Karen Armstrong

Last updated

Karen Armstrong

Karen Armstrong.jpg
Armstrong in 2016
Born (1944-11-14) 14 November 1944 (age 79)
Wildmoor, Worcestershire, England
OccupationWriter
NationalityBritish
Alma mater St Anne's College, Oxford
Website
CharterForCompassion.org

Karen Armstrong OBE FRSL (born 14 November 1944) is a British author and commentator of Irish Catholic descent known for her books on comparative religion. [1] A former Roman Catholic religious sister, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical Christian faith. She attended St Anne's College, Oxford, while in the convent and majored in English. She left the convent in 1969. [1] Her work focuses on commonalities of the major religions, such as the importance of compassion and the Golden Rule.

Contents

Armstrong received the US$100,000 TED Prize in February 2008. She used that occasion to call for the creation of a Charter for Compassion, which was unveiled the following year.

Personal life

Armstrong was born at Wildmoor, Worcestershire, [2] into a family of Irish ancestry who, after her birth, moved to Bromsgrove and later to Birmingham. In 1962, at the age of 17, she became a member of the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, a teaching congregation, in which she remained for seven years. Armstrong says she suffered physical and psychological abuse in the convent; according to an article in The Guardian newspaper, "Armstrong was required to mortify her flesh with whips and wear a spiked chain around her arm. When she spoke out of turn, she claims she was forced to sew at a treadle machine with no needle for a fortnight." [3]

Once she had advanced from postulant and novice to professed nun, she enrolled in St Anne's College, Oxford, to study English. Armstrong left her order in 1969 while still a student at Oxford. After graduating with a Congratulatory First, she embarked on a DPhil on the poet Alfred Tennyson. According to Armstrong, she wrote her dissertation on a topic that had been approved by the university committee. Nevertheless, it was failed by her external examiner on the grounds that the topic had been unsuitable. [4] Armstrong did not formally protest this verdict, nor did she embark upon a new topic but instead abandoned hope of an academic career. She reports that this period in her life was marked by ill-health stemming from her lifelong but, at that time, still undiagnosed temporal lobe epilepsy. [5] [6] [7]

Around this time she was lodged with Jenifer and Herbert Hart, looking after their disabled son, as told in her memoir The Spiral Staircase . [4]

Armstrong is unmarried. [8] Although she had once described herself as a "freelance monotheist," more recently she said, "I wouldn't even call myself a monotheist anymore. ... If anything, I'm a Confucian, I think." [9] [10]

Career

In 1976, Armstrong took a job teaching English at James Allen's Girls' School in Dulwich while working on a memoir of her convent experiences. This was published in 1982 as Through the Narrow Gate to excellent reviews. That year she embarked on a new career as an independent writer and broadcasting presenter. In 1984, the British Channel Four commissioned her to write and present a television documentary on the life of St. Paul, The First Christian, a project that involved traveling to the Holy Land to retrace the steps of the saint. Armstrong described this visit as a "breakthrough experience" that defied her prior assumptions and provided the inspiration for virtually all her subsequent work. In A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (1993), she traces the evolution of the three major monotheistic traditions from their beginnings in the Middle East up to the present day and also discusses Hinduism and Buddhism. As guiding "luminaries" in her approach, Armstrong acknowledges (in The Spiral Staircase and elsewhere) the late Canadian theologian Wilfred Cantwell Smith, a Protestant minister, [11] and the Jesuit father Bernard Lonergan. [12] In 1996, she published Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths.

Armstrong's The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions (2006) continues the themes covered in A History of God and examines the emergence and codification of the world's great religions during the so-called Axial Age identified by Karl Jaspers. In the year of its publication Armstrong was invited to choose her eight favourite records for BBC Radio's Desert Island Discs programme. [13] She has made several appearances on television, including on Rageh Omaar's programme The Life of Muhammad . Her work has been translated into forty-five languages. [14] She was an advisor for the award-winning, PBS-broadcast documentary Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet (2002), produced by Unity Productions Foundation.

