Although America is among the most religious of the world’s developed nations, it turns out that Americans in general don’t know very much about the world’s religions. Those are some of the conclusions of a survey done by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. An earlier study found that nearly six-in-ten U.S. adults say that religion is “very important” in their lives. But the more recent Pew survey found that they could only answer about half of the 32 questions about religion.

When the study was published some press reports made it seem like atheists and agnostics knew more about religion than Protestants and Catholics. Here are the facts. Atheists and agnostics answered on average 20 questions correctly. Evangelicals answered 17. And the average number of questions answered by all of the groups combined was 16. The conclusion we should reach is that no one did well on the test. If this was a test on religion in a university, everyone would flunk!

On questions about Christianity, evangelical Protestants showed the highest levels of knowledge. Jews, atheists, and agnostics stood out for their knowledge of other world religions. But again, making these distinctions misses the point. No group did very well in their understanding of religion.

A majority of Protestants could not identify Martin Luther as the person whose writings and actions inspired the Protestant Reformation. Catholics did not understand the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching on communion. Fewer than half of Americans know that the Dalai Lama is Buddhist.

So what did most Americans know? Nearly nine-out-of-ten knew that public school teachers cannot lead class in prayer. More than eight-in-ten knew that Mother Teresa was Catholic. More than seven-in-ten knew that Moses led the exodus from Egypt.

The Pew surveys demonstrate an appalling lack of religious knowledge. Americans are not just biblically illiterate, they are religiously illiterate.