By Kimberly Chin
Religious scholar Stephen Prothero gave a talk, entitled “Religious Literacy and Higher Education,” to a crowded room on the 10th floor of the Axinn Library on Tuesday night.
Prothero, a religious studies professor at Boston University, is an acclaimed author of the New York Times best-seller, “Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know – And Doesn’t,” a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and he has written articles for the New York Times Magazine and Book Review, Slate, Salon, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe.
Prothero began his lecture by clarifying that although he is often mistaken as a religious official or theologian, he is just a person who studies religion. Prothero said that he talks about religion in a “non-religious way” and that religion can be spoken of in a way that does not only involve practicing religious traditions, but can be relative to any subject matter in life.
“Religion is a study that can be used with economics. It’s a study that can be used alongside politics, alongside the study of art. It’s this human activity that human beings in time and space have engaged in,” Prothero said.
It was through his students and children that he realized how unknowledgeable people were about religion. Students did not know basic information about world religions, which Prothero calls religious illiteracy.
“I don’t talk about religious illiteracy as a religious problem,” Prothero said. “I talk about it as a civic problem and a challenge to our democracy and how we conduct ourselves in the world.”
Prothero explained how important religion is in American politics. Republican politicians use religious rhetoric when they talk about “morality, values and family” in their speeches and policies. What these politicians did, Prothero explained, “was clothed talking to constituencies,” quoting scripture from the Bible and reciting conventional hymns. Democrats have also followed suit in using religious rhetoric in their speeches today.
“To follow the presidential race,” Prothero said, “you have to know something about religion. If you look at policy questions, it’s hard to find public policy questions that aren’t religion-related.” He listed the hot button issues recurring in political debates such as stem-cell research, abortion, capital punishment, gay marriage, poverty and the war in Iraq.
Prothero faults the Bush administration for “conducting foreign policy as if religion didn’t matter.” However, Prothero believes that this is not the case. “People around the world throughout history have acted on behalf of their religious beliefs,” he said.
This is the misconception with the war in Iraq, he said. The Bush administration went into a territory that had sectarian violence long before American troops arrived on Iraq soil yet the administration is only beginning to recognize that now, he added.
In order to prepare Americans for the political and social arena, Prothero suggests that the government implement religious studies in public schools. He wants to see a world religion course and a Bible course, because the “Bible is the scripture of American politics,” he said.
Prothero said that some Americans have told him that his proposals were unconstitutional and there should be a separation between church and state. Prothero argued that the Supreme Court rulings made a distinction between teaching religion and preaching religion and he does not want to preach religion in schools, but teach it.
Another issue that came up was that people feared that bringing religion into the school system would be too controversial. However, Prothero believed that people nowadays have a “huge commitment to religious tolerance. They know how to talk about religion in public and they know how to talk about it respectfully.”
Stephen Prothero notes how religion can be used in relation with any context, from economics to politics, because it can help explain the behavior and actions of individuals, especially politicians. (Alex Moore)