….But how much do inhabitants of our faith-saturated land actually know about religion? Not very much, according to a new survey released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life on Sept. 28….
While most people (89 percent) correctly understand that Supreme Court decisions bar public school teachers from leading their classes in prayer, many incorrectly believe that religion has been banned from classrooms altogether.
Sixty-seven percent mistakenly believe that teachers aren’t permitted to “read from the Bible as an example of literature,” even though teaching about the Bible as literature is constitutional, as many Supreme Court justices have repeatedly stated. And 51 percent wrongly think teachers can’t “offer a class comparing the world’s religions,” even though a small, but growing, number of school districts offer electives in world religions….
A good start would be to watch “God in America,” a groundbreaking six-hour documentary produced by WGBH/Boston that airs on PBS Oct. 11-13. The series explores America’s religious history—including the much-misunderstood origins of religious liberty—by combining outstanding scholarship with lively storytelling.