Karen Armstrong (1) (1944–)
Author of A History of God
For other authors named Karen Armstrong, see the disambiguation page.
About the Author
Karen Armstrong is one of the foremost commentators on religious affairs in both Britain and the United States. She spent seven years as a Roman Catholic nun and received a degree at Oxford University. (Publisher Provided)
Image credit: Karen Armstrong at Christ Church March 23, 2007 in Oxford, United Kingdom
Works by Karen Armstrong
Sacred Nature: Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World (2022) — Author — 304 copies, 7 reviews
Canongate Myth Series: A Short History of Myth, The Penelopiad, Weight, and Dream Angus (2005) 69 copies, 4 reviews
Summary and analysis of a history of God : the 4,000-Year quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam : based on the book by Karen Armstrong (2017) 2 copies
Natureza Sagrada 2 copies
ORIGENES DEL FUNDAMENTALISMO, LOS 2 copies
The Myths Collection 1: A Short History of Myth, The Penelopiad, and Weight (The Myths Series) (2012) 1 copy
The Hope Diamond 1 copy
Associated Works
A Delusion Of Satan: The Full Story Of The Salem Witch Trials (1995) — Introduction, some editions — 515 copies, 8 reviews
The Tent of Abraham: Stories of Hope and Peace for Jews, Christians, and Muslims (2006) — Foreword — 163 copies, 3 reviews
Reader's Digest Condensed Books 1982 v01: Through the Narrow Gate / Noble House / The Judas Kiss (1982) 19 copies
Fresh Air with Terry Gross: Faith, Reason, and Doubt: Interviews on Religion (2008) — Contributor — 9 copies, 1 review
Reader's Digest Select Editions: Twice Shy | The Warfield Syndrome | Through the Narrow Gate | Control Tower (1982) 3 copies
Reader's Digest Condensed Books: Inherit the Sun / Through the Narrow Gate / Princess in Berlin / Alone against the Atlantic (1982) — Author — 2 copies
Bill Moyers Journal: religious scholar Karen Armstrong 3/13/2009 [video recording] (2009) — Guest — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Armstrong, Karen
- Birthdate
- 1944-11-14
- Gender
- female
- Education
- St. Anne's College, Oxford University (BA|M.Litt)
- Occupations
- author
commentator
television presenter
professor
speaker
researcher (comparative religion) - Organizations
- Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus
Jesus Seminar (fellow)
Epilepsy Action
Leo Baeck College - Awards and honors
- Royal Society of Literature (Fellow, 2005)
Order of the British Empire (Officer, 2015)
Muslim Public Affairs Council's Media Award (1999)
Aston University (honorary Doctor of Letters | 2006)
Freedom of Worship Award (2008)
Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize (2009) (show all 12)
Nationalencyklopedin's International Knowledge Award (2011)
University of Saint Andrews (honorary Doctor of Letters | 2011)
Princess of Asturias Award (social sciences | 2017)
Jack P. Blaney Award for Dialogue (2012)
Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding (2013)
TED Prize (2008) - Agent
- Felicity Bryan
Peter Ginsburg
Andrew Nurnberg - Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Wildmoor, Worcestershire, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Wildmoor, Worcestershire, England, UK (birth)
Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, England, UK
Birmingham, West Midlands, England, UK
London, Middlesex, England, UK - Map Location
- England, UK
Members
Discussions
The Great Transformation Group Read in 75 Books Challenge for 2013 (May 2013)
Reviews
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1979182.html
I was really impressed by this historical account of religious fundamentalism (well, of Christian, Jewish and Islamic fundamentalism) over the centuries up to 1999. I have not always been convinced by Armstrong's approach of parallelling changes in different cultures that happened at the same time, but this worked really well for me, disposing breezily with the importance of balancing logos and mythos, tracking the different religions' responses to show more the Enlightenment and modernisation, and then exploring the parallel rise of hardline fundamentalist reaction in all three traditions during the late twentieth century. For the most recent period, Armstrong also restricts her geographical focus down to the USA for Christianity, Israel for Judaism, and Egypt and Iran for Islam, which means of course that all kinds of interesting material from elsewhere is simply omitted. But those are all fascinating countries, and I found her analyses of the religious politics of Israel and Iran particularly illuminating.