In 2007 the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore invited Armstrong to deliver the MUIS Lecture. [15]

Armstrong is a fellow of the Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars and laypeople which attempts to investigate the historical foundations of Christianity. She has written numerous articles for The Guardian and for other publications. She was a key advisor on Bill Moyers' popular PBS series on religion, has addressed members of the United States Congress, and was one of three scholars to speak at the UN's first ever session on religion. [16] She is a vice-president of the British Epilepsy Association, otherwise known as Epilepsy Action.

Armstrong, who has taught courses at Leo Baeck College, a rabbinical college and centre for Jewish education located in North London, says she has been particularly inspired by the Jewish tradition's emphasis on practice as well as faith: "I say that religion isn't about believing things. It's about what you do. It's ethical alchemy. It's about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness." [17] She maintains that religious fundamentalism is not just a response to, but is a product of contemporary culture [18] and for this reason concludes that, "We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community." [19]

Awarded the $100,000 TED Prize in February 2008, Armstrong called for drawing up a Charter for Compassion , in the spirit of the Golden Rule, to identify shared moral priorities across religious traditions, in order to foster global understanding and a peaceful world. [20] It was presented in Washington, D.C. in November 2009. Signatories include Queen Noor of Jordan, the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Paul Simon. [21]

In 2012, the Jack P. Blaney Award for Dialogue recognized her outstanding achievement in advancing understanding about and among world religions, and promoting compassion as a way of life. During her award residency in Canada, Armstrong gave the "State of the Charter for Compassion Global Address" and co-launched a compassionate cities initiative in Vancouver. [22]

Honours

In 1999 Armstrong received the Muslim Public Affairs Council's Media Award. [23] [24] [25]

Armstrong was honoured by the New York Open Center in 2004 for her "profound understanding of religious traditions and their relation to the divine." [26]

She received an honorary degree as Doctor of Letters by Aston University in 2006. [27]

In May 2008 she was awarded the Freedom of Worship Award by the Roosevelt Institute, one of four medals presented each year to men and women whose achievements have demonstrated a commitment to the Four Freedoms proclaimed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 as essential to democracy: freedom of speech and of worship, freedom from want and from fear. The institute stated that Armstrong had become "a significant voice, seeking mutual understanding in times of turbulence, confrontation and violence among religious groups." It cited "her personal dedication to the ideal that peace can be found in religious understanding, for her teachings on compassion, and her appreciation for the positive sources of spirituality." [28]

She also received the TED Prize 2008. [29]

In 2009 she was awarded the Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize by the University of Tübingen. [30]

Armstrong was honoured with the Nationalencyklopedin's International Knowledge Award 2011 [31] "for her long standing work of bringing knowledge to others about the significance of religion to humankind and, in particular, for pointing out the similarities between religions. Through a series of books and award-winning lectures she reaches out as a peace-making voice at a time when world events are becoming increasingly linked to religion."

On 12 May 2010, she was made honorary Doctor of Divinity by Queen's University (Kingston, Ontario). [32]

On 30 November 2011 (Saint Andrew's Day), Armstrong was made honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Saint Andrews. [33]

On 20 March 2012, Karen Armstrong was awarded the 2011/12 Jack P. Blaney Award for Dialogue for her work in advancing understanding about and among world religions. [22]

In 2013, she was awarded the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding by the British Academy "in recognition of her body of work that has made a significant contribution to understanding the elements of overlap and commonality in different cultures and religions". [34]

On 3 June 2014, she was made an honorary Doctor of Divinity by McGill University. [35]

In 2017 Armstrong was bestowed Princess of Asturias award in recognition of her investigations into world religions. [36]

Reception

Armstrong was described by philosopher Alain de Botton as "one of the most intelligent contemporary defenders of religion", who "wages a vigorous war on the twin evils of religious fundamentalism and militant atheism". [37] The Washington Post referred to her as "a prominent and prolific religious historian". [38] Laura Miller of Salon described her as "arguably the most lucid, wide-ranging and consistently interesting religion writer today". [39] Juan Eduardo Campo, author of the Encyclopedia of Islam (2009), included Armstrong among a group of scholars who he claimed currently conveyed a "more or less objective", as opposed to polemical, view of Islam and its origins to a wide public. [40] After the September 11 attacks she was in great demand as a lecturer, pleading for inter-faith dialogue. [41]

