Americans Ignorant of the First Amendment

[Haruo]

Not too encouraging. I wonder how many named the right to bear arms as a First Amendment right...

Haruo

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Tim, is there something that makes this thread of particular import for the ABC Life and Ministry Forum?

[ET]

I wonder what percentage thinks the phrase "separation of church and state" appears somewhere in the Constitution? I'm sure the ignorance would be reflected in the answer to that question also.

We might also ask folks whether or not the Constitution gives the federal government power to do all sorts of things, like school funding or anything to do with education, social security, medicare, etc. Probably show some Constitutional ignorance with that one too.

[Haruo]

(To Ed) This thread would be appropriate to any of the three main boards here, IMO, though there would probably be an implied criticism of the SBC if it had been started by a non-SBCer in the SB forum. It would also be an appropriate topic on many non-Baptist, and even non-Christian (secular or, say, minoritarian), discussion forums.

Haruo

[Ed Pettibone]

[ET]

[Bruce Gourley]

[Joshua Villines]

[Bruce Gourley]

[David Flick]

[ET]

[Bruce Gourley]

[Bruce Gourley]

A Golden Spur and the inaugural Roger Williams Baptist Freedom Award? Wow!

Perhaps I should retire from BaptistLife.Com right now, so I can go out in a blaze of glory.

[David Flick]

[Dave Roberts]

I would heartily recommend reading Stephen Prothero's Religious Literacy. I don't agree with his all his prescriptions, but his descriptions are perfectly accurate. That's what we are up against--a country that does not possess religious literacy.

[Dave Roberts]

As a former English major, I question how anyone can read literature without an amount of religious literacy. You would hardly understand much of American literature and British literature. Biblical allusions are replete in Shakespeare and almost every novel that is worth reading.

As to the Christian trinket shops, Charles Stanley and the Lakewood Wonder are hadly good religious literature. When I go, I am amazed at the poor quality and the amount of "Christian fiction" that is of a very poor quality. We have cultivated a people who do not read anything of real value. Literacy is hard to find.

[Jonathan]

I first heard this on a national radio news program (don't remember if it was NPR or WSJradio) and then saw the APB story.

The story behind the story is the poor and declining quality of our public school system. The "shocking" answers to these questions come from the culturally installed viewpoints of the folks in the polling sample. As education and literacy has declined (ironically, at the same time as public spending on education has skyrocketed), we have a citizenry increasingly unable to perform its duty to properly investigate candidates for office and hold them accountable once installed.

This is not an isolated situation.

When I was in grade school (not that many years ago), I was taught that the US had a "living" constitution and that this meant that the constitution could be changed via the ammendment process. Today, we have tenured, terminal degreed professors in colleges and universities teaching that, now, this means that the judiciary can simply redefine the terms (or in certain cases, invent new terms) so that the basis of law can be adjusted to meet new demands or cultural shifts.

The greatest weapon against tyranny is an educated citizenry. Our weapon is in need of repair.

[ET]

[Joshua Villines]

[Norm]

Central to the thought of John Dewey was the importance of an educated citizenry for a viable democracy.