Writing in 1999, Armstrong thought that fundamentalism was establishing a new equilibrium after a period when it had appeared insurgent and had then suffered a series of defeats in the 1980s and 1990s. I think she would now agree that we have seen a distinct rise in the strength of fundamentalism in all three traditions in the years since. In the last few pages she looks at how the rest of us should deal with fundamentalism. Repression does not work, she points out, and indeed makes these movements stronger; we must remember that they are based on fear and incomprehension. Rather we should challenge fundamentalists on their own ground, on their lack of compassion for their fellow human beings; this is where they miss a crucial core value to all three of the religious traditions. Definitely worth reading if you are interested in understanding the extremists. show less
I was really impressed by this historical account of religious fundamentalism (well, of Christian, Jewish and Islamic fundamentalism) over the centuries up to 1999. I have not always been convinced by Armstrong's approach of parallelling changes in different cultures that happened at the same time, but this worked really well for me, disposing breezily with the importance of balancing logos and mythos, tracking the different religions' responses to show more the Enlightenment and modernisation, and then exploring the parallel rise of hardline fundamentalist reaction in all three traditions during the late twentieth century. For the most recent period, Armstrong also restricts her geographical focus down to the USA for Christianity, Israel for Judaism, and Egypt and Iran for Islam, which means of course that all kinds of interesting material from elsewhere is simply omitted. But those are all fascinating countries, and I found her analyses of the religious politics of Israel and Iran particularly illuminating.
Writing in 1999, Armstrong thought that fundamentalism was establishing a new equilibrium after a period when it had appeared insurgent and had then suffered a series of defeats in the 1980s and 1990s. I think she would now agree that we have seen a distinct rise in the strength of fundamentalism in all three traditions in the years since. In the last few pages she looks at how the rest of us should deal with fundamentalism. Repression does not work, she points out, and indeed makes these movements stronger; we must remember that they are based on fear and incomprehension. Rather we should challenge fundamentalists on their own ground, on their lack of compassion for their fellow human beings; this is where they miss a crucial core value to all three of the religious traditions. Definitely worth reading if you are interested in understanding the extremists. show less
If you've read any of Karen Armstrong's books on religion, you likely won't see much new material here. The 3 star rating largely reflects that lack of novelty. However, if you've ever wished that you didn't have to page trough a book with hundreds of pages to find that bit about the development of myth you remember from one of Armstrong's books, then you'll likely find this to be handy.
The most interesting foray into not-stock-Armstrong ground is the last chapter, which discusses myth in show more the modern west. If it's true that, as Armstrong says on pg 141 "in the pre-modern world, the divine was rarely regarded in the metaphysical terms imposed upon it by Western logos, but was usually used to help people understand their humanity" then the traditional religious mythos is fundamentally broken for many Westerners. Given that our greater understanding of science has made it hard to pull meaning from myths that relate to phenomena that we now understand from a naturalistic perspective, how can we salvage that understanding of our humanity that religious myth brought to us? What are our modern myths?
Armstrong finds the answer in art, especially literature. But not art casually consumed; such consumption will not cause us to delve deep into ourselves, coming out with a new understanding. Just as religious texts were most meaningful when experienced as part of ritual and liturgy, to take on the transformative role of myth, art must be consumed mindfully, as part of a process where you are open to transformation. This may sound like a tall order, but Armstrong points out that any art that immerses you has the potential to provide this transformative experience.
This is a perspective which I wish Armstrong had had a chance to develop more fully. I feel like compared to a religious based mythos, art has the strength that the broader variety means that most everyone will have something that speaks to them, if they can just find it. Art also evolves more gracefully over time and thus can more flexibly fit the different needs of different eras. But religion, when it is a successful mythos, can be more unifying. If we each have a personal mtyhos, we will likely end up more fragmented. It is also harder to dismiss the transformation a myth demands of you when you accept the metaphysical truth of that myth.
But those of us for whom the myths of religious paradigms are no longer functional still need our own form of myth, and cultivating the idea of art mindfully consumed as that myth can provide valuable guidance. show less
The most interesting foray into not-stock-Armstrong ground is the last chapter, which discusses myth in show more the modern west. If it's true that, as Armstrong says on pg 141 "in the pre-modern world, the divine was rarely regarded in the metaphysical terms imposed upon it by Western logos, but was usually used to help people understand their humanity" then the traditional religious mythos is fundamentally broken for many Westerners. Given that our greater understanding of science has made it hard to pull meaning from myths that relate to phenomena that we now understand from a naturalistic perspective, how can we salvage that understanding of our humanity that religious myth brought to us? What are our modern myths?
Armstrong finds the answer in art, especially literature. But not art casually consumed; such consumption will not cause us to delve deep into ourselves, coming out with a new understanding. Just as religious texts were most meaningful when experienced as part of ritual and liturgy, to take on the transformative role of myth, art must be consumed mindfully, as part of a process where you are open to transformation. This may sound like a tall order, but Armstrong points out that any art that immerses you has the potential to provide this transformative experience.
