Why am I not surprised?

From The LA Times:

ALTHOUGH THE 110th Congress has brought to Capitol Hill 43 Jews, two Buddhists and a Muslim — Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who took his oath of office on Thomas Jefferson's Koran — Washington remains a disproportionately Christian town. More than 90% of federal legislators call themselves Christians, making Congress more Christian than the United States itself. The president is an evangelical Protestant. Catholics enjoy a majority on the Supreme Court. Biblical references — from the Jericho Road to the golden rule to the promised land — permeate political speech. Yet U.S. citizens know almost nothing about the Bible. Although most regard it as the word of God, few read it anymore. Even evangelicals from the Bible Belt seem more focused on loving Jesus than on learning what he had to say.

In a religious literacy quiz I have administered to undergraduates for the last two years, students tell me that Moses was blinded on the road to Damascus and that Paul led the Israelites on their exodus out of Egypt. Surveys that are more scientific have found that only one out of three U.S. citizens is able to name the four Gospels, and one out of 10 think that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. No wonder pollster George Gallup has concluded that the United States is "a nation of biblical illiterates."

I remember a scene in the movie Luther when the head of his monastery asked Martin if he had ever read the New Testament. Luther hadn't. The abbot said that not many had. I fear that the modern Church is becoming like the medieval Catholic Church, biblically ignorant and vulnerable to superstition.

Every time I see some smarmy faith healer on television or pass some church whose pastor styles himself (or all too often herself) as "apostle" so-in-so I grieve and wonder how long it will be before a latter day Johann Tetzel travels about the land selling "Get Out of Hell Free" cards, for a price.