[2] The religiously literate person has a basic understanding of the central texts, beliefs, practices, and modern manifestations of several world religions.
In addition, religious literacy also means the capacity to contextualise political, social and cultural aspects of religion across time and space.
Religious literacy requires the ability to discern and analyze the fundamental intersection of religion and social/political/cultural life through multiple perspectives.
The religiously literate person resists lumping people together and encourages a mindset that is open and sympathetic to religion without being apologetic or doctrinal.
Moore defines religious literacy as entailing the ability to discern and analyse the fundamental intersections of religion and social, political, cultural life through multiple lenses.
[1] While religious literacy is often promoted as a means of fostering inclusivity, scholars such as Justine Ellis have demonstrated that, in practice, it can instead reinforce exclusionary understandings of the category of religion.
[10] The concept has often been uncritically employed in both academic and popular discourses and has been criticised for advancing essentialist definitions of the category of religion.
Advocacy for religious literacy has tended to emphasise the ‘literal’ aspects of the concept, prioritising its rational, textual and cognitive dimensions.
Moreover, proponents of religious literacy frequently highlight its potential to enhance critical thinking, individual autonomy and democratic discourses.
This understanding of religion is heavily influenced by the pervasive reason – emotion binary, which contributes to the exclusion of affective and embodied experiences.