The United States has a religion problem, but it is not what most Americans might think. It is not a problem of too many religions, or religion influencing politics or even of Muslim extremists. No, the United States has a religion problem, and this problem is ignorance of religion.
The sad fact is that it is possible to journey from first grade to a doctorate in U.S. school systems having never once taken a survey course on the Bible, much less having been introduced to basic knowledge of the world's religions. When religion is treated at all, it is usually in bits and pieces — the biblical references in Melville's "Moby Dick," perhaps, or the religious issues fueling the Crusades.
The depth of Americans' ignorance was exposed in a 2007 Pew Research Center poll that has become the stuff of late-night comedy. Pew found that 50% of high school students think that Sodom and Gomorrah were married. Another Pew poll, from 2010, found that a majority of Americans cannot name the first book of the Bible but can provide the names of the four Beatles.
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