For thousands of years, religion has been a key element of human societies. Wheneverwe, as educators, exclude or minimize religion's vast role in society, we leave out alarge part of our world's shared history. This is a serious act of educational omission,even neglect, on the part of our nation's public middle and secondary schools,particularly when adolescents are so ready to engage in meaningful conversation aboutthe world that surrounds them. Our book's central purpose is to provide middle-leveland high school teachers with the necessary background knowledge and pedagogicalskills necessary to help adolescents become religiously literate learners and citizens.Currently, there is no text like ours on the market that both covers a number of worldreligions, and presents concrete recommendations for teaching and learning thismaterial. Our book is meant to educate the following audiences: teacher educators,middle-level and high school teachers in all content areas, administrators, schoolboards, and parents.For us, educating for religious literacy is all about bringing adolescents into the 21st century of teeming religiousand spiritual diversity-a long-neglected component of the multicultural curriculum in public schools. In a post-9/11world, religious literacy requires that students understand the whats and whys of differing religious beliefs, both in theirown country and elsewhere. It means looking for commonalities, as well as differences, between and among th...