What is Christian Literacy?


Literacy
refers to the ability to use a language - to know what words means, to be able to use grammar, sentence structure, to be able to converse in that language is to be literate.

Religious literacy
means having the ability to understand and speak about our faith intelligently. It’s the ability to communicate the basic tenets of our religion.

I'm very grateful to B.U. Professor Stephen Prothero for his excellent book, "Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know and Doesn't." This book, along with my desire to teach the faith, served as the inspiration for this effort.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Christians & Other Religions

I'm beginning a series of teachings this Sunday, October 14 entitled, "Bridges to the Great Religions of the World." So this topic has been on my mind a lot.

It goes without saying that we live in a multicultural world. Many of us live in a multicultural neighborhood. You probably work with someone or encounter someone in your daily life who is part of another religion.

So how do committed Christians interact with folks of other religions?

Can we be fully committed Christ-Followers and still affirm the spiritual journey of others?

Of course, we can.

There are a number of ways up the mountain to God. And no religion has a monopoly on spiritual truth. Not even ours. In fact one of the first things we have to do is get rid of our "Superiority Complex" when it comes to religion. It's pretty hard to truly learn from others if our basic approach and attitude is, "My religion's better, but still, please tell me about yours."

Below is something I found on saltproject.org, a very creative forward-thinking site. I think this says a lot.


Prayer: God of all humanity, give us the humility, the openness and the curiosity to learn from those who look at You and at life very differently. In the Name of Christ our Lord, Amen.


Extra Credit: Coexist?

I'm sure you've seen this bumper sticker:

It's a fine bumper sticker. But here's my question:

Coexist?      Is that the best we can do?

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