Armstrong has been criticized as misunderstanding theology and medieval history, especially in conservative publications First Things and National Review . [42] [43]

Books

External videos
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg Presentation by Armstrong on The Battle for God, 6 April 2000, C-SPAN
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg Booknotes interview with Armstrong on Islam: A Short History, 22 October 2000, C-SPAN
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg Discussion with Armstrong on Buddha, 9 March 2001, C-SPAN
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg Presentation by Armstrong on Islam: A Short History, 1 August 2002, C-SPAN
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg Presentation by Armstrong on The Spiral Staircase, 8 March 2004, C-SPAN
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg Presentation by Armstrong on The Great Transformation, 3 April 2006, C-SPAN
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg Presentation by Armstrong on Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time, 20 November 2006, C-SPAN
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg After Words interview with Armstrong on Fields of Blood, 15 November 2014, C-SPAN
  • Through the Narrow Gate. London: Pan Books. 1982. ISBN   978-0-333-31136-3.
  • Beginning the World. London: Pan Books. 1983. ISBN   978-0-333-35017-1.
  • The First Christian: Saint Paul's Impact on Christianity. London: Pan Books. 1983. ISBN   978-0-330-28161-4.
  • Tongues of Fire: An Anthology of Religious and Poetic Experience. Editor. Harmondsworth, England: Viking Press. 1985. ISBN   978-0-670-80878-6.
  • The Gospel According to Woman: Christianity's Creation of the Sex War in the West. London: Pan Books. 1986. ISBN   978-0-330-29744-8.
  • Holy War: The Crusades and their Impact on Today's World. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group. 1988. ISBN   978-0385721400.
  • Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet . Victor Gollancz Ltd. 1991. ISBN   0575062444.
  • The English Mystics of the Fourteenth Century. 1991.
  • The End of Silence: Women and the Priesthood. 1993.
  • A History of God . Alfred A. Knopf. 1993. ISBN   0-345-38456-3.
  • Visions of God : Four Medieval Mystics and Their Writings. 1994.
  • In the Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis. 1996.
  • Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. HarperCollins. 1996. ISBN   0002555220., with better online access at idem. Ballantine Books. 2015. ISBN   9780345391681 . Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  • Islam: A Short History . Modern Library Chronicles. 2000. ISBN   0-8129-6618-X.
  • The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam . Knopf/HarperCollins. 2000. ISBN   978-0006383482.
  • Faith After 11 September. 2002.
  • Buddha . Penguin. 2004. ISBN   9780143034360.
  • The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out Of Darkness . Alfred A. Knopf. 2004. ISBN   978-0-375-41318-6.
  • A Short History of Myth. Canongate Books. 2005. ISBN   9781841956442.
  • Muhammad: A Prophet For Our Time . HarperCollins. 2006. ISBN   978-0061155772.
  • The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions. Knopf. 2006. ISBN   978-0-375-41317-9.
  • The Bible: A Biography. Grove Press. 2007. ISBN   978-0-8021-4384-6.
  • The Case for God . Vintage. 2009. ISBN   978-0-307-26918-8.
  • Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life. Alfred A. Knopf. 2010. ISBN   978-0-307-59559-1.
  • A Letter to Pakistan. Oxford University Press. 2011. ISBN   978-0-19-906330-7.
  • Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence. Bodley Head. 2014. ISBN   978-1-84792-186-4. [44]
  • St. Paul: The Apostle We Love to Hate. New Harvest. 2015. ISBN   978-0-54461-739-1.
  • The Lost Art of Scripture. Bodley Head. 2019. ISBN   978-1-84792-432-2. [45]
  • Religion. Vintage. 2019. ISBN   9781784875695.
  • Sacred Nature: Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World. Knopf. 2022. ISBN   978-0593319437. [46]

Journal articles

See also

Related Research Articles

Faith is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or concept. In the context of religion, faith is "belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion". According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, faith has multiple definitions, including "something that is believed especially with strong conviction," "complete trust", "belief and trust in and loyalty to God", as well as "a firm belief in something for which there is no proof".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of religion</span>

The history of religion refers to the written record of human religious feelings, thoughts, and ideas. This period of religious history begins with the invention of writing about 5,200 years ago. The prehistory of religion involves the study of religious beliefs that existed prior to the advent of written records. One can also study comparative religious chronology through a timeline of religion. Writing played a major role in standardizing religious texts regardless of time or location, and making easier the memorization of prayers and divine rules.