[T]he experience of reading a novel has certain qualities that remind us of the traditional apprehension of mythology. It can be seen as a form of meditation. Readers have to live with a novel for days or even weeks. It projects them into another world, parallel to but apart from their ordinary lives. They know perfectly well that this fictional realm is not 'real' and yet while they are reading it becomes compelling. A powerful novel becomes part of the backdrop of our lives, long after we have laid the book aside. It is an exercise of make-believe that, like yoga or a religious festival, breaks down barriers of space and time and extends our sympathies, so that we are able to empathise with other lives and sorrows. It teaches compassion, the ability to 'feel with' others. And, like mythology, an important novel is transformative. If we allow it to do so, it can change us forever. ... Any powerful work of art invades our being and changes it forever. -- page 147-8
This is a perspective which I wish Armstrong had had a chance to develop more fully. I feel like compared to a religious based mythos, art has the strength that the broader variety means that most everyone will have something that speaks to them, if they can just find it. Art also evolves more gracefully over time and thus can more flexibly fit the different needs of different eras. But religion, when it is a successful mythos, can be more unifying. If we each have a personal mtyhos, we will likely end up more fragmented. It is also harder to dismiss the transformation a myth demands of you when you accept the metaphysical truth of that myth.
But those of us for whom the myths of religious paradigms are no longer functional still need our own form of myth, and cultivating the idea of art mindfully consumed as that myth can provide valuable guidance. show less
The story of how the Bible was written and compiled takes up just a fraction of the book. That fraction is far from dry, being interested less in explicating the significance of particular bits than in placing the broad elements of the Bible in their historical moments.
The US title, 'The Bible: A Biography', is not only catchier, it also gives a better sense of what the book is: once it has told how the books of the Bible were written and assembled, it goes on with the process of show more canonisation (which happened over centuries, and was of course still being debated in Luther's time), and then the really interesting stuff: how the way they were read changed over the centuries – by Jews, Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Protestants. The Midrash and Talmud, the Platonists, the early Christian Fathers up to St Augustine, the mediaeval exegetes and the Kabbalists all brought different understandings of what the Bible was, and how it should be read, and what one was to make of its many inconsistencies. Then came the Protestant Reformation and capitalism, and Lurianic Kabbalah and tikkun olam, followed – in a chapter entitled 'Modernity' – by the Enlightenment, which brought Spinoza 'who studied the historical background and literary genres of the Bible with unprecedented objectivity' and was the forerunner of the German Higher Criticism, by the mystical reading of the Hasidim, and the extreme literalism of the fundamentalism that came into being in late 19th century USA, which, she says, was distorting the scriptural tradition it was trying to defend. And then there's post-Holocaust Judaic literalism which adopted the until-then secular ideology of Zionism.
The blurb tells us Karen Armstrong was a religious sister briefly some decades ago, but you can't tell from this book whether she is still a Catholic or even a believer. But there's no hostility to religion. What does come through loud and strong is her antagonism to movements that hijack the Bible for political purposes, while disregarding the extraordinary richness of its history.
There are dry stretches, potentially useful as orientation if one were to go on to further study, but skippable for the drive-by reader. On the whole, though, I found the book fascinating, for its immediate subject, but also – among other things – for the way it illustrates that reading, reading anything at all, is a tremendously complex act. show less
The US title, 'The Bible: A Biography', is not only catchier, it also gives a better sense of what the book is: once it has told how the books of the Bible were written and assembled, it goes on with the process of show more canonisation (which happened over centuries, and was of course still being debated in Luther's time), and then the really interesting stuff: how the way they were read changed over the centuries – by Jews, Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Protestants. The Midrash and Talmud, the Platonists, the early Christian Fathers up to St Augustine, the mediaeval exegetes and the Kabbalists all brought different understandings of what the Bible was, and how it should be read, and what one was to make of its many inconsistencies. Then came the Protestant Reformation and capitalism, and Lurianic Kabbalah and tikkun olam, followed – in a chapter entitled 'Modernity' – by the Enlightenment, which brought Spinoza 'who studied the historical background and literary genres of the Bible with unprecedented objectivity' and was the forerunner of the German Higher Criticism, by the mystical reading of the Hasidim, and the extreme literalism of the fundamentalism that came into being in late 19th century USA, which, she says, was distorting the scriptural tradition it was trying to defend. And then there's post-Holocaust Judaic literalism which adopted the until-then secular ideology of Zionism.
The blurb tells us Karen Armstrong was a religious sister briefly some decades ago, but you can't tell from this book whether she is still a Catholic or even a believer. But there's no hostility to religion. What does come through loud and strong is her antagonism to movements that hijack the Bible for political purposes, while disregarding the extraordinary richness of its history.
