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| '''Karen Armstrong''' ] (born 14 November 1944), is a British author and commentator who is the author of twelve books on ]. A former ] ], she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical faith. |
'''Karen Armstrong''' ] (born 14 November 1944), is a British author and commentator who is the author of twelve books on ]. A former ] ], she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical faith. Armstrong first rose to prominence in 1993 with her book,'' ]: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam'', an international best seller that is now required reading in many theology courses. She has emphasized the commonalities of the major religions, asserting that they each stress the importance of ], as epitomized in what is known as the ]. | ||
| Armstrong received the $100,000 ] in February 2008. She used that occasion to call for the creation of a '']'', which was unveiled the following year. | Armstrong received the $100,000 ] in February 2008. She used that occasion to call for the creation of a '']'', which was unveiled the following year. | ||
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| ==Career== | ==Career== | ||
| In 1976, Armstrong took a job as teaching English at a girls' school in ] while working on a memoir of her ] experiences. |
In 1976, Armstrong took a job as teaching English at a girls' school in ] while working on a memoir of her ] 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 ] commissioned her to write and present a TV documentary on the life of ], a project that involved traveling to the Holy Land to retrace the steps of the saint. Armstrong described this visit as a "breakthrough experience", one that defied her prior assumptions and was the inspiration for virtually all her subsequent work. In ''A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam'', she traces the evolution of the three major monotheistic traditions from their beginnings in the ] up to the present day and also discusses ] and ]. As guiding "luminaries" in her approach, Armstrong's acknowledges (in ''The Spiral Staircase'' and elsewhere) the late Canadian theologian ], a Protestant minister,<ref>See ''The Case for God'', p. 87, footnote 42</ref> and the Jesuit father ].<ref>''The Case for God'', p. 283.</ref> 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 ], identified by ]. |
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 ], identified by ]. In the year of its publication Armstrong achieved the distinction of being invited to choose her eight favourite records for ] '']'' programme.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/desertislanddiscs20060212.shtml |title=Desert Island Discs, February 12, 2006: Karen Armstrong |accessdate=2008-04-09 |work=BBC Radio 4 Website }}</ref> | ||
| In 2007, Armstrong was invited by the ] to deliver the "2007 MUIS Lecture".<ref>, muis.gov.sg</ref> | In 2007, Armstrong was invited by the ] to deliver the "2007 MUIS Lecture".<ref>, muis.gov.sg</ref> | ||
| Armstrong is a fellow of the ], a group of scholars and laypeople which attempts to investigate the historical foundations of Christianity. |
Armstrong is a fellow of the ], a group of scholars and laypeople which attempts to investigate the historical foundations of Christianity. She has written numerous articles for '']'' and other publications. She was a key advisor on ]' popular ] series on religion, has addressed members of the ], and was one of three scholars to speak at the UN's first ever session on religion.<ref>, thelavinagency.com</ref> She is a vice-president of the British Epilepsy Association, otherwise known as ]. | ||
| Armstrong, who has taught courses at ], a rabbinical college and centre for Jewish education located in north London, says she has been particularly inspired by the ] 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." <ref>Dave Weich, </ref> She maintains that religious ] is not just a response to but, paradoxically, a product of ] 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."<ref></ref> | |||
| ⚫ | Awarded the $100,000 ] in February 2008, Armstrong called for drawing up a '']'', |
||
| ⚫ | Awarded the $100,000 ] in February 2008, Armstrong called for drawing up a '']'', 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.<ref name="TEDprize">{{cite web |url=http://www.tedprize.org/?page_id=8 |title=TEDPrize 2008 Winner :: Karen Armstrong |accessdate=2008-03-19 |work=TEDPrize Website}}</ref>> It was presented in ] in November 2009. Signatories include ], the ], ] and ].<ref name="Unveiling-AFP">{{Cite news| last = Chapman | first = Glenn | title = Online call for religions to embrace compassion | publisher = Agence France-Presse | date = 2009.11.12 | url = http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gMy_pmwt7MKtU1RzSn_AfrhUFZJg | accessdate = 2009-11-12 }}</ref> | ||
| === Honours === | === Honours === | ||
| Armstrong was honoured by the New York Open Center in 2004 for her "profound understanding of religious traditions and their relation to the divine."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.opencenter.org/galahonorees/|date=|accessdate=2009-10-09|title=Open Center Gala Honorees}}</ref> | Armstrong was honoured by the New York Open Center in 2004 for her "profound understanding of religious traditions and their relation to the divine."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.opencenter.org/galahonorees/|date=|accessdate=2009-10-09|title=Open Center Gala Honorees}}</ref> | ||
