Armstrong’s Axial Obsession

Salon’s Steve Paulson interviews “freelance monotheist”, author, and former nun Karen Armstrong. The interview focuses on Armstrong’s latest book “The Great Transformation : The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions”, which looks at the Axial Age of religion (800 BCE to 200 BCE) and the impact that time has had on our modern religious world. But despite how “freelance” she is, her subtle prejudices against any concept or religion that formed from European paganism is evident.

“From about 900 to 200 BCE, the traditions that have continued to nourish humanity either came into being or had their roots in four distinct regions of the world. So you had Confucianism and Daoism in China; Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism in India; monotheism in Israel; and philosophical rationalism in Greece…all these sages, with the exception of the Greeks, posited a counter-ideology to the violence of their time.”

Armstrong, despite her rebellious image, still holds onto the outmoded belief that monotheism is an advancement over polytheism (she believes that Buddhism is a monotheist religion). Armstrong also implies that belief in gendered divinity is immature and akin to believing in Santa Claus.

“…the great theologians in Judaism, Christianity and Islam say you begin with the idea of a god who is personal. But God transcends personality as God transcends every other human characteristic, such as gender. If we get stuck there, this is very immature. Very often people hear about God at about the same time as they’re learning about Santa Claus. And their ideas about Santa Claus mature and change in time, but their idea of God remains infantile.”

While her comment on gender was no doubt aimed at Christians and Muslims, it could just as easily apply to modern Pagans who honor several gendered divinities. Armstrong’s “solution” to the current religion “problem” would be for all of us to be like her – to become “freelance monotheists” melding Buddhist and Christian (and maybe a little Hindu for spice) thought. While this makes her on the outs with the current monotheist power structure, it also places her at odds with much of modern (and ancient) Paganism. Armstrong, in the end, is only slightly better than the fundamentalists who would like to see our faiths quashed. She simply holds the carrot of tolerance and ecumenical harmony, while her counterparts hold the stick of damnation and oppression.

Tags: Paganism