LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY zarq)

Many American Christians seem to be totally ignorant about the teachings of their own religion.

Biblical illiteracy is not just a religious problem. It is a civic problem with political consequences. How can citizens participate in biblically inflected debates on abortion, capital punishment or the environment without knowing something about the Bible? Because they lack biblical literacy, Americans are easily swayed by demagogues on the left or the right who claim — often incorrectly — that the Bible says this about war or that about homosexuality.

Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University and author of "Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- and Doesn't" has a solution: Teach people in public schools what the Bible actually says. Lectures would be academic, not religious in nature.

I wonder if they'd bother to also teach the bloodstained history of the Catholic Church (wars, crusades, mass murders, torture, forced conversion, antisemitism, etc.,) while they're at it. Might as well present the full story....