Bill Tammeus, a Kansas City area author and religious blogger, recently shared a list of ideas to help increase religious literacy. He submitted these suggestions to the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council in response to their desire to engage in a sustained effort that would last a year or longer. Tammeus’ list included:
- Offer tours of sacred structures all over town — churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, etc.
- Put on a film festival featuring movies with religious themes. Maybe representatives of each faith could pick out one or two films from that tradition.
- Create a KC Religious Literacy Facebook page where a moderator could raise a new question every day or two and seek responses.
- Have the whole metro area read Stephen Prothero’s book, Religious Literacy
, and create discussion groups about it. - Host a symposium of clergy who would spend a day offering lectures etc. on some aspect of faith — such as “What non-blanks don’t get about Blankism (or Blankianity).”
So What?
Over the last several years a great deal has been done to help raise awareness about the need for greater religious literacy. While many local congregations provide classes for members, far fewer work cooperatively with other Christian churches and organizations and fewer still partner with interfaith alliances or groups to work on religious literacy on a community or city level. Religious literacy and basic interfaith awareness initiatives benefit greatly from the participation of multiple religious traditions.
- What has your local congregation done on its own and primarily for church members with regard to religious literacy education?
- Has your local congregation ever participated in a multi-church or interfaith religious literacy initiative? If so, what was the experience like? If not, what is a simple way to explore this possibility?