Religious illiteracy.

We've begun our academic journeying into Islam this week in my Religions and the City class, and today we had a prof from Harvard Divinity come speak with us. Dr. Ali Asani spoke with us about the insanity that comes from a nation of religiously illiterate people (like, um, Americans). We're so spooked about religion and schools that we refuse to teach people good methodologies around thinking about religions, and histories of religions (which are, actually, only histories of loci of interpretation). As a result, we get a nation of bumper stickers about hunting Osama, a nation of people who wrongly equate Islam with the "Middle East" ("middle" according to whom, exactly?), an entire city on Puget Sound that will not stop telling me, "But Christianity says that women are less than men and that abortion is wrong and gay people are going to hell." I mean, goodness. You would never tell me that "Art" or "Literature" says that "gay people are going to hell," right? I mean, some writers says that and they are wrong, but don't hold the whole damn field accountable for it, K? You don't stop reading books just because some books are bad. People who are religiously illiterate eventually resort to caricature and humiliation, and when in power, acts of dehumanization.

Another of the manifestations of religious illiteracy is the equation of religion with devotional practice. We are socialized to think about religion as churches, festivals, people praying, etc. We are taught to think of religions as individual practice, instead of a complex interweaving of economics, politics, culture, gender, text, art, literature, etc. Which, of course, they are. Yet another manifestation is the use of religion as the EXCLUSIVE lens used to explain the actions of an individual or a community. ("Well, s/he was a suicide bomber/was an abstinence "educator"/supports the State of Israel BECAUSE s/he is Muslim/Christian/Jewish." Not because they're poor or scared or living under colonial rule or entire family was killed in a genocide or their human rights are being compromised on a daily basis or or or...) This is reductionist, and it's wrong. It's particularly salient in light of the dangers faced by American Muslims in contemporary America. People are now talking about "the Muslim problem" in the same way they used to talk about "the Jewish problem."


In other news, next Thursday I am going to be in an ankle-length skirt and a headscarf at a mosque in the east 90's for the afternoon. I will then catch a cab back to school, throw on my red dress, and proceed to play a sex worker in the Union production of the Vagina Monologues. So multiculti!





And, for just a moment, I would like to formally thank you readers. This blog contains a lot of blather, and it's rather poorly written. I don't edit. I just go. I promise I do hand in real essays that are elegantly and concisely written. I just want to pour some of this out sometimes. Thanks, loves!