There are dry stretches, potentially useful as orientation if one were to go on to further study, but skippable for the drive-by reader. On the whole, though, I found the book fascinating, for its immediate subject, but also – among other things – for the way it illustrates that reading, reading anything at all, is a tremendously complex act. show less
When I began reading this book I started asking people if they thought religion causes violence. Invariably I received some version of this response: "Duh!......" So it was intriguing to have Armstrong begin her book by declaring the problem not quite so simple and proceed to give a long, interesting and surprising history of how religion and violence have been intertwined, although not always in a strictly causative manner. In short, what I think Armstrong is claiming that because show more throughout most of our known history there has been no separation between the secular and the spiritual, even theoretically, that therefore our communal identity (which included the political and religious) was the cause of conflict, not religion as a separate entity. Equally to blame for the beginning of organized violence was the agrarian revolution, c9000-8500 BCE, and civilization, with its need to support and control larger populations. Armstrong also examines the dilemma religions have faced pretty much as soon as they developed: "... if a ruling elite adopted an ethical tradition, such as Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam, the aristocratic clergy usually adapted their theology so that it could support the structural violence of the state."
The scholarship is far-reaching and not quickly digested, but it is fascinating. Folded into the narrative are numerous digressions which add to the conclusion that the book's question requires a much broader range of scholarship than might be obvious. And there are some very interesting facts and events to read about, among them:
The first Crusaders, "psychotic" as they massacred thousands of Muslims and Jews, then celebrating their actions in Christian ceremonies.
The siege of Béziers in 1209 by the abbot of Citeaux in an effort to wipe out the Cathari, a popular Christian sect dedicated to poverty, chastity and nonviolence. When asked by his troops how to tell the heretics from the orthodox he had them kill everyone, leaving it to God to "know his own".
John Locke's introduction into the Western philosophical canon of "the myth of religious violence", as he pushed to separate religion and politics.
The Puritans leader John Cotton, exhorting his followers on the "principle of nature" which gave "vacant" land to those who would use it, and justified unprovoked attacks on the natives as "a special Commission from God to take their land", and the Puritans' highly selective use of bellicose Old Testament excerpts rather than the pacifist teaching of Jesus as they killed their native neighbors.
Early Virginia, where it was assumed that "all citizens should have the same faith and that it was the duty of any government to enforce religious observance".
The election of 1800, in which Jefferson was accused of being a Muslim! (Doesn't that sound familiar?)
Calvin's non-literal interpretation of parts of the Bible, including Genesis, and fundamentalism's turn to Biblical literalism and denial of science as a recoil from modern life, especially after WWI.
The introduction of papal infallibility - in 1870!
The change in Israelite belief towards monotheism - but not until 6th century BCE.
I could go on and on, but suffice to say this is one fascinating book and sure to interest anyone with curiosity about the religion/violence connection. show less
The scholarship is far-reaching and not quickly digested, but it is fascinating. Folded into the narrative are numerous digressions which add to the conclusion that the book's question requires a much broader range of scholarship than might be obvious. And there are some very interesting facts and events to read about, among them:
The first Crusaders, "psychotic" as they massacred thousands of Muslims and Jews, then celebrating their actions in Christian ceremonies.
The siege of Béziers in 1209 by the abbot of Citeaux in an effort to wipe out the Cathari, a popular Christian sect dedicated to poverty, chastity and nonviolence. When asked by his troops how to tell the heretics from the orthodox he had them kill everyone, leaving it to God to "know his own".
John Locke's introduction into the Western philosophical canon of "the myth of religious violence", as he pushed to separate religion and politics.
The Puritans leader John Cotton, exhorting his followers on the "principle of nature" which gave "vacant" land to those who would use it, and justified unprovoked attacks on the natives as "a special Commission from God to take their land", and the Puritans' highly selective use of bellicose Old Testament excerpts rather than the pacifist teaching of Jesus as they killed their native neighbors.
Early Virginia, where it was assumed that "all citizens should have the same faith and that it was the duty of any government to enforce religious observance".
The election of 1800, in which Jefferson was accused of being a Muslim! (Doesn't that sound familiar?)
Calvin's non-literal interpretation of parts of the Bible, including Genesis, and fundamentalism's turn to Biblical literalism and denial of science as a recoil from modern life, especially after WWI.
The introduction of papal infallibility - in 1870!
The change in Israelite belief towards monotheism - but not until 6th century BCE.
I could go on and on, but suffice to say this is one fascinating book and sure to interest anyone with curiosity about the religion/violence connection. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 57
- Also by
- 16
- Members
- 36,556
- Popularity
- #503
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 580
- ISBNs
- 644
- Languages
- 27
- Favorited
- 23
