Faith Without Knowledge

We’re not just talking about basic intelligence here, folks.  We’re talking about knowledge of one’s own faith, which seems to be sorely lacking in this country.   

This certainly doesn’t qualify as a scientific study, but it’s still interesting and indicative of a nasty problem in this country.  CNN interviewed a bunch of people and found that most simply don’t know anything about the faith they pretend to practice:

CHETRY: Well, as the Sam Cooke song goes, “Don’t know much about history,” the same could be said about religion. In a nation where the majority of people say they believe in God, most of us don’t know the specifics, it seems, about religion.

According to the new book “Religious Literacy,” Americans are shockingly ignorant about the bible, or any other holy book, for that matter. Its author says that one out of 10 Americans thinks that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. So — that was only one out of 10 — all right.

So, did — we did our own test. We wanted to see if anyone knew who wrote the gospels.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michael, maybe? Right?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, I know then, but I just can’t name them all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. I can’t do it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So that’s what I meant, like gospel writers… don’t know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: Delia Gallagher is CNN’s faith and values correspondent.

Now, I thought that one was pretty easy. For the record, tell us.

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN FAITH AND VALUES CORRESPONDENT: I thought it was pretty easy, too.

For the record, they’re Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but surprisingly it was the question that most people had difficulty with, Kiran.

CHETRY: All right. So what were some of the other findings, Delia, about — because the vast majority of people asked say they are religious, and many Christians don’t necessarily know the specifics of the bible.

GALLAGHER: Yes. Well, you know, a lot of people will say they believe, and they are Christian, and they are practicing, but when it comes to really knowing your bible or even knowing about other religions, we found that a lot of people don’t have a great breadth of knowledge about their history and their religious history.

This is amazing.  For a country that seems to be bursting at the seams with people who know everything about Islam (for instance,those who would tell you that Islam’s “over-reaching goal” is to take over the world, and that such things are ”in the Qu’ran…”), people sure don’t seem to know much about Christianity. 

I swear to God, it’s like we’re picking sides in some kind of football game.  No one quite knows anything about the team they’re cheering for, they just know that their team is somehow better than the other one.