Religious literacy

Last updated April 15, 2023

Religious literacy is the knowledge of, and ability to understand, religion. The importance of being religiously literate is increasing as globalisation has created greater links and migration between societies of different faiths and cultures. It has been proposed that including religious literacy as an aspect of public education would improve social cohesion.^[1] In addition to being familiar with and comprehending the nature of religious experience, religious literacy is a fundamental understanding of the complexities, contradictions, and difficulties of at least one religious tradition.^[2] It embraces diversity and promotes balanced and wise engagement with the religious aspects of human cultures.^[3]

Beginning with the 2015 Religion Communicators Council (RCC) Convention in Alexandria, Virginia, religious literacy will be a top priority. Religious communicators are aware of the consequences that can arise when the general public and the media are unable to comprehend the cultural and religious nuances of current events that are taking place in our world today. Conflicts are exacerbated by a lack of awareness of the fundamental beliefs held by various religions around the world. RCC has a role to play as the only faith-oriented accredited public relations association. Its interfaith members help the secular media understand diverse faith dynamics and provides members with resources to help them understand other faith traditions.^[4]

Definition

The term "religious literacy" refers to a fundamental comprehension of the practices, beliefs, and institutions of various global religious traditions.^[1] The religiously literate person has a basic understanding of the central texts, beliefs, practices, and modern manifestations of several world religions.^[1]

Ability of Religious Literacy

Religious literacy requires the ability to discern and analyze the fundamental intersection of religion and social/political/cultural life through multiple perspectives. ^[5] More specifically, religious literacy requires a fundamental comprehension of the major texts, beliefs, practices, and contemporary manifestations of several of the world's religious traditions, as well as their history. It is also necessary to be able to identify and investigate the religious aspect of political, social, and cultural expressions across time and space. ^[5] Religious literacy requires an understanding of the history and influence of a religion—or multiple religions—both on the surface of a society and within their cultural phenomena. Religious literacy is a set of skills that enables one to interact intelligently with religious people and events without falling into some of the pitfalls that frequently hinder comprehension. The religiously literate person resists lumping people together and encourages a mindset that is open and sympathetic to religion without being apologetic or doctrinal. Instead, it looks first at the individual and the community to understand how they experience and express their religion.^[6]

The Four Principles of Religious Literacy

Religious expression is distinct from the fundamental study of religion.
Religions are internally diverse.
Religion changes and develops over time.
Religious influence is rooted in all areas of human activity.^[7]

Limitations of Religious Literacy

Harvard Divinity School's Religion and Public Life program webpage notes that these approaches may be too simplistic and may lead to an oversimplified understanding of world religions and their roles in society.^[8]

Related Research Articles

Fundamentalism is a tendency among certain groups and individuals that is characterized by the application of a strict literal interpretation to scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies, along with a strong belief in the importance of distinguishing one's ingroup and outgroup, which leads to an emphasis on some conception of "purity", and a desire to return to a previous ideal from which advocates believe members have strayed. The term is usually used in the context of religion to indicate an unwavering attachment to a set of irreducible beliefs.

Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, humans in literate societies have sets of practices for producing and consuming writing, and they also have beliefs about these practices. Reading, in this view, is always reading something for some purpose; writing is always writing something for someone for some particular ends. Beliefs about reading and writing and its value for society and for the individual always influence the ways literacy is taught, learned, and practiced over the lifespan.

Religion is a range of social-cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements—although there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacredness, faith, and a supernatural being or beings.

Religious pluralism is an attitude or policy regarding the diversity of religious belief systems co-existing in society. It can indicate one or more of the following:

Magical thinking in various forms is a cultural universal and an important aspect of religion. Magic is prevalent in all societies, regardless of whether they have organized religion or more general systems of animism or shamanism. Religion and magic became conceptually separated with the development of western monotheism, where the distinction arose between supernatural events sanctioned by mainstream religious doctrine (miracles) and magic rooted in folk belief or occult speculation. In pre-monotheistic religious traditions, there is no fundamental distinction between religious practice and magic; tutelary deities concerned with magic are sometimes called hermetic deities or spirit guides.

Irreligion is the neglect or active rejection of religion and, depending on the definition, a simple lack of religion.

Fideism is an epistemological theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths. The word fideism comes from fides, the Latin word for faith, and literally means "faith-ism". Philosophers have identified a number of different forms of fideism. Strict fideists hold that reason has no place in discovering theological truths, while moderate fideists hold that though some truth can be known by reason, faith stands above reason. Fideism is historically associated with some forms of Protestantism, but is rejected by the Catholic Church as heretical.