| In May 2008 she was awarded the ] by the ], one of four medals presented each year to men and women whose achievements have demonstrated a commitment to the ] proclaimed by President ] 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."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fourfreedoms.nl/index.php?lang=en&id=16&laureate=77 |title=The Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Awards: Freedom of Worship: Karen Armstrong |accessdate=2008-06-28 |year=2008 | work=Four Freedoms Award website |publisher=Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute}}</ref> | In May 2008 she was awarded the ] by the ], one of four medals presented each year to men and women whose achievements have demonstrated a commitment to the ] proclaimed by President ] 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." <ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fourfreedoms.nl/index.php?lang=en&id=16&laureate=77 |title=The Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Awards: Freedom of Worship: Karen Armstrong |accessdate=2008-06-28 |year=2008 | work=Four Freedoms Award website |publisher=Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute}}</ref> | ||
| == Reception == | == Reception == | ||
| Armstrong has been called "a prominent and prolific religious historian"<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/14/AR2011011406932.html|title=Review of Karen Armstrong's "Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life"|last=Bonos|first=Lisa|date=2011-01-16|work=]|accessdate=21 May 2011}}</ref> and described as "arguably the most lucid, wide-ranging and consistently interesting religion writer today".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://dir.salon.com/books/feature/2001/04/18/armstrong/index.html|title="Buddha" by Karen Armstrong|last=Miller|first=Laura|work=Salon|accessdate=21 May 2011}}</ref> Juan Eduardo Campo, author of the ''Encyclopedia of Islam (Encyclopedia of World Religions)'' (2009), included Armstrong among a group of scholars whom he considered as currently conveying a "more or less objective" (as opposed to polemical) view of Islam and its origins to a wide public in Europe and North America.<ref>{{cite journal| author=Juan Eduardo Campo|title=Review of '''' by F. E. Peters |journal=]|volume=28|issue=4| pages=597–599 |month=November|year=1996}}</ref> She is in demand as a speaker on the Abrahamic tradition; in the last decade increasing interest in and debate surrounding ]ic issues has brought her even wider visibility.{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} | |||
| Armstrong has been criticised for her portrayal of Islam, which historian ] has criticized as "thinly veiled hagiography" and that her works frequently "overlooks Islam's pervasive mistreatment of its non-Muslim subjects."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.nysun.com/arts/perfect-surrender/40266/|title=The Perfect Surrender|last=Karsh|first=Efraim|date=2006-09-25|work=]|accessdate=21 May 2011}}</ref>. Similarly, ] has characterized her as an "Islamic apologist extraordinaire" who tells the reader "to ignore history and doctrine, focus on platitudes about peace and love."<ref>{{cite news|last=Ibrahim|first=Raymond|title=Islamic Apologetics|url=http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/220844/islamic-apologetics/raymond-ibrahim|newspaper=National Review|date=07-05-07}}</ref> while an article in ] blog that was republished in the ] criticized Armstrong as an example of a Western scholar who lives in a world of "political correctness and religious apology" in obfuscating the problematic issues of Islam.<ref>{{cite news|last=Harris|first=Sam|title=Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/losing-our-spines-to-save_b_100132.html|newspaper=Huffington Post|date=05-05-08}}</ref> An article in the ] by ] described Armstrong as a revisionist scholar of Islam.<ref>{{cite news|last=Phillips|first=Melanie|title=The American debacle in Egypt|url=http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/6689945/the-american-debacle-in-egypt.thtml|newspaper=The Spectator|date=10-02-11}}</ref> ] criticized her book ''Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today’s World'' as "largely an exercise in modern left-wing rhetoric about sensitivity, tolerance, and the evils of Western civilization."<ref>{{cite web|last=Madden|first=Thomas|title=Crusades of History and Politics|url=http://ao.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=1683&pubtype=DailyArticles|publisher=Hudson institute}}</ref> | |||
| Armstrong has been criticised for her portrayal of Islam, which historian ] considered "ahistorical"<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.nysun.com/arts/perfect-surrender/40266/|title=The Perfect Surrender|last=Karsh|first=Efraim|date=2006-09-25|work=]|accessdate=21 May 2011}}</ref> while librarian ] characterised her work Islamic ].<ref>{{cite news|last=Ibrahim|first=Raymond|title=Islamic Apologetics|url=http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/220844/islamic-apologetics/raymond-ibrahim|newspaper=National Review|date=07-05-07}}</ref> | |||
