There's this cable channel, The Word Network, that my mom watches.

The Word Network provides programming that is sensitive to, and touches the fabric of, the urban African American community. The goal of the Network is to feature Urban Ministries, Gospel Music and Live church conventions and Specials.

The programming covers a broad range of demographics from the teens and young adults that are interested in contemporary gospel music, to the families seeking values consistently presented in a positive way, to the slightly more mature urban population that relates to many of the popular local, regional and national ministries.

All televangelists, all the time

Now, I'm known to be a non-deist with much respect for what religion has done for some believers I know. And in fact there's one minister on the network, this white woman, who actually gives sound advice on the day-to-day tip. But I heard one of there guests say something I found a bit disturbing. In talking about using faith to overcome one's difficulties he invoked Job...the single most difficult book in the Old Testament to truly wrap your head around. And he claimed through his adversity Job laughed; Job said "I know my Redeemer exists."

Not. True.

And so few people know any more of what the Bible says than their minister quotes out of context that the Quote of note:

Now that the religious right has triumphed over the secular left, every politician seems determined to get religion. They're all asking "What Would Jesus Do?"-- about the war in Iraq, gay marriage, poverty and Social Security. And though the ACLU may rage, it is not un-American to bring religious reasoning into our public debates. In fact, that has been happening ever since George Washington put his hand on a Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. What is un-American is to give those debates over to televangelists of either the secular or the religious variety, to absent ourselves from the discussion by ignorance.

...may well have come too late.

America is the temple in which the money changers operate. And as Jesus showed in the New Testament, the problem isn't the temple...it's the money changers.

A Nation of Faith and Religious Illiterates
By Stephen Prothero
Stephen Prothero teaches at Boston University and is author of "American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon" (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2003).

January 12, 2005

The sociologist Peter Berger once remarked that if India is the most religious country in the world and Sweden the least, then the United States is a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes. Not anymore. With a Jesus lover in the Oval Office and a faith-based party in control of both houses of Congress, the United States is undeniably a nation of believers ruled by the same.

Things are different in Europe, and not just in Sweden. The Dutch are four times less likely than Americans to believe in miracles, hell and biblical inerrancy. The euro does not trust in God. But here is the paradox: Although Americans are far more religious than Europeans, they know far less about religion.

...When Americans debated slavery, almost exclusively on the basis of the Bible, people of all races and classes could follow the debate. They could make sense of its references to the runaway slave in the New Testament book of Philemon and to the year of jubilee, when slaves could be freed, in the Old Testament book of Leviticus. Today it is a rare American who can engage with any sophistication in biblically inflected arguments about gay marriage, abortion or stem cell research.

Since 9/11, President Bush has been telling us that "Islam is a religion of peace," while evangelist Franklin Graham (Billy's son) has insisted otherwise. Who is right? Americans have no way to tell because they know virtually nothing about Islam. Such ignorance imperils our public life, putting citizens in the thrall of talking heads.

How did this happen? How did one of the most religious countries in the world become a nation of religious illiterates? Religious congregations are surely at fault. Churches and synagogues that once inculcated the "fourth R" are now telling the faithful stories "ripped from the headlines" rather than teaching them the Ten Commandments or parsing the Sermon on the Mount (which was delivered, as only one in three Americans can tell you, by Jesus). But most of the fault lies in our elementary and secondary schools.