The Baháʼí teachings represent a considerable number of theological, ethical, social, and spiritual ideas that were established in the Baháʼí Faith by Baháʼu'lláh, the founder of the religion, and clarified by its successive leaders: ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Baháʼu'lláh's son, and Shoghi Effendi, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's grandson. The teachings were written in various Baháʼí writings. The teachings of the Baháʼí Faith, combined with the authentic teachings of several past religions, are regarded by Baháʼís as revealed by God.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spiritual philosophy</span>

Spiritual philosophy is any philosophy or teaching that pertains to spirituality. It may incorporate religious or esoteric themes. It can include any belief or thought system that embraces the existence of a reality that cannot be physically perceived. Concepts of spiritual philosophy are not universal and differ depending on one’s religious and cultural backgrounds. Spiritual philosophy can also be solely based on one’s personal and experiential connections.

Secular spirituality is the adherence to a spiritual philosophy without adherence to a religion. Secular spirituality emphasizes the inner peace of the individual, rather than a relationship with the divine. Secular spirituality is made up of the search for meaning outside of a religious institution; it considers one's relationship with the self, others, nature, and whatever else one considers to be the ultimate. Often, the goal of secular spirituality is living happily and/or helping others.

Religion in Scouting and Guiding is an aspect of the Scout method that has been practiced differently and given different interpretations in different parts of the world over the years.

Religion and geography is the study of the impact of geography, i.e. place and space, on religious belief.

Scientific literacy or science literacy encompasses written, numerical, and digital literacy as they pertain to understanding science, its methodology, observations, and theories. Scientific literacy is chiefly concerned with an understanding of the scientific method, units and methods of measurement, empiricism and understanding of statistics in particular correlations and qualitative versus quantitative observations and aggregate statistics, as well as a basic understanding of core scientific fields, such as physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, geology and computation.

Freedom of religion in Taiwan is provided for by the Constitution of the Republic of China, which is in force on Taiwan. Taiwan's progressive government generally respects freedom of religion in practice, with policies which contribute to the generally free practice of religion. Taiwan's strong human rights protections, lack of state-sanctioned discrimination, and generally high regard for freedom of religion or belief earned it a joint #1 ranking alongside The Netherlands and Belgium in the 2018 Freedom of Thought Report. Freedom House also gave Taiwan the top score for religious freedoms in 2018. Possibly the only coercion to practice a certain faith in Taiwan comes from within the family, where the choice to adopt a non-traditional faith can sometimes lead to ostracism "because they stop performing ancestor worship rites and rituals."

In the United States, between 6% and 15% of citizens demonstrated nonreligious attitudes and naturalistic worldviews, namely atheists or agnostics. The number of self-identified atheists and agnostics was around 4% each, while many persons formally affiliated with a religion are likewise non-believing.

Cultural competency training is an instruction to achieve cultural competence and the ability to appreciate and interpret accurately other cultures. In an increasingly globalised world, training in cultural sensitivity to others' cultural identities and how to achieve cultural competence is being practised in the workplace, particularly in healthcare, schools and in other settings.

"Spiritual but not religious" (SBNR), also known as "spiritual but not affiliated" (SBNA), or less commonly "more spiritual than religious" is a popular phrase and initialism used to self-identify a life stance of spirituality that does not regard organized religion as the sole or most valuable means of furthering spiritual growth. Historically, the words religious and spiritual have been used synonymously to describe all the various aspects of the concept of religion, but in contemporary usage spirituality has often become associated with the interior life of the individual, placing an emphasis upon the well-being of the "mind-body-spirit", while religion refers to organizational or communal dimensions. The interactions are complex since even conservative Christians designate themselves as "spiritual but not religious" to indicate a form of non-ritualistic personal faith.

Faith literate describes the ability of an individual to become knowledgeable of other religions and faith other than the one a person believes in.

Irreligion in Egypt is controversial due to the prominence of conservative social traditions and religious institutions in the country. It is difficult to quantify the number of atheists or agnostics in Egypt, as the stigma attached to being one makes it hard for irreligious Egyptians to publicly profess their views and beliefs.

The Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life (CORAB) was convened in 2013 by The Woolf Institute. Its purpose was to consider the place and role of religion and belief in contemporary Britain, to consider the significance of emerging trends and identities, and to make recommendations for public life and policy. Its premise was that in a rapidly changing diverse society everyone is affected, whatever their private views on religion and belief, by how public policy and public institutions respond to social change.

References

1 2 3 Parker, Stephen (2020-04-02). "Religious literacy: spaces of teaching and learning about religion and belief". Journal of Beliefs & Values. 41 (2): 129–131. doi: 10.1080/13617672.2020.1750243 . ISSN 1361-7672.
↑ Conroy, James C.; Davis, Robert A. (2008-01-01). Citizenship, Education and the Claims of Religious Literacy. Brill. ISBN 978-90-8790-375-6.
↑ "What is religious literacy?". www.understandingreligion.org.uk. Retrieved 2022-10-27.
↑ "Religious Literacy | Religion Communicators Council" . Retrieved 2022-10-27.
1 2 "What is religious literacy?". Religion and Public life. Retrieved October 26, 2022.
↑ Burns, Luke (October 26, 2022). "What is religious literacy". understanding religion. Retrieved October 26, 2022.
↑ "Religious Literacy Project Builds Understanding". Religion Communicator.
↑ "What is Religious Literacy?". rpl.hds.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-14.