If you’re a Doper who was raised in Asia or the Middle East or some other place that’s not historically culturally Christian, were you taught the basic rudiments of Christianity? Define “basic rudiments” as you will, but I’m thinking something along the lines of “Christians believe that there is one true God, that he sent his son as a prophet…”
I ask because I just watched a reaction video where Korean women react to exorcism videos, both Western and Korean. Some of those exorcisims were in the Western/Christian context (people in Christian vestiture performing the rite, for example). Considering that 20 percent of the people of Sourth Korea are Christian, the religious context of any exorcism video involving Christians is going to be lost on 80 percent of the population of Korea. So either non-Christian Koreans watch those movies thinking “this must be a thing Christians believe” or thinking “Oh yes! Christians believe in demons that can possess the innocent…”
For whatever it’s worth, at my Central Illinois urban elementary school in the 70s, we were taught the basic rudiments of Islam (the Five Pillars and all that) and of Judaism. I don’t remember Hinduism ever coming up, oddly.
I grew up in a country that was 95% Muslim and at the time bordering on a theocracy.
But in school, we still learned about the basics of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity. Though they were ALL treated with some degree of thinly veiled ridicule by comparing them unfavorably to the standards set by Islam. For example, Christianity was characterized as a polytheistic religion (Trinity) that was mired in superstition (Transubstantiation, Miracles).
And this was in a Catholic school!
By about age 8, I was fully convinced that Christianity was a second rate religion and I was cursed to be born into it.
My sister had someone raised in India in her advanced English Literature class in high school, and they had to help her a lot with many Biblical references. She didn’t know about the Forbidden Fruit, IIRC. Or the Tower of Babel.
She had to learn a lot to get a lot of literature references.
Israel here. We learned about Christianity and Islam both in Jewish History and in General History, and I think the subjects were also covered in Social Studies.
I was raised in the US and not only was I not taught the basic ideas of Christianity, I was also not taught the basic ideas of Judiasm. Until I was 11 1/2 and my parents realized that the relatives expected me to have a Bar Mitzvah and hurriedly enrolled me in Hebrew school. Not that I learned much more than to read Hebrew (with vowel points) and sing the cantellation marks.
When a school teacher assigned us to read something from the bible, it turned out my family didn’t own one. I now have a bilingual Hebrew/English five books that my step-father-in-law gave us as a wedding present, but I’ve hardly ever looked at it. Real ignoramus, religiously speaking.