| Regarding Armstrong's political activism, ], director of the pro-] ] accused Armstrong as being "among the stable of pro-Palestinian advocates" and described her book volume entitled ''Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths'' as "strikingly anti-Jewish."<ref name="Levin">{{cite web|last=Levin|first=Andrea|title=EYE ON THE MEDIA: Karen Armstrong’s Unscholarly Prejudices|url=http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=4&x_outlet=28&x_article=83|publisher=CAMERA}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Levin|first=Andrea|title=Karen Armstrong's unscholarly prejudices|url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-42907557.html|publisher=Jerusalem Post|accessdate=05-17-11|location=HighBeam research}}</ref> | |||
| == Bibliography== | == Bibliography== | ||
Revision as of 06:22, 10 June 2011
For the operatic soprano, see Karan Armstrong.| Karen Armstrong | |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Writer, Academic |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Oxford University |
| Website | |
| http://charterforcompassion.org/ | |
Karen Armstrong FRSL (born 14 November 1944), is a British author and commentator who is the author of twelve books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic nun, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical faith. Armstrong first rose to prominence in 1993 with her book, A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, an international best seller that is now required reading in many theology courses. She has emphasized the commonalities of the major religions, asserting that they each stress the importance of compassion, as epitomized in what is known as the Golden Rule.
Armstrong received the $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.
Early life
Armstrong was born at Wildmoor, Worcestershire, into a family of Irish extraction who, after her birth, moved to Bromsgrove and later to Birmingham. In 1962, while still in her teens, she became a nun in the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, a teaching order, in which she remained for seven years. 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 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. 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 life-long but, at that time, still undiagnosed temporal epilepsy.
Career
In 1976, Armstrong took a job as teaching English at a 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 TV documentary on the life of St. Paul, a project that involved traveling to the Holy Land to retrace the steps of the saint. Armstrong described this visit as a "breakthrough experience", one that defied her prior assumptions and was the inspiration for virtually all her subsequent work. In A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, 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's acknowledges (in The Spiral Staircase and elsewhere) the late Canadian theologian Wilfred Cantwell Smith, a Protestant minister, and the Jesuit father Bernard Lonergan. 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 achieved the distinction of being invited to choose her eight favourite records for BBC Radio's Desert Island Discs programme.
In 2007, Armstrong was invited by the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore to deliver the "2007 MUIS Lecture".
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 other publications. She was a key advisor on Bill Moyers' popular PBS series on religion, has addressed members of the US Congress, and was one of three scholars to speak at the UN's first ever session on religion. 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." She maintains that religious fundamentalism is not just a response to but, paradoxically, a product of contemporary culture 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."
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.> 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.
Honours
Armstrong was honoured by the New York Open Center in 2004 for her "profound understanding of religious traditions and their relation to the divine."
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."
Reception
Armstrong has been called "a prominent and prolific religious historian" and described as "arguably the most lucid, wide-ranging and consistently interesting religion writer today". Juan Eduardo Campo, author of the Encyclopedia of Islam (Encyclopedia of World Religions) (2009), included Armstrong among a group of scholars whom he considered as currently conveying a "more or less objective" (as opposed to polemical) view of Islam and its origins to a wide public in Europe and North America. She is in demand as a speaker on the Abrahamic tradition; in the last decade increasing interest in and debate surrounding Islamic issues has brought her even wider visibility.
Armstrong has been criticised for her portrayal of Islam, which historian Efraim Karsh considered "ahistorical" while librarian Raymond Ibrahim characterised her work Islamic apologetics.
