Stephen Prothero

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 show more 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. show less

This book was a good read in that it presented a lot of good information about the religions of the world, but the only support he really seemed to offer for his overall conclusion is that in order to... believe all religions are "one" or "the same" one has to believe they are identical and somehow be completely ignorant of their specifics or differences. I also believe he left absolutely no room in his understanding for the differences of opinion within the faiths themselves, sticking show more solely to the text book answers, when all faith - even that within a specific religion - isn't so black and white.

I feel that looking at religion and its texts/doctrines too rigidly, too closed-mindedly, completely misses the point, and he's leaving out a lot of what's compatible by having such a rigid view of religion. The whole point of religion is how it moves people, how it inspires them, and in his rigid, literal way of looking at the faiths he leaves out the other, more metaphorical or mystical, possibilities and examples of the faiths.

So I personally side with Huston Smith, The Dalai Lama, and Karen Armstrong (all of whom I absolutely adore), and I believe that one can see a "same-ness" or "one-ness" in the world religions without being blind to their differences and without making the claim that they are all identical. I think it is important, also, to remember that this idea of "one-ness" isn't something that is new - we can find examples of it throughout history and within each faith tradition.... show less

This book is a must read for everyone. Prothero, a religion professor at Boston University, presents a compelling argument on how the US is one of the most religious countries and at the same time one of the most ignorant nations when it comes to knowing anything about religion. He is a big proponent of mandatory religion education in the US. I was all prepared to disagree with this book. Living in liberal Northern California, I could not believe that the US is at all religious. But the show more author brought up so many examples of how we do not separate church and state (why do people swear on the Bible when taking an oath? And the least likely minority to get elected to the presidency are atheists!) that he convinced me that knowing and understanding religions is not the same as believing. And in our current environment, having a background knowledge of relgion is an essential part of understanding ourselves and other world cultures. He even offers a quiz about major religions with common answers. My favorite question - 'Who was Joan of Arc? - Noah's wife was a common answer...' My only disagreement is that he has a tendency to be Christian centric. Rather than requiring a literary course on the Bible, a general course on all religions should be mandatory. But, the tough question is what course should be thrown out. Personally, my vote is Physics... show less

In Why Liberals Win the Culture Wars... Stephen Prothero presents a very well researched and argued thesis. By choosing 5 instances of a culture war, one being the rather long current war, Prothero demonstrates that each follow the same general outline. The first two steps represent the peak of the 'war', namely the firing of the first shot by conservatives and a response from liberals.

One important thing he addresses is that conservative and liberal are fluid labels and neither represents show more religion, tradition or constitutionality exclusively. To quote Prothero from an interview:

"Truth be told, both sides have tradition on their side. Both can appeal to certain religious or political or constitutional traditions to support their views. But over time, we view our traditions in a more inclusive way."

Conservatives are exclusive while liberals are inclusive. This is why all of the lost conservative movements have been heavily instigated and maintained by those with privilege, change and an inclusive new culture will, they believe, diminish their perceived rightful dominance.

There are points in the book which will annoy a reader on either side of the conservative/liberal divide but there is a great deal to be learned here for anyone willing to engage and think about the material. There will be points of contention yet the facts are not being stretched in order to arrive at some predetermined conclusion. They are presented and interpreted.

I would recommend this for anyone concerned with today's contentious "debates" about what should count as American or not. Additionally this will appeal to those who like history, social/cultural history and American History, as well as politics and religion in America.

Reviewed from a copy made available through Goodreads First Reads. show less