In this week’s Washington Post, Gregory Conti, a Princeton professor (and self-described “non-believer” in religion) wrote that his students’ lack of religious knowledge or literacy is inhibiting their education. Whether reading philosophy, literature, or studying major political actors, religious references and foundations often pepper their thinking and their speeches. Conti’s article is really just the tip of the iceberg for a broader conversation that we should be having about what it means to be literate about religion and whether we are preparing the next generation to understand their neighbours, their society, and their world. There are many reasons religious literacy should be a priority in our education system: below, let’s explore a few.
Image: Ivy League College Building, Princeton University, Source: Canva.com
What is Education For?
Much of the discussion about education today focuses on job training. There are very good reasons for this and ensuring folks can earn a living is incredibly important. But an education should be more than that. A good living also requires a good society and a good society is one that upholds a number of key values – notably the rule of law, democracy, freedom of speech and association, and encouraging tolerance of differences, amongst others.
People sometimes tire of these abstract ideas or wonder why they matter, but they are a central reason why people immigrate to Western societies and why these societies have prospered. Protecting rights, having responsive government, lowering corruption are the critical factors by which societies thrive. We risk taking these things so much for granted that we are not passing these values on in a robust way and a citizenry that does not value these things may not protect them.
Education really must include reflecting on values and citizenship. On this front, religious literacy has an important role to play.
Source: Canva.com
Understanding Our Society
Whether reading the literature of Shakespeare or Jane Austen, key philosophical thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, or important political actors like Lincoln, Obama, or the suffragettes, their arguments, language, and even their moral foundations often owe so much to the Biblical tradition. It is hard to understand them and therefore the history of Western societies without this knowledge. In Canada, universal healthcare was spurred on by Tommy Douglas who was a politician but also a minister whose policies flowed from his Christian beliefs.
Image: (left) Shakespeare Portrait, Source: Canva.com (right) Jane Austen Portrait, Source: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain
Understanding a bit of Christianity’s history and key narratives helps us understand our society’s foundations. Moreover, we rely on education to understand the lives we live through art, music, theatre, and literature, which are in turn often influenced by religions – the familiarity and understanding of which are greatly influenced by education. None of this requires conversion or proselytizing…but familiarity or education about Christianity will help us grasp the roots of this society.
Understanding Our Neighbour
Religious literacy cannot be simply about Christianity however.
The proportion of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs in Canada all more than doubled between 2001 and 2021. Increasingly, all of us live and work in environments that are multi-religious from non-believers and the spiritually uncertain to Hindus and Jews, who may express their beliefs in a range of ways.
For some, religion is a central aspect of their identity, influencing their moral foundations, identity, community, familial celebrations, and possibly their physical appearance (via special garments, facial hair, etc.). Whether living next to one another, sharing a classroom, a soccer team, or a workplace, it is immensely helpful to feel understood and to not have to navigate the barriers of ignorance or misunderstanding that prevent us from knowing one another. Religious literacy can help us feel conversant with each other and facilitates feeling a connection with the people around us. In a diverse society, that connection is critical to establishing trust and a sense of belonging for us all.
Source: Canva.com
Understanding Politics
Social media has profoundly politicized our societies. Before cable news, most encountered the news as a 30 or 60 minute segment each night on television plus, for some, a perusal of the morning newspaper. Cable news needed to find political stories to follow 24 hours a day and filled that space with endless coverage of big events and by finding stories that provoked us even if they were many time zones away. With social media, politics is thrown at us relentlessly, sometimes every time your grab a phone or check Facebook to catch up on family and friends.
Some of this coverage can educate us but some is quite distorting. Podcasters and other influencers have realized there is money to be made in spreading misinformation, animosity, and conspiratorial ideas.
Religious literacy obviously cannot solve all of this. But understanding religion is immensely valuable in understanding politics both domestically and globally. This knowledge can reduce fear, provide context and background, and give us perspective to understand our world.
At Encounter, we have been fortunate to have many positive reactions to our talk on Understanding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, a talk we’ve given to thousands of people including the general public, NGOs, schools, and several police audiences. It’s been so heartening to see how much people really want to learn to better understand the situation on the ground. We all desire knowledge. Religious literacy can help us make sense of issues both big and small.
Image: Understanding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and its Impact on the Workplace, Source: Encounter World Religion Resource page, Canva.com
Helping Us Do Our Jobs
And finally, let’s return to education as job training. Both because jobs matter to our individual lives but also because a more effective and productive society benefits us all.
There are loads of research that workplace productivity is enhanced by what is called psychological safety. We have written about this before (here and here) but briefly, we simply perform much better in environments where we feel we belong. More importantly, when the whole team has this sense of belonging, people feel free to challenge the direction, to ask more questions and to engage in what is called “divergent thinking.” Teams with this culture do much better, generating more creativity, and anticipating more problems ahead of time.
In addition to simple productivity, there are some jobs that are organized around public service such as healthcare and policing, where religious literacy helps folks to do their important work better. We have been honoured to work with many police over the past decade or so who seek to earn the trust of the communities they serve and are looking to equip their officers with the tools to act with skill and sensitivity as they engage in delicate situations like entering homes, searching people’s bodies, or dealing with death.
We have also had the honour to work with healthcare workers, where knowledge of how devotees understand life and death, their own bodies, and requirements around modesty or certain garments are all relevant to providing patient-centric care.
A religiously literate workforce will be more connected with one another, making them more productive, and more in-tuned with the needs of colleagues, clients, patients or the public they serve.
Source: Canva.ca
Conclusion
Our schools are places to promote literacy. We teach the young how to read and write. We teach them some of the country’s history, both its accomplishments and its transgressions, and we teach them about its politics so they can engage as active citizens. Canada is one of the most religiously diverse societies on earth (even more so than the USA although all of these issues apply there as well). To be a literate citizen will increasingly require a kind of cultural competence in religions. Not conversion of course but just a knowledge of our fellow citizens.
That knowledge will help us understand our society’s foundations, our classmates, colleagues, and neighbours, help us do our jobs better, and enable us to act with more critical thought to the messages we are endlessly sent in the digital age. We could use more connection and understanding in our society and religious literacy promises us both.
Thank you for this article, Brian. The topic is so relevant to the work of Interfaith Grand River here in Waterloo Region. Perhaps we could talk about how we can support the educational work of Encounter in our Region.