Stack Overflow and SE sites have a very specific model that requests very specific questions and very specific answers. That's just the nature of the beast.
I see a lot of questions that have a long-list of "references and additional reading." These are usually broad topics that do not address the question directly, if at all.
I don't think that irrelevant material should be included in answers. But, how should we deal with this kind of content?
Because of the nature of our topic, we can't give up giving references. I think most we can do is to embed them inside answer like this, rather than making a list at the end of answer.
As for additional reading, a religious topic might not be as clear cut as programming. I mean, for some questions, even though your answer may summarize subject, additional reading might be required for details. I think we could make judgement per answer, because, I don't think banning it altogether would be constructive.
