Book summary

A former nun and renowned religious scholar, Karen Armstrong (A HISTORY OF GOD) writes with passion and quiet intelligence about the significant role that religious practice has played throughout history, and how that role has been tainted and misunderstood both by religious fundamentalists and by the equally fervid rhetoric of the neo-atheists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. Armstrong's concept of religion draws on the apophatic tradition in which God's nature cannot ever be expressed in language, a tradition in which religion must be practiced and experienced rather than argued or intellectualized. She uses the Greek terms of "logos" and "mythos" to distinguish between our rational dealing with the world and our deeper mysterious craving for myth to make sense of our human suffering. Using examples from a wide range of religions, Armstrong strives to show her readers the ways that religion can still serve the modern world as a source of solace, awe, and compassion. Selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the 100 Best Books of 2009.

Media reviews

"[A] passionate footnoted argument for the human need for a God."