Bibliography
- Journal articles:
- "Women, Tourism, Politics" (1977)
- "The Holiness of Jerusalem: Asset or Burden?" (1998)
- "Ambiguity and Remembrance: Individual and Collective Memory in Finland" (2000)
- Books:
- Through the Narrow Gate (1982)
- The First Christian: Saint Paul's Impact on Christianity (1983)
- Beginning the World (1983)
- Tongues of Fire: An Anthology of Religious and Poetic Experience (1985)
- The Gospel According to Woman: Christianity's Creation of the Sex War in the West (1986)
- Holy War: The Crusades and their Impact on Today's World (1988)
- Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet (1991)
- The English Mystics of the Fourteenth Century (1991)
- The End of Silence: Women and the Priesthood (1993)
- A History of God (1993)
- Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths (1996)
- In the Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis (1996)
- Islam: A Short History (2000)
- The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (2000)
- Buddha (2001)
- Faith After September 11 (2002)
- The Spiral Staircase (2004)
- A Short History of Myth (2005)
- Muhammad: A Prophet For Our Time (2006)
- The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions (2006) ISBN 978-037-541317-9
- The Bible: A Biography (2007)
- The Case for God (2009)
- Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010) ISBN 978-0307595591
Further reading
- The reason of faith Ode magazine, 2009.
- Articles by Karen Armstrong on the 5th Estate blog, fifthestate.co.uk
See also
References
- Armstrong, Karen (2005). Through A Narrow Gate: A Memoir of Spiritual Discovery (Revised edition ed.). Macmillan. p. 7. ISBN 0312340958.
{{cite book}}:|edition=has extra text (help) - Armstrong, Karen. The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out Of Darkness. New York: Random House, 2004.
- McGrath, Alister (2006). "Spirituality and well-being: some recent discussions". Brain. 129 (1): 278–282.
- See The Case for God, p. 87, footnote 42
- The Case for God, p. 283.
- "Desert Island Discs, February 12, 2006: Karen Armstrong". BBC Radio 4 Website. Retrieved 2008-04-09.
- Karen Armstrong delivers the 2007 MUIS lecture, muis.gov.sg
- Karen Armstrong Speaker Profile at The Lavin Agency, thelavinagency.com
- Dave Weich, "Karen Armstrong, Turn, Turn, Turn".
- The Charter for Compassion.
- "TEDPrize 2008 Winner :: Karen Armstrong". TEDPrize Website. Retrieved 2008-03-19.
- Chapman, Glenn (2009.11.12). "Online call for religions to embrace compassion". Agence France-Presse. Retrieved 2009-11-12.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - "Open Center Gala Honorees". . Retrieved 2009-10-09.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - "The Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Awards: Freedom of Worship: Karen Armstrong". Four Freedoms Award website. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. 2008. Retrieved 2008-06-28.
- Bonos, Lisa (2011-01-16). "Review of Karen Armstrong's "Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life"". Washington Post. Retrieved 21 May 2011.
- Miller, Laura. ""Buddha" by Karen Armstrong". Salon. Retrieved 21 May 2011.
- Juan Eduardo Campo (1996). "Review of by F. E. Peters". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 28 (4): 597–599.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Karsh, Efraim (2006-09-25). "The Perfect Surrender". New York Sun. Retrieved 21 May 2011.
- Ibrahim, Raymond (07-05-07). "Islamic Apologetics". National Review.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - LAtimes.com
External links
- Author Spotlight at Random House
- Profile at islamfortoday.com
- Charter for Compassion, charterforcompassion.org
- Interview with Karen Armstrong on "The Bible", readthespirit.com
- Audio & Videos
- Karen Armstrong's TED Talk "Let's revive the golden rule", ted.com
- Audio: Karen Armstrong in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion programme The Forum, BBC.co.uk
- 1944 births
- Living people
- Alumni of St Anne's College, Oxford
- British non-fiction writers
- British religious writers
- British women writers
- Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
- Feminist studies scholars
- Former Roman Catholics
- Non-Muslim Islamic scholars
- People from Worcestershire
- People with epilepsy
- Religion academics
- Religious studies scholars
- Trustees of the British Museum