Cultivating a Religiously Literate Society: Challenges and Possibilities for America's Public Schools

Abstract

This article presents a rationale as well as a proposal for a religious literacy curriculum in U.S. public high schools. Relying on the Religious Education curriculum currently in use in the United Kingdom, the authors sketch a religious literacy curriculum designed to help students thrive in a pluralistic and democratic society. In order to help young citizens develop the skills, dispositions, and knowledge to thrive in an increasingly global, pluralistic, and democratic society, they need to become religiously literate. For students to be religiously literate they must learn to respect the religious other as well as understand the role of religions in contributing to civic life.

Notes

¹They rejected a measure to require The Bible and Its Influence, a field-tested book that has garnered widespread support from a range of scholars.

²The board truly believed that intelligent design was a viable alternative theory and that students could learn more about it by reading a textbook Of Pandas and People. The textbook that is published by the nonprofit organization Foundation for Thought and Ethics has as its mission, “promoting and publishing textbooks presenting a Christian perspective.”

³Several of our previous articles have documented these pleas, platforms, and programs for religious literacy. However, to retain anonymity during the review process, we will omit these citations.

⁴Both Prothero (2007) and Van Biema (2007) believe that public school teachers, no matter what their religious persuasion, can be prepared to deliver biblical courses in ways that help students analyze the literacy and historical traditions that permeate this foundational text that is at the heart of the Western tradition.

⁵Before looking at the current program underway in the United Kingdom it is important to briefly mention what it is we mean by “religious literacy.” To be religiously literate means more than having knowledge of the religious other, although this is a significant and necessary element of religious literacy. “Religious literacy” means trying to get as best as an outsider can, on the inside of the religious other. We maintain that having that perspective on the religious other allows students to gain more of a meaningful understanding and respect for those who think, believe, and act differently from themselves. Such an attitude goes a long way to achieving meaningful respect in our democratic and pluralistic state.