Karen Armstrong, author of A History of God (1993), a popular read, tends to focus on common ground among the world’s major religions, no doubt trying to “defuse” conflict with interfaith understanding. She was a doctoral student at Oxford, but failed to get her degree (for unspecified reasons), yet ended up becoming a popular presenter on UK television. For her interdenominational work, promoting mutual comprehension, she has received numerous awards, although plenty of criticism, too, for what is seen, in some quarters, as being apologetically pro-fundamentalist Islam.
In her year 2000 publication, The Battle for God. A History of Fundamentalism, Armstrong continues her comparative approach, focusing on rival religions Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to show a common difficulty reconciling the modern spirit of logos with the mystical, traditional mythos, respectively polarities of Science and Religion, rationalism and faith. She sees modern life lacking in religious feeling, myth, and faith, dominated, as it is by scientific and technological rationalism. What she does not investigate, however, is how the Arts can fulfil the human need for transcendence, mistakingly assuming that religion has a monopoly in the spiritual department. But then, she is a believer, and her views reflect this.
So, what can we take away from her Battle for God? I found interesting her explanation of how Christianity did not, at first, conflict with scientific rationalism because early European scientists were believers who saw no contradiction in examining God’s footprint on the natural world. Studying creation was not the same as denying a Creator. Thanks to this mindset, Christianity became forward-looking, in contrast to Islam which experienced a decline in progress and fell into nostalgia for its “golden age.” Europe developed industrial societies while Islamic regions remained agrarian, looking to tradition for how to live a correct life. The two worldviews clashed with the arrival of Napoleon in Egypt, coming with modern weapons and the new science of archaeology that threw Islamic values into doubt. Since then, says Armstrong, Arab Muslim states have tried one or another approach to “catch up” to Christian countries, all without success. The result has been resentment and rage. She says a sense of helplessness and “fear of annihilation” characterize Islamic societies, hence today’s fundamentalism.
Also interesting is Armstrong’s account of differences between Martin Luther, who seems to have hated everyone (not just Jews), and John Calvin, the Swiss theologian, who promoted the value of hard work, progress, and the rational study of Creation. She claims Luther was more of a mystical reactionary, making Calvin the true father of progress. Also interesting is her portrait of Newton: she sees him as wanting to analyze scripture rationally, de-mystify it, to reveal the blueprint of God’s creation, so to say. However, she notes, such attempts were met by rejection in the form of witch-hunts and persecution, not unlike what infects fundamentalist Islam today.
According to Armstrong, a prevailing fear throughout history has been of technological and intellectual developments that pitted logos against tradition. Such periods were met with fears of the Apocalypse — not unlike what we see in major religions today. Armstrong notes that American religious “awakenings” (revivals) preceded the American Revolution and other periods of instability, phenomena which informed the Iranian (Shiite) revolution of the 1970s as well. When times become turbulent, says Armstrong, people look to fundamentals for stability – not a new idea, but Armstrong traces this theme through the development of the three major faiths to make her point.
Lest we see fundamentalists in purely negative terms, Armstrong reminds us of the critical role that Christian evangelicals played in the emancipation of slavery and the promotion of women’s rights. Social progress in America was pushed by religious groups when, in Europe, it fell to socialists and communists to improve the lot of the ordinary human. Europe, too, responded much more to rational discourse on sacred texts than did America, while figures like Karl Marx, or Julian Huxley and others, taught “scientific rationalism” as the key to liberation from mythical thinking. According to Armstrong, rational thinkers are behind the absence of religious faith and responsible for a sense of abandonment which she thinks characterizes Europe. They are also responsible for Jews becoming secularized and integrated into countries like Germany (before Hitler), or abandoning religion altogether for socialism and atheism. (Armstrong seems to see this as tragic.) She blames progress, and the insecurities it brings, for push-back millennialism, times of mass-neurosis that culminate in great wars. World War I was one of these, according to her. Of course, her implication is that, once again, we find ourselves in an unhealthy, historic sitution today.
Armstrong tries to convince us that Islam can be “modern,” but in its own way, although this would require a lot more logos than mythos, far less dogmatism and mysticism than is currently spread around. She cites several attempt at “reforming” Sunni and Shia religious teachings, but notes repeated setbacks initiated by the imams who have always feared losing power. She affirms that modernity cannot be foisted on Islamic societies, saying they need to find their own accommodation with the future – which partly explains the “theologies or rage, resentment, and revenge” we see today. Islam may be struggling to advance itself, but there is definite push back from the hard-liners, and there are many of them.
Another point, worth commenting on, is Armstrong’s view of Naziism as a “secular ideology,” a view that is disproven by research into how “mystical” the Nazi movement actually was with its torch-light parades, blood and soil rituals, blood flag rites, its symbolism, mass “revival” meetings, and pseudo-scientific research into “racial roots.” We could view National Socialism an attempt at reclaiming the religious solidarity that was eclipsed by modern individualism, an attempt at reigniting faith over rational thought, recapturing the sense of security when God was in his heaven and all below was in order. But then, Armstrong doesn’t study fascism as much as she studies religion.
So, now what must we do? Well, Armstrong would not have been rewarded recognition if she weren’t “politically correct” in encouraging mutual understanding among the faiths. According to her critics, she leans a bit too far in one direction rather than assuming an “objective” stance, but then encouraging tolerance might be the only thing we can do, considering the mess the world is in, but tolerance has its limit which the public is about to reach.
Societies can’t have material progress, science, and high-technology while subscribing to superstition, dogmatism, misogyny, and murder of those they don’t like. Modernity requires some trade-offs. Religion needs to become a personal, spiritual matter, not a political ideology that keeps the masses subservient to the religious establishment and promotes empire building. Dogmatism is passe, and the sooner we realize it, the sooner we we are capable of moving on. The future beckons the brave, not the fanatics.
Karen Armstrong
Scent of Time 