Monotheism is the belief that one god is the only deity. A distinction may be made between exclusive monotheism, in which the one God is a singular existence, and both inclusive and pluriform monotheism, in which multiple gods or godly forms are recognized, but each are postulated as extensions of the same God.

Freedom of religion or religious liberty is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the right not to profess any religion or belief or "not to practise a religion".

Blasphemy is an insult that shows contempt, disrespect or lack of reverence concerning a deity, an object considered sacred or something considered inviolable. Some religions regard blasphemy as a crime, including insulting the Islamic prophet Muhammad in Islam, speaking the "sacred name" in Judaism, and the "eternal sin" in Christianity. It was also a crime under English common law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Shelby Spong</span> American bishop (1931–2021)

John Shelby "Jack" Spong was an American bishop of the Episcopal Church, born in Charlotte, North Carolina. He served as the Bishop of Newark, New Jersey from 1979 to 2000. Spong was a liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator, and author who called for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines. He was known for his progressive and controversial views on Christianity, including his rejection of traditional Christian doctrines, his advocacy for LGBTQ rights, and his support for interfaith dialogue. Spong was a contributor to the Living the Questions DVD program and was a guest on numerous national television broadcasts. Spong died on September 12, 2021, at his home in Richmond, Virginia, at the age of 90.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interfaith dialogue</span> Positive interaction of different religious people

Interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions and/or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional levels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Huston Smith</span> American Religious studies scholar (1919–2016)

Huston Cummings Smith was a scholar of religious studies in the United States, He authored at least thirteen books on world's religions and philosophy, and his book about comparative religion, The World's Religions sold over three million copies as of 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Religious violence</span> Violence practiced in the name of religion

Religious violence covers phenomena in which religion is either the subject or the object of violent behavior. All the religions of the world contain narratives, symbols, and metaphors of violence and war. Religious violence is violence that is motivated by, or in reaction to, religious precepts, texts, or the doctrines of a target or an attacker. It includes violence against religious institutions, people, objects, or events. Religious violence does not exclusively include acts which are committed by religious groups, instead, it includes acts which are committed against religious groups.

Criticism of Islam is questioning or challenging the beliefs, practices, and doctrines of Islam. Criticism of Islam can take many forms, including academic critiques, political criticism, religious criticism, and personal opinions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cathleen Falsani</span> American journalist and author

Cathleen Falsani is an American journalist and author. She specializes in the intersection of religion/spirituality/faith and culture, and has been a staff writer for the Chicago Sun Times, the Chicago Tribune, Sojourners magazine, Religion News Service, and the Orange County Register in Southern California. Falsani is the author of several non-fiction books on religious, spiritual, and cultural issues.

Diana L. Eck is a scholar of religious studies who is Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies at Harvard University, as well as a former faculty dean of Lowell House and the Director of The Pluralism Project at Harvard. Among other works, she is the author of Banaras, City of Light, Darshan: Seeing the Divine Image in India, Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras, A New Religious America: How a Christian Country Became the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation, and "India: A Sacred Geography." At Harvard, she is in the Department of South Asian Studies, the Committee on the Study of Religion, and is also a member of the Faculty of Divinity. She has been the chair for the Committee on the Study of Religion. She also served on the Humanities jury for the Infosys Prize in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unconditional love</span> Concept of love without conditions

Unconditional love is known as affection without any limitations, or love without conditions. This term is sometimes associated with other terms such as true altruism or complete love. Each area of expertise has a certain way of describing unconditional love, but most will agree that it is that type of love which has no bounds and is unchanging.

