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From the TTBOOK Program:
IS RELIGION DANGEROUS?

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Karen Armstrong is a one-woman publishing industry, the author of nearly 20 books on religion. When her breakthrough book, “A History of God,” appeared in 1993, this British writer quickly became known as one of the world’s leading historians of spiritual matters. Her work displays a wide-ranging knowledge of religious traditions - from the monotheistic religions to Buddhism. What’s most remarkable is how she carved out this career for herself after rejecting a life in the church.

When she was 17, Armstrong became a Catholic nun. She left the convent after seven years of torment. “I had failed to make a gift of myself to God,” she wrote in her recent memoir, “The Spiral Staircase.” While she despaired over never managing to feel the presence of God, Armstrong also bristled at the restrictive life imposed by the convent, which she described in her first book, “Through the Narrow Gate.” By the time she left in 1969, she had never heard of the Beatles or the Vietnam War, and she’d lost her faith in God.

Armstrong went on to work in British television, where she become a well-known secular commentator on religion. Then something strange happened. After a TV project fell apart, she rediscovered religion while working on two books, “A History of God” and a biography of Muhammad. Her study of sacred texts finally gave her the appreciation of religion she had longed for - not religion as a system of belief but as a gateway into the world of mystery and the ineffable. Her book “Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet” also made her one of Europe’s most prominent defenders of Islam.

Armstrong now calls herself a “freelance monotheist.” She’s especially drawn to the mystical tradition, which - in her view - has often been distorted by institutionalized religion. While her books have made her enormously popular, it isn’t surprising that she’s also managed to raise the ire of both Christian fundamentalists and atheists. In her new book, “The Great Transformation,” Armstrong writes about the religions that emerged during the “Axial Age,” a phrase coined by the German philosopher Karl Jaspers. This is the era when many great sages appeared, including the Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, Jeremiah and the mystics of the Upanishads. In our interview, Armstrong says all of these sages were reacting to the violence and warfare that was prevalent at the time. Armstrong sees striking parallels to our own violent world today.

Karen Armstrong & Steve Paulson Interview
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