Holy Test

So how much do you know about religion? Yours, if you have one, or anyone else’s?

A talk show host friend recently challenged her guests (and me, as her show producer) to take the Pew Research religious knowledge survey posted on their web site. It is a 15-question version of a longer survey used as the basis for their recently published findings of how much we know about religion.

Much to my surprise, I correctly answered 14 of the 15 questions. The only one I missed was also the only one I totally guessed. I was fairly confident about the rest.

I’m not going to preach about my beliefs in this post. I’ll just say that if cynicism was a religion, I’d likely be a charter member. I am curious by nature and fifteen years ago I finally found a denomination that encourages congregation members to seek their own truth. That works for me; I don’t have to reject one thing to accept another. I can learn from many sources of spiritual wisdom.

Maybe that’s why I did so well on the test.

Basically, the study says that even though we consider ourselves a religious country, most Americans have little knowledge of the basic tenets of religion, even their own. Agnostics and Atheists scored better on most questions, followed by Jews and Mormons.

Take the test yourself and tell me your results. Right now there is a link to it on the Pew Research home page.

Amen.