Is Karen Armstrong religious?
It’s Sunday – so let’s have a religious posting.
On the strong recommendation of a friend, I’m currently reading “A History Of God” by Karen Armstrong. I’m find it tough going, not least because I am so unsure of the position of the author, and I am constantly asking myself whether Armstrong is now a person of religious belief.
I found this long interview partially helpful. It reminds us that Karen Armstrong spent seven years in a convent before leaving because she had lost her faith in God. But it seems that, while writing “A History Of God”, she rediscovered some kind of religious faith and we are told that she now calls herself a “freelance monotheist”.
The interview concludes as follows:
“Do you consider yourself a religious person?
Yes. It’s a constant pursuit for me. It’s helped me immeasurably to overcome despair in my own life. But I have no hard and fast answers.
I take it you don’t like the question, do you believe in God?
No, because people who ask this question often have a rather simplistic notion of what God is.
What about an afterlife?
It’s a red herring as far as I’m concerned.”
May 26th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
What a good interview and well done for putting a link to it on your blog and drawing out some interesting points. Armstrong is particularly good at putting the development of humankind’s continuous search for a model of divinity in its historical context. For me that’s why Armstrong is so appealing because in so doing she’s always got one eye on the underlying economic structure linking people with the material world within which they find themselves at any particular point in time. The point she makes about the Axial age and the emerging market system is typical of her approach.
Armstrong’s unsettling because she retrieves religion from a framework of absolutes thereby making it much more difficult to attack by people like Dawkin who need fundamentalism to hang their arguments on. The amazing thing is that none of us are that much different – the defenders of Dawkin are in constant need of certainty that there really is nothing else so they can get on with the terrifying state of our existence while others of us are in a constant search that there is something else so we too can deal with the terrifying state of our existence.
June 6th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Hello, Roger,
Derek has told me about your blog. Since I’m a simple, slow reader, I may never get thru Karen Armstrong’s book, but she reminds me much of the writings or Bishop (Ret.) John Shelby Spong of the Episcopal Church. His books and essays have done much to clarify what has been nagging me for much of my life regarding Christianity and the Bible. Most recently, his essays on the Origin of the Bible and the three strands of authorship of the Torah have made clear so much of the duplication of the “stories and myths” found in it.
Many biblical scholars, Spong, Bart Ehrman, Dominic Crosson, Marcus Borg, etc., have in, the last 5 or so years, caused a dramatic turn around in my beliefs. But I’m still searching.
Now that Derek has told me about you, I’ll be tuning in to further my enquiry.
BTW, it was such a pleasure to meet Derek. He was my guide and host as my friend and I attempted to walk the Pilgrim’s Way. (An arthritic ankle acted as a spoiler, but Derek was always there to the rescue.) I’ve been reading English novels for some years and finally decided that if I were ever going to take one of the walking tours I’d read so much about, I’d best do it while I was still able. I’m glad Derek was our guide. And I’m glad he’s your friend. From our short conversations with Derek, I think that I have much in common with you regarding social outlook, and maybe religious, as well.
I’ll be following your blog.
Babs