Friday, October 01, 2010

Mormons the Most Bible-Literate? Who'd-a-thunk?

Being a Mormon, I get all the fun feeds about my religion. Today I learned from the Pew Research Center that Mormons, on average, possess a stronger knowledge of the Holy Bible than any other faith group. Says the report,
On questions about Christianity – including a battery of questions about the Bible – Mormons (7.9 out of 12 right on average) and white evangelical Protestants (7.3 correct on average) show the highest levels of knowledge.
It goes on to say that Mormons have the greatest overall religious knowledge, along with Atheists/Agnostics and Jews.

This is due in large part to the four-year seminary program that most Mormon youth attend during high school, along with the missionary program to which many young men and women devote two years of their life.

Mormon blogger Kevin Barney offers this additional insight:

Mormons discuss religion openly, both among themselves and with others. Religious discussion is not the taboo among Mormons that it might be for some.

Another possible consideration is that any time you are a minority (or other underdog type group) you are forced to be more aware of things than if you are in the majority. You just run across more resistance, more sticking points, little things it is easy to breeze by if you are in the majority. See also: race, being a woman, having grown up poor, etc. So the dynamic of being a somewhat exotic religious minority group may have something to do with the results.
What does it all mean? Nothing, really. I just found it interesting.