Saba Mahmood (1961–2018) was professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley, she was also affiliated with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Institute for South Asia Studies, and the Program in Critical Theory. Her scholarly work straddled debates in anthropology and political theory, with a focus on Muslim majority societies of the Middle East and South Asia. Mahmood made major theoretical contributions to rethinking the relationship between ethics and politics, religion and secularism, freedom and submission, and reason and embodiment. Influenced by the work of Talal Asad, she wrote on issues of gender, religious politics, secularism, and Muslim and non-Muslim relations in the Middle East.

Discrimination against atheists, sometimes called atheophobia, atheistophobia, or anti-atheism, both at present and historically, includes persecution of and discrimination against people who are identified as atheists. Discrimination against atheists may be manifested by negative attitudes, prejudice, hostility, hatred, fear, or intolerance towards atheists and atheism or even the complete denial of atheists existence. It is often expressed in distrust regardless of its manifestation. Perceived atheist prevalence seems to be correlated with reduction in prejudice. There is global prevalence of mistrust in moral perceptions of atheists found in even secular countries and among atheists.

The term Abrahamic religion is a category to group the three major religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam together, due to their historical coexistence and competition, based around the figure Abraham, mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible, and the Quran. It is used to show similarities between those religions and put them in contrast to Indian religions, Iranian religions, and the East Asian religions, although other religions and belief systems may refer to Abraham as well. Furthermore, some religions categorized as "Abrahamic religion" can also share aspects with elements from other categories, such as Indian religions, for example, Islam with Eastern religions.

Mona Siddiqui is a British academic. She is Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at the University of Edinburgh, a member of the Commission on Scottish Devolution and a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. She is also a regular contributor to Thought for the Day, Sunday and The Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4, and to The Times, The Scotsman, The Guardian, Sunday Herald.

Riffat Hassan is a Pakistani-American theologian and a leading Islamic feminist scholar of the Qur'an.

Charter for Compassion is a document written in 2009 that urges the peoples and religions of the world to embrace the core value of compassion. The charter is currently available in more than 30 languages and has been endorsed by more than two million individuals.

<i>The Case for God</i> 2009 book by Karen Armstrong

The Case for God is a 2009 book by Karen Armstrong. It covers the history of religion, from the paleolithic age to the present day, with a focus on the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and on apophatic theology in various religions.

