To the man-on-the-street, the questions could seem basic. However, questions like "What is the first book of the Bible?" stumped 15% of Evangelicals. Not good. Roughly 50% knew the four Gospels. Bad. And a staggering 70% of Evangelicals do not know one of the core beliefs of Protestant Christianity: Salvation is reached by faith alone.
Horrific.
What the PEW survey didn't question people on: history of the Bible, Doctors of the Church (e.g. Founding Fathers), religious wars, missionary activities, epistles of St. Paul. Imagine what the scores would have looked like. Cry later and continue reading.
So the upshot of the survey: if you test an atheist and a Southern Baptist with this survey, chances are the atheist will score much higher overall. Shortcomings of religious education aside, this tells us that atheists are definitely more open-minded about religion than Southern Baptists.
And being close-minded about religion can be ... deadly.
Just a thought.
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