Karen Armstrong | |
---|---|
Born | Wildmoor, Worcestershire, England | 14 November 1944
Occupation | Writer |
Nationality | British |
Alma mater | St Anne's College, Oxford |
Website | |
CharterForCompassion.org |
Karen Armstrong (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 graduated 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.
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.
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]
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]
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]
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 11 September 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]
Monotheism is the belief that one god is the only, or at least the dominant 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, also known as freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), 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 refers to an insult that shows contempt, disrespect or lack of reverence concerning a deity, an object considered sacred, or something considered inviolable. Some religions, especially Abrahamic ones, regard blasphemy as a crime, including insulting the Islamic prophet Muhammad in Islam, speaking the sacred name in Judaism, and blasphemy of God's Holy Spirit is an eternal sin in Christianity. It was also a crime under English common law, and it is still a crime under Italian law.
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.
Religious tolerance or religioustoleration may signify "no more than forbearance and the permission given by the adherents of a dominant religion for other religions to exist, even though the latter are looked on with disapproval as inferior, mistaken, or harmful". Historically, most incidents and writings pertaining to toleration involve the status of minority and dissenting viewpoints in relation to a dominant state religion. However, religion is also sociological, and the practice of toleration has always had a political aspect as well.
Interfaith dialogue, also known as interreligious 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.
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.
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Criticism of Islam can take many forms, including academic critiques, political criticism, religious criticism, and personal opinions. Subjects of criticism include Islamic beliefs, practices, and doctrines.
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.
Cultural Muslims, also known as nominal Muslims, non-practicing Muslims or non-observing Muslims, are people who identify as Muslims but are not religious and do not practice the faith. They may be a non-observing, secular or irreligious individuals who still identify with Islam due to family backgrounds, personal experiences, ethnic and national heritage, or the social and cultural environment in which they grew up.
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.
David Frank Ford is an Anglican public theologian. He was the Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, beginning in 1991. He is now an Emeritus Regius Professor of Divinity. His research interests include political theology, ecumenical theology, Christian theologians and theologies, theology and poetry, the shaping of universities and of the field of theology and religious studies within universities, hermeneutics, and interfaith theology and relations. He is the founding director of the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme and a co-founder of the Society for Scriptural Reasoning.
The Abrahamic religions are a grouping of three of the major religions together due to their historical coexistence and competition; it refers to Abraham, a figure mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible, and the Quran respectively, and is used to show similarities between these religions and put them in contrast to Indian religions, Iranian religions, and the East Asian religions. Furthermore, some religions categorized as "Abrahamic" also share elements from other categories, such as Indian religions, or for example, Islam with Eastern religions.
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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 available in more than 30 languages and has been endorsed by more than two million individuals.
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.