References

  1. 1 2 Schulson, Michael (23 November 2014). "Karen Armstrong on Sam Harris and Bill Maher: "It fills me with despair, because this is the sort of talk that led to the concentration camps"". Salon . Retrieved 7 June 2018.
  2. Armstrong, Karen (2005). Through A Narrow Gate: A Memoir of Spiritual Discovery (Revised ed.). Macmillan. p. 7. ISBN   0-312-34095-8.
  3. Thorpe, Vanessa (2 October 2010). "Karen Armstrong: The compassionate face of religion". The Guardian.
  4. 1 2 Armstrong, Karen. The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out Of Darkness. New York: Random House, 2004.
  5. McGrath, Alister (2006). "Spirituality and well-being: some recent discussions". Brain. 129 (1): 278–282. doi: 10.1093/brain/awh719 .
  6. Stanford, Peter (5 April 2004). "The runaway nun". New Statesman . Retrieved 16 August 2019.
  7. Bunting, Madeleine (6 October 2007). "A question of faith". TheGuardian.com .
  8. "Interview: Karen Armstrong, author, academic and broadcaster". Church Times . 22 July 2009. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
  9. Quinn, Sally (29 March 2006). "A Historian's Faithful Account Once Rejecting Religion, Karen Armstrong Now Sees It as a Guidepost". The Washington Post . Retrieved 26 June 2022.
  10. Bitting, Diane (17 April 2018). "How Karen Armstrong became a 'freelance monotheist'". LNP . Retrieved 26 June 2022.
  11. See The Case for God, p. 87, footnote 42
  12. The Case for God, p. 283.
  13. "Desert Island Discs, February 12, 2006: Karen Armstrong". BBC Radio 4 Website. Retrieved 9 April 2008.
  14. Turkovich, Marilyn. "Karen Armstrong". Charter for Compassion. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  15. Karen Armstrong delivers the 2007 MUIS lecture Archived 19 March 2014 at the Wayback Machine , muis.gov.sg
  16. Karen Armstrong Speaker Profile at The Lavin Agency, thelavinagency.com. Archived 17 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  17. Dave Weich, "Karen Armstrong, Turn, Turn, Turn".
  18. "Voices on Antisemitism interview with Karen Armstrong". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 5 July 2007. Archived from the original on 15 February 2012.
  19. "The Charter for Compassion". Archived from the original on 10 May 2011.
  20. "TEDPrize 2008 Winner :: Karen Armstrong". TEDPrize Website. Retrieved 19 March 2008.
  21. Chapman, Glenn (12 November 2009). "Online call for religions to embrace compassion". Agence France-Presse. Retrieved 12 November 2009.
  22. 1 2 "Twelve Days of Compassion with Karen Armstrong" . Retrieved 1 March 2019.
  23. "Last Chance to Buy Your Tickets to MPAC Media Awards Gala on Sunday, 1 June". Muslim Public Affairs Council. Archived from the original on 22 May 2012. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  24. "Karen Armstrong". Westar Institute. Archived from the original on 14 November 2011. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  25. "Karen Armstrong". Bill Moyers Journal. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). 13 March 2009. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  26. "Open Center Gala Honorees". 2009. Archived from the original on 3 November 2009. Retrieved 9 October 2009.
  27. "Honorary Graduates of the University". Aston University. Archived from the original on 25 June 2010. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  28. "The Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Awards: Freedom of Worship: Karen Armstrong". Four Freedoms Award website. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. 2008. Retrieved 28 June 2008.
  29. "2008 Winners". TED Prize. Archived from the original on 18 January 2010. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  30. Armstrong, Karen. (2010). Plädoyer für Gott. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. p. 108. ISBN   978-3-16-150305-4. Archived from the original on 22 March 2014.
  31. "Intervju med Karen Armstrong". The Knowledge Awards. Archived from the original on 21 April 2012. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  32. "Former Prime Minister Paul Martin among Queen's honorary degree recipients"., Queen's Gazette
  33. "The point of religion". 16 November 2011. University of St Andrews, News archive.
  34. "Celebrated British author Karen Armstrong wins inaugural prize for her contribution to global interfaith understanding". British Academy. 4 July 2013. Retrieved 23 July 2017.
  35. "Fourteen individuals to receive honorary degree from McGill". McGill Reporter. 30 April 2014.
  36. Giles, Ciaran; Aritz Parra (31 May 2017). "Religion Scholar Karen Armstrong Wins Top Spanish Award". Associated Press.
  37. de Botton, Alain (19 July 2009). "In defence of the true God - review". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  38. Bonos, Lisa (16 January 2011). "Review of Karen Armstrong's "Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life"". The Washington Post . Retrieved 21 May 2011.
  39. Miller, Laura. ""Buddha" by Karen Armstrong". Salon.com. Archived from the original on 7 August 2011. Retrieved 21 May 2011.
  40. Juan Eduardo Campo (November 1996). "Review of [Muhammad and the Origins of Islam] by F. E. Peters". International Journal of Middle East Studies . 28 (4): 597–599. doi:10.1017/s0020743800063911. S2CID   161552084.
  41. Cliteur, Paul (2010). The Secular Outlook: In Defense of Moral and Political Secularism. John Wiley & Sons. p. 249. ISBN   978-1-4443-9044-5. Extract of page 249
  42. "The Selective Compassion of Karen Armstrong | Joe Carter". First Things. 16 November 2009. Retrieved 23 June 2019.
  43. Ibrahim, Raymond (7 May 2007). "Islamic Apologetics". National Review. Retrieved 23 June 2019.
  44. McGirr, Michael (10 October 2014). "Book Review: Battling with the evils of humanity". The Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 19 October 2014.
  45. Winkett, Lucy (7 June 2019). "In scripture, we find not just religious thought and theory—but a challenge to how we read". Prospect . Retrieved 23 August 2019.
  46. Briefly reviewed in the January 2023 issue of Commonweal , p.65.
Audio and video