Expert to Give Talk on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Karen Armstrong, a well-known commentator on religious affairs and the author of A History of God, will speak on "The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam" on Monday, November 26. Armstrong, this year’s distinguished speaker in the humanities, will begin her talk at 7:00 p.m. in the Emerson Suites, Phillips Hall. The event is free and open to the public. Armstrong’s books will be available for sale and autographing.

Armstrong is a teacher at London’s Leo Baeck College for the Study of Judaism and the author of 13 books, including a biography of Muhammad. She began her spiritual quest at age 17, when she entered a Roman Catholic convent in her native England. She left seven years later, disillusioned with her experience, which served as the raw material for her first book, Through the Narrow Gate. A second autobiographical volume, Beginning the World, soon followed. It depicted the transition from cloistered nun to literature student at Oxford, where she faced such issues as recognizing her sexuality and confronting a crisis of faith.

In the 1980s she began working on television documentaries. One of her assignments took her to Jerusalem, a visit that piqued her interest in the three great monotheistic faiths of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity and that changed her earlier impressions about God. From an atheist wearied by religion she became, in her words, a "freelance monotheist."

The works that followed reflect Armstrong’s interest in three faiths that, in her view, have much in common despite their different histories: the image of one supreme being, for one; historic links to Jerusalem, for another; and a rigid strain of conservatism that emerged as a reaction against the modern world. Armstrong’s 1991 work, Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today’s World, explores the connection between war and religion from biblical times to the present. In later works such as Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths, The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, and her 1993 best-seller, A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Armstrong takes a more optimistic view, exploring the spiritual forces uniting the three faiths despite thousands of years of conflicts.

The Distinguished Speaker in the Humanities Series, sponsored by the School of Humanities and Sciences, is now in its third year. Last year the speaker was Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist and author Art Spiegelman. Robert Pinsky, the 39th poet laureate of the United States, gave the inaugural address.

For more information call the School of Humanities and Sciences at 274-3102.