Knowledge of faith...

[debgeisler]

...does not always equate with being of a faith. That's the conclusion of a Pew survey about religion and religious knowledge that was published two years ago, evaluating the state of Americans and what they knew about faiths in general.

Lately, the quiz posted to the Christian Science Monitor based on the Pew research has been making the rounds again. I've identified myself as "agnostic" for most of my adult life: I have no certainty about whether there is a power behind reality, nor do I have a certainty that there is no such power.

But that doesn't stop me from being intrigued by the ways people have chosen to declaim their faith...and I have enough rudimentary knowledge to score 31 out of 32. Alas, my Catholic youth was probably responsible for the one question I missed - about the protestant view that faith alone is enough to get one to heaven; that seems a silly notion to me (so I credited it to no one). If we're put here to do things, then our actions must also be judged.

The quiz is a very cursory look at things, and I find myself a bit horrified that the average American knows so little of the world's faiths that s/he only gets 50% of the questions. (The average atheist scores 20.9; the average Jew is #2 at 20.5; Mormons clock in third at 20.3.)

Comments

[bovil.livejournal.com]

I pulled 29.

I didn't recognize Maimonides. I had to go look him up afterwards. It didn't help that he's referred to with a Greek name in spite of being a Spanish Jew.

I blew the same one you did, and in the same way, but I think they're wrong. Protestant denominations in the Calvinist tradition believe salvation (Grace, actually) is predestined and neither a matter of faith nor action. So while some Protestant denominations believe in salvation purely through faith, it's not an intrinsic characteristic of Protestantism.

I also blew the "Nirvana" question, but Nirvana is a complicated concept tangled up in a whole stack of early non-Vedic Indian religions. Buddhism isn't the origin of the definition they gave.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

Protestant denominations in the Calvinist tradition believe salvation (Grace, actually) is predestined and neither a matter of faith nor action.

Okay, then none of this whole living-on-earth stuff makes any sense at all? (I'll confess to knowing nothing of Calvinism, despite the fact that my most respected professor was one.)

[calimac.livejournal.com]

The first couple questions were dead easy. But when my keen and perceptive intelligence led me to conclude I'd have to click through 64 web pages instead of 32 to answer all the questions, I decided not to bother going any further.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

I'm another 29. I missed 2 due to foolish second guessing, but scored another 2 by lucky guesswork. FWIW, I don't consider myself at all knowledgeable about the world's faiths, or even the one I was raised in.

The averages seem remarkably low to me, too. I wonder if part of that is due to people of faith knowing more about their own faith and being disinclined to learn (or remember things) about others. (So I went and read the study results.) Um, no. Even the Evangelical Christians average just 61% on the questions about the Bible and Christianity and Christians in general tip in at 52% with the benefit of rounding.

Hmmm....the groups that scored highest were also the groups who were oversampled "to allow analysis of these relatively small groups."

Among the results that make no sense to me:

"More than four-in-ten Catholics in the United States (45%) do not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion do not merely symbolize but actually become the body and blood of Christ."

Several of the questions that have multiple choice answers in the online quiz were open-ended in the phone survey. That helps make sense of some of the low results. But still....

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

"More than four-in-ten Catholics in the United States (45%) do not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion do not merely symbolize but actually become the body and blood of Christ."

That's the whole transubstantiation vs. consubstantiation question that is one of the roots of the Catholic vs. protestant divide. The Catholics who blew that question did *not* have the same catechism classes I did.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

My experience has been that a lot of people who call themselves "Christian" have little idea what's actually in the New Testament (which is, after all, ABOUT their leader).

[nkcmike.livejournal.com]

31 out of 32. I missed the one about the Dalai Lama. That was the only one that gave me pause. I thought the rest were very easy.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

I missed only the same question you did.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I didn't know who that guy whose name starts with an M was [g]. Other than that, I was 31 of 32. I guess that's what comes of being a Pagan who grew up Southern Baptist with a sister who married a Catholic and converted, and a best childhood friend who was Mormon. Who read all of Amelia Peabody [g]. Don't know how to explain getting the Hindu and Buddhist questions right.

But why Zeus, of all things??? And no real Pagan questions? (yes, I know -- it's the Christian Science Monitor, but still)

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

32 out of 32. After 20+ years of editing theology and religious studies, I should hope so, but in fact it has all been Catholic and mainstream Protestant.