Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence
Karen Armstrong, 2014
Knopf Doubleday
528 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307957047
Summary
From the renowned and best-selling author of A History of God, a sweeping exploration of religion and the history of human violence.
For the first time, religious self-identification is on the decline in American. Some analysts have cited as cause a post-9/11perception: that faith in general is a source of aggression, intolerance, and divisiveness—something bad for society. But how accurate is that view?
With deep learning and sympathetic understanding, Karen Armstrong sets out to discover the truth about religion and violence in each of the world’s great traditions, taking us on an astonishing journey from prehistoric times to the present.
While many historians have looked at violence in connection with particular religious manifestations (jihad in Islam or Christianity’s Crusades), Armstrong looks at each faith—not only Christianity and Islam, but also Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Judaism—in its totality over time.
As she describes, each arose in an agrarian society with powerful landowners brutalizing peasants while also warring among themselves over land, then the only real source of wealth. In this world, religion was not the discrete and personal matter it would become for us but rather something that permeated all aspects of society. And so it was that agrarian aggression, and the warrior ethos it begot, became bound up with observances of the sacred.
In each tradition, however, a counterbalance to the warrior code also developed. Around sages, prophets, and mystics there grew up communities protesting the injustice and bloodshed endemic to agrarian society, the violence to which religion had become heir. And so by the time the great confessional faiths came of age, all understood themselves as ultimately devoted to peace, equality, and reconciliation, whatever the acts of violence perpetrated in their name.
Industrialization and modernity have ushered in an epoch of spectacular and unexampled violence, although, as Armstrong explains, relatively little of it can be ascribed directly to religion. Nevertheless, she shows us how and in what measure religions, in their relative maturity, came to absorb modern belligerence—and what hope there might be for peace among believers of different creeds in our time.
At a moment of rising geopolitical chaos, the imperative of mutual understanding between nations and faith communities has never been more urgent, the dangers of action based on misunderstanding never greater. Informed by Armstrong’s sweeping erudition and personal commitment to the promotion of compassion, Fields of Blood makes vividly clear that religion is not the problem. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 14,1944
• Where—Wildmoor, Worcestershire, England, UK
• Education—Oxford University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in London, England
Karen Armstrong is a British author and commentator known for her books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic religious sister, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical Christian faith. She would become disillusioned and leave the convent in 1969.
Armstrong first rose to prominence in 1993 with her book A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Her work focuses on commonalities of the major religions, such as the importance of compassion and the Golden Rule.
In February, 2008, she received a $100,000 TED Prize. She used that occasion to call for the creation of a Charter for Compassion, which was unveiled the following year.
Early life
Armstrong was born into a family of Irish ancestry who, after her birth, moved to Bromsgrove and later to Birmingham. In 1962, at the age of 18, she became a member of the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, a teaching congregation, in which she remained for seven years. Armstrong claims she suffered physical and psychological abuse in the convent, according to The Guardian newspaper:
But the sisters ran a cruel regime. Armstrong was required to mortify her flesh with whips and wear a spiked chain around her arm. When she spoke out of turn, she claims she was forced to sew at a treadle machine with no needle for a fortnight.
Once she had advanced from postulant and novice to professed nun, she enrolled in St Anne's College, Oxford, to study English. Armstrong left her order in 1969 while still a student at Oxford. After graduating with a Congratulatory First, she embarked on a DPhil on the poet Tennyson. According to Armstrong, she wrote her dissertation on a topic that had been approved by the university committee.
Nevertheless it was failed by her external examiner on the grounds that the topic had been unsuitable. Armstrong did not formally protest this verdict, nor did she embark upon a new topic but instead abandoned hope of an academic career. She reports that this period in her life was marked by ill-health stemming from her lifelong but, at that time, still undiagnosed temporal lobe epilepsy.
Career
In 1976, Armstrong took a job as teaching English at James Allen's Girls' School in Dulwich while working on a memoir of her convent experiences. This was published in 1982 to excellent reviews as Through the Narrow Gate. That same year she embarked on a new career as an independent writer and broadcasting presenter.
In 1984, the British Channel Four commissioned her to write and present a TV documentary on the life of St. Paul, The First Christian, a project that involved traveling to the Holy Land to retrace the steps of the saint. Armstrong described this visit as a "breakthrough experience" that defied her prior assumptions and was the inspiration for virtually all her subsequent work.
In A History of God (1993), she traces the evolution of the three major monotheistic traditions from their beginnings in the Middle East up to the present day and also discusses Hinduism and Buddhism. As guiding "luminaries" in her approach, Armstrong acknowledges the late Canadian theologian Wilfred Cantwell Smith, a Protestant minister, and the Jesuit father Bernard Lonergan. In 1996, she published Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths.
Armstrong's The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions (2006) continues the themes covered in A History of God and examines the emergence and codification of the world's great religions during the so-called Axial age, identified by Karl Jaspers. As a result of her body of work, she has made considerable appearances on television, including appearances on Rageh Omaar's program, The Life of Muhammad. She was also an advisor for the award-winning, PBS-broadcast documentary Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet (2002), produced by Unity Productions Foundation.
In 2007, Armstrong was invited by the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore to deliver the MUIS Lecture.
Armstrong is a fellow of the Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars and laypeople that attempts to investigate the historical foundations of Christianity. She has written numerous articles for The Guardian and other publications. She was a key advisor on Bill Moyers' popular PBS series on religion, has addressed members of the United States Congress, and was one of three scholars to speak at the UN's first ever session on religion. She is a vice-president of the British Epilepsy Association, otherwise known as Epilepsy Action.
Armstrong, who has taught courses at Leo Baeck College, a rabbinical college and center for Jewish education located in north London, says she has been particularly inspired by the Jewish tradition's emphasis on practice as well as faith:
I say that religion isn't about believing things. It's about what you do. It's ethical alchemy. It's about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.
She maintains that religious fundamentalism is not just a response to, but is a product of contemporary culture and for this reason concludes that,
We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.
Awarded the $100,000 TED Prize in February 2008, Armstrong called for drawing up a Charter for Compassion, in the spirit of the Golden Rule, to identify shared moral priorities across religious traditions, in order to foster global understanding and a peaceful world. It was presented in Washington, D.C. in November 2009. Signatories include Queen Noor of Jordan, the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Paul Simon.
Armstrong has been called "a prominent and prolific religious historian" and described as "arguably the most lucid, wide-ranging and consistently interesting religion writer today." She is a regular speaker on the Abrahamic tradition, and after the September 11 attacks she was in great demand as a lecturer, pleading for inter-faith dialogue.
Criticism
Atheist activist Sam Harris criticizes Armstrong's "benign" view of Islam, contending that "Islam, as it is currently understood and practiced by vast numbers of the world's Muslims, is antithetical to civil society." Harris is also strongly critical of Armstrong's "religious apology" of Islamic fundamentalism, accusing her and like-minded scholars of "political correctness."
Armstrong has also attracted the criticism of Christian philosopher and theologian William Lane Craig. Craig has criticized Armstrong's "anti-realist" views about statements concerning God, particularly her assertion that "'God' is merely a symbol that points beyond itself to an indescribable transcendence." Craig argues that Armstrong's view of God as ineffable is "self-refuting" and "logically incoherent.
Honors
1999 - Media Award, Muslin Public Affairs Council
2000 - Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize, University of Tübingen
2006 - Doctor of Letters, Aston University
2008 - TED Prize
2008 - Freedom of Worship Award, Roosevelt Institute
2011 - Nationalencyklopedin's International Knowledge Award
2011 - Honorary Doctor of Letters, University of St. Andrews
2014 - Honorary Doctor of Divinity, McGill University
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 11/5/2014.)
Book Reviews
Elegant and powerful.... Both erudite and accurate, dazzling in its breadth of knowledge and historical detail.... [Armstrong] seeks to demonstrate that, rather than putting the blame on the bloody images and legends in sacred texts and holy history, we should focus on the political contexts that frame religion.
Mark Juergensmeyer - Washington Post
[A] bold new book.... Armstrong makes a powerful case that critics like Dawkins ignore the lessons of the past and present in favor of a "dangerous oversimplification."... [Her argument] is strong enough to change minds.
Randy Dotinga - Christian Science Monitor
A timely work....This passionately argued book is certain to provoke heated debate against the background of the Isis atrocities and many other acts of violence perpetrated around the world today in the name of religion.
John Cornwell - Financial Times
With exquisite timing, religious historian Karen Armstrong steps forth with Fields of Blood . . . Laden with example.... [Armstrong’s] overall objective is to call a time-out. Think before you leap to prejudice, she says.... Among the most interesting stuff in [her] book is her deconstruction of the modern Islamic stereotype.... In the end, the point Armstrong feels most adamant about is that by blaming religion for violence, we are deliberately and disastrously blinding ourselves to the real, