One regular feature of the holiday season to which I always look forward is the review of the best books/films/CDs of the year. Perhaps someone you know referred to such a list when selecting a gift for you this Christmas past. But, if the new year finds you looking for something to read, let me suggest a book I have been recommending whenever possible. It not only appears on several of those lists but won the 2007 Quill Award in the religion/spirituality category: Stephen Prothero’s Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know—and Doesn’t (HarperSanFrancisco, 2007).

Prothero, chair of the religion department at Boston University, has written an essential book. But he is quick to say that he writes less as a scholar of religion than simply as a concerned citizen, for he believes religious illiteracy threatens the very notion of an informed electorate. Not only do Americans understand very little about other people’s religions, he claims, but “most Americans lack the most basic understanding of their own religious traditions.”

I shared that line from his book while introducing a panel on religious diversity on my campus last spring. Panelists had come armed with far more information about their individual traditions than time — or the moderator — allowed, and were therefore frustrated by my suggestion that they limit themselves to two questions: What one aspect of your religious tradition best describes it? What one misunderstanding about your tradition would you like to dispel? Enthusiasts all, these defenders of faith wanted the audience to know not only why they subscribed to their different traditions, but why others should as well.

We learned that day just how difficult it is to talk about religion, especially with those who don’t share our particular affiliation. We learned as well how necessary it is to do so. In my city a group of Turkish Muslim graduate students founded an organization whose entire purpose is introducing people of other faiths to Islam through education and dialog. They wish to dispel stereotypical perceptions about their religion. But learning requires listening, so the model this group follows simply asks others to accept an invitation to talk about faith, often over a meal.

The current presidential campaign has generated more commentary about religion —and in some cases, more heat than light — than any in recent memory. In such a context, Prothero’s warnings about religious illiteracy seem self-evident: “Today religious illiteracy is at least as pervasive as cultural illiteracy, and certainly more dangerous. . . . because religion is the most volatile constituent of culture, because religion has been, in addition to one of the greatest forces for good in world history, one of the greatest forces for evil.”

Commentators and bloggers alike debate candidates’ rhetoric and use of religion. But media coverage of religion is superficial at best, argues Prothero, because religious illiteracy extends through the American populace and its institutions. Some readers will take issue with his claim that theology has been replaced by morality, but the accusation legitimately has roots in the nineteenth century, when the learning that had been so much a part of the colonial religious experience was superceded by the piety of American evangelicalism.

Prothero thoughtfully reviews the history of how Americans fell into the “religious amnesia” he finds so troubling in the midsection of his book. The final section is devoted to “A Dictionary of Religious Literacy,” a list of more than two hundred names and terms with which the religiously literate should be familiar. The author also includes a quiz he’s used with students to gauge their levels of religious literacy (e.g., name the two religion clauses of the First Amendment).

My bias toward the argument of this book is obvious as I have long been concerned by how ill-informed most of my American history students were about the influence of religion on their national history, and my American religious history students about religious traditions in general, beginning with their own.

Prothero’s indictment of American religious illiteracy begs for a response from both individuals and institutions, especially those of us in education. Colleges and universities carry an ethical obligation to prepare students for living as global citizens. Fundamental to such citizenship is an understanding of religious differences as drivers of historical events, whether the recent assassination of Benzair Bhutto or the creation of Pakistan itself sixty years ago. America’s public schools operate under a misunderstanding of the First Amendment that has created what former President Clinton considered a “religion-free zone.” There is nothing unconstitutional about teaching about religion in schools, but fear of crossing the wall of separation between church and state has in fact led teachers to teach “around religion,” in Martin Marty’s words.

But while the appropriate site for reversing religious illiteracy is secondary schools and higher education, I’m not sure America’s churches should be let off so easily. Pastors, are your people sufficiently literate in their own tradition? Laypeople, where do you learn about other traditions? Those responsible for adult education might think seriously about courses or series in world religions, religious fundamentalisms, or religious history. Resources abound. Especially valuable are several video series that open windows of understanding on what others believe. It might be a small step toward narrowing what Stephen Prothero calls the “widening gap in the United States between what we actually know about religion and what we ought to know.”