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Reading guide questions for Introduction of Stephen Protheros Religious Literacy

1. How is it possible that Europeans, who are not religiously observant as a whole, are so much more religiously literate than Americans?

2. How did religious illiteracy cause major problems for the U.S. government during the Waco debacle in 1993? After 9-11?

3. Why does Prothero argue that religious illiteracy is more dangerous than cultural illiteracy?

4. What is the secularization thesis? Does Prothero subscribe to it? Give one argument he uses to back up his belief.

5. Why is religious literacy important when studying other disciplines such as history, literature, and humanities?

6. How does Prothero claim that one needs religious literacy in order to be an effective citizen? What is the danger of remaining illiterate?

7. How does Prothero back up his claim that Christian literacy is the most important of the religious literacies?

8. Why does one need to be religiously literate in order to grapple with what is happening with the war on terror?