Karen Armstrong, a former Catholic nun, is the author of over a dozen books on religion read in over forty languages. Her books are counted among the prestigious New York Times bestseller lists, including her most recent The Case for God (Knopf, 2009; $27.95). Despite its widespread influence, her work is not universally acclaimed by professional academics in the field of religion. No doubt some of this disapproval is motivated by the absence of scholarly credentials. But something deeper may irritate them: her stance vis-a-vis religion is elusive. She is not so easily pigeon-holed. Part critic, part historian, part apologist, and part theologian, she is simultaneously descriptive and programmatic. Her conviction that religions, at their best, essentially advocate the same message--the Golden Rule--is dismissed as reductionist. Yet Armstrong hardly overlooks religious differences; in fact, her new book celebrates them.
Armstrong is a consummate story-teller, both in writing as well as in speaking. Her lilting British accent and wry sense of humor make listening to her retell religion's greatest hits sheer delight. Her talk on Oct. 8 at the Wortham Theater--with barely a note--wended seamlessly and purposefully from one tradition to another, never detached from the historical. She is a marvelous tour guide, pausing to point out a tradition's excesses or faults only once she has shown what she sees as its best side. Her talk revealed a William Jamesian hermeneutic, that religions are "good" when they inspire their adherents to do good, suggesting that they are equally "bad" when their fruits are life-negating; Religion is meant to be therapeutic.
The Case for God traces the development of religious thought (or, more properly, practice) through historical epochs. Part I describes "The Unknown God" from the first evidence of religious awareness in the cave paintings of 30,000 BCE ("Homo religiosus"), to awareness of transcendent divinity ("God"), to the use of reason to understand the cosmos ("Reason"), to faith--in the sense of reliance or "commitment" rather than belief--as defiance of adversity ("Faith"), to the mystical via negativa ("Silence"), and ending with enlisting reason in the service of faith ("Faith and Reason"). Part II, "The Modern God," explores the influence of science and humanism on religion beginning c. 1500 CE ("Science and Religion"), the shackling of religion to science ("Scientific Religion"), the dethroning of religion ("Enlightenment"), American democratization and fundamentalization of religion and European abandonment of it ("Atheism"), the unraveling of scientific paradigms and subsequent embrace of mystery and strengthening of fundamentalism ("Unknowing"), and the simultaneous rise of secularism and religious resurgence ("Death of God?").
The book's epilogue reveals that Armstrong's intent is not merely to describe the historical evolution of religion. She is engaged in a project: calling religion back to its pure state of unknowing, unspeaking humility and awe, or mythos. This, to quote the British edition's subtitle, is "what religion means." The corners of religion on which she chooses to shine a light, the reader may realize in hindsight, thus conform to a meta-narrative: the progressive disintegration of religion from mythos into logos over time. Armstrong does not deny this selectivity: "My aim is not to give an exhaustive account of religion in any given period, but to highlight a particular trend--the apophatic--that speaks strongly to our current religious perplexity" (140). The success of her enterprise will likely depend on more factors than religion alone. Nonetheless, the attempt of The Case for God to rescue religion from its "bad" side by asking it to withdraw from public discourse is laudable, but is it likely?
--Shira Lander
Dr. Milton and Mrs. Laurie Boniuk with author Karen Armstrong