbilt University and Oxford University. James Emery White is the
author of over a dozen books, including such Gold Medallion nominees as
Serious Times and A Search for the Spiritual, Christianity Today
book-of-the-year award winner Embracing the Mysterious God, as well as The
Prayer God Longs For and Rethinking the Church

Sources

Stephen Prothero, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know
(HarperSanFrancisco, 2007).

ôWe live in the land of biblical idiots,ö Stephen Prothero, March 14, 2007,
latimes.com
(http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-prothero14mar14,1,3102398
.story).

ôAmericans get an æFÆ in religionö by Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA Today
(http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2007-03-07-teaching-religion-cover_N.htm
).

E.D. Hirsch, Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know.

Alister McGrath, The Twilight of Atheism (New York: Doubleday, 2004), p. xi.

John R.W. Stott, Your Mind Matters (IVP).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-

Answers to the Test:

*Matthew, Mark, Luke, John

*Vedas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, Upanishads, Puranas, Mahabharata, Bhagavad
Gita, Ramayana, Yoga Sutras, Laws of Manu, or Kama Sutra

*Quran

*Bethlehem

*Good Samaritan

*Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy

*öDo unto others as you would have them do unto you.ö (Mt. 7:12)  Or a
similar statement from Rabbi Hillel or Confucius.  ôLove your neighbor as
yourselfö is not the Golden Rule.

*No, this is not in the Bible.  In fact, it is contradicted in Proverbs
28:26.  ôHe who trusts in himself is a fool.ö  The words are Ben FranklinÆs.

*Yes, in the Beatitudes of JesusÆ Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5:3).

*No other gods before me; you shall not make yourself a graven image; you
shall not take the name of the Lord in vain; remember the Sabbath and keep
it holy; honor your father and mother; you shall not murder; you shall not
commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness
against your neighbor; you shall not covet.

*Life is suffering; suffering has an origin; suffering can be overcome
(nirvana); the path to overcoming suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path.

*baptism, eucharist/mass, reconciliation/confession/penance, confirmation,
marriage, holy orders, anointing of the sick/last rites

*öCongress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereofö; the words before the comma are the
Establishment Clause, the words that follow are the Free Exercise Clause.

*Ramadan is a Muslim holiday characterized by a month of fasting.

*Adam and Eve + Garden of Eden; Serpent + Garden of Eden; Abraham + Binding
of Isaac; Moses + Exodus/Parting of the Red Sea; Noah + Olive Branch; Jesus
+ Garden of Gethsemane; Paul + Road to Damascus.

Crosswalk.com

--

Shalom!     Rowland Croucher
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/  - 19,000 articles/ 4000 humour (Things that are
difficult to say when you're drunk -
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/19227.htm )

--- BBBS/LiI v4.01 Flag