Not very far in, but already frustrated with the presentation. Examples are provided to illustrate religious ignorance via the wrong answers given by students on quizzes. The frustrating part is the author’s failure to state the correct response.

From other reviews, this information is apparently provided in the second half of the book. In theory, I will get there, eventually.

Withholding rating until I’m a bit further along.
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I ended up skipping the first half of the book where the author tlks about how dumb we all are. I went to the second half where the information is. The educational stuff saved the rating, as it was worthwhile.

I recommend starting there, if your goal is to learn something without being made to feel bad for not already knowing it. ( )

About the author: quoting from the book's dust jacket, "Stephen Prothero is the chair of the religion department at Boston University. His book 'American Jesus' was named one of the best religion books of 2003 by 'Publishers Weekly' and one of the year's best nonfiction by the 'Chicago Tribune.' He writes and reviews for the 'New York Times Magazine,' 'Wall Street Journal'. . .and other publications. He holds degrees from Harvard and Yale." www.stephenprothero.com About the book: the reviewer for 'Publishers Weekly' said of this work: "Prothero does more than diagnose the problem; he traces its surprising historic roots. . .and prescribes concrete solutions that address religious education while preserving First Amendment boundaries. This book is a must-read not only for educators, clergy, and government officials, for all adults." The last chapter of this work is an alphabetic listing of religions, significant religious leaders and religious practices. An appendix is provided with a religious literacy quiz. Also provided is a list for further reading. Extensive notes include print and website sources. The work is well indexed.

I re-read this book while searching it for a quote that I vaguely remembered. While skimming, I found myself completely re-reading the book.

Prothero's book is a long complaint about the lack of religious literacy in America today. He opens the book with a quote from an Austrian professor visiting America. The professor observed that "American undergraduates ... are very religious ... but they know next to nothing about religion." He illustrates this be quoting some of the answers his students had provided on quizzes that asked basic facts about religion. The author is particularly upset because of the supposed importance of religion in modern American society has not led to a better understanding of what people say they believe. The problem with the book is that it is, too a very large degree just saying the same thing over and over again.

The second half of the book is more interesting as he explains the history of religious education in the US schools and explains that the main reason religion is not taught in schools today is that protestant fundamentalists did not want it to be taught. One of their reasons was that they were anti-Catholic. As a result of their anti-Catholic efforts, protestant denominations had to minimize their own differences when teaching religion in public schools in a way that effectively reduced the amount of theology being taught.

The book concludes with a plea for mandatory courses about religion to be introduced into public schools and colleges. As part of this plea, he includes a definition of 100 terms that every American should be acquainted with in Christianity and other world religions. His discussions of the terms are useful because they include the differences between the denominations and faiths.

There are nevertheless two good reasons to read the book: (1) it shames you into wanting to understand all religions better and (2) it provides some real head-slapping examples of people's total ignorance of the religion they feel strongly about. The book is worth reading for its collection of "bloopers" alone like the statement from students that the epistles were the wives of the apostles and Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife. ( )

I had looked forward to reading this book since it was published, but it disappointed. The author stridently bashes us over the head for half of the book making his case that people knew more about religion than they do now. In doing so he bypasses obvious questions which needed to be addressed: teaching children to read in colonial America with catechetical books does not mean that they retained the religious instruction. Does this make them religiously literate? How much did the average American in the late 1700's know about Islam? About Buddhism? Frankly there is just a big disconnect between the author's opening thesis that Americans are woefully ignorant of basic religious facts, and the next 50% of the book which dwells on how we used to know so much about Christianity. Also I cannot totally buy into the implied statement that knowledge of religious facts makes you more religious, and that the move in the past 200 years toward a more feeling, charismatic approach to our relationship with God is a bad thing. The saving grace of the book is a concise, alphabetically organized collection of the basic facts of the world's major religions. ( )

The title is very misleading. It alludes to what we need to know when more than half of the book is spent by Prothero laying the groundwork what we've lost by our American religious illiteracy. When he finally gets down to the basic tenets we should all know it is a rapid-fire, bullet point checklist. There are far too many creative ways he could have worked the material into his thesis. It doesn't help his argument where he states we shouldn't know just the religious facts but also be able work with the teachings and then at the end reduces them to a checklist.. ( )