Can You Name the Four Gospels?
April 13, 2007
I hate math, not only because I can’t do it, but also because it is getting in the way of other classes I want to take. Why do I need to know how to integrate a cosine graph if I want to be a historian? Fine, fine, I won’t argue that we should eradicate math from the curriculum, but I do think there are courses offered here that are more applicable to contemporary American society. Graduation requirements should change with the times and reflect changes in what students should know to be productive and insightful members of the larger community. I will devote my next two columns to exploring the benefits of two new graduation requirements: a course in comparative religion, and one in race, ethnicity, and gender.
Religion and Why It Matters
In his recent book Religious Literacy, Steven Prothero, Chair of Boston University’s Department of Religion, writes that only 10 percent of American teens can name all five major religions of the world, and 15 percent can’t name any. Almost two-thirds of Americans believe that the Bible answers all or some of life’s questions, but only half can name one of the four Gospels of the Bible. Ten percent of Americans believe that Joan of Arc is Noah’s wife. Despite this, religion continues to be an important part of American culture, both popular and political. Recognize this? “In nomine Patri, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” That’s from the 1999 movie Boondock Saints. Or how about this from Pulp Fiction: “And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my fingers upon thee.” The Da Vinci Code was a national bestseller, and the movie Babel carries strong religious themes.
George W. Bush ends many speeches by asking God to bless America, and even national Democratic chairman Howard Dean has quoted the Bible in public speeches. Rev. Martin Luther King played on religious themes in almost every speech, notably when calling for “Justice to roll down like waters” in Washington in 1963, a clear reference to the word of the prophet Amos in the Old Testament. Tufts’ position as a “light on the Hill” evokes themes from Matthew in reference to a covenant with God. If you’re not well read in Genesis and Exodus, you won’t understand current debates about creationism and evolution. Even though we know very little about religion, it permeates our culture and politics.
The argument for a religion requirement at Tufts is simple: college graduates should be able to thoughtfully encounter these religious references in our culture. And if there is such American illiteracy about the Christian religion, imagine how little people must know about other religions of the world. What if all Americans knew that Islam is an inherently peaceful doctrine and the word jihad can refer to person fights against smoking or excessive drinking, not just against “Christian infidels”? Or what if everyone understood the basic tenants of Buddhism and incorporated some of the more peaceful ones into the their daily lives? How much better would this world be?
Unfortunately, Harvard recently decided not to impose a religion requirement on its undergraduates. But why can’t Tufts? We have a great opportunity here to forge new national academic standards and be among the first liberal arts colleges to change educators’ perspectives on what is important in an undergraduate education.
The requirement would look something like this: a one-credit course in the Comparative Religion department that explored more than one religion in detail. The course wouldn’t preach the gospel, it would teach about it to allow students to question the validity or accuracy of religious references made in the real world. The purpose would be education, not conversion.
Because this requirement isn’t meant to indoctrinate, it would benefit the political conversation on the left and the right. Conservatives would hail the course as a positive step in returning to fundamental Christian ideals. Liberals, too, would benefit by being able to have a new and enlightened perspective on conservative-dominated Biblical arguments on social debates facing the nation. A religion requirement is non-partisan; indeed, it would benefit both sides of policy debate in the United States.
A new religion requirement is unlikely to become a reality soon, so if these arguments make sense to you, look into some of the courses offered the Comparative Religion department next fall. CR 4: Religious and Sexual Ethics; CR 35: Intellectual History of Christianity; CR 41: Contemporary Religion in America; CR 44: Introduction to Hinduism; CR 48: Introduction to Islam; and CR 132: Book of Genesis and Interpretation. That last course might be good for some of the over 50 percent of Americans who can’t name the first book of the Bible.
Duncan Pickard is a freshman majoring in history.
At a time when American students have begun falling to the bottom of the barrel in terms of education, it seems Mr. Pickard's hope to eradicate Math from graduation requirements is uninspired and unmistakably myopic. I shall not begin to detail the benefits of a basic education in mathematics but rather hold this concept to be self-evident, and one that has been debated conclusively in decades past. Furthermore Mr. Pickard's suggestion (though covert it may be) that religion replace this fundamental element of a general education seems to me rather—pardon my language—profane. That Mr. Pickard suggests one must have read the Bible in order to understand why such things as faith-based creationism compete with the scientific theory of evolution indicates an important hole in his reasoning; the very nature of such beliefs demands that they conflict, irrelevant of the details that ensue. A novice in religion will see that for creationism one must accept of the existence of a transcendental, unsubstantiated (and ultimately unsubstantiatable) being as necessary for the creation of life on this planet. A novel in science will see that the theory of evolution relies on expansive databases of observed and experimental data in order to construct a probabilistic rational explanation for life on earth. It is no wonder to such an individual that such views conflict. Now while I admit that knowledge of influential myths and their effects on society is important, I fail to see in what fashion it replaces a fundamental element of a general education. If a mandatory thorough understanding of prosaic mythology is what you preach, I'd rather be stuck calculating my cosines.
Posted by: Xavier Malina at April 17, 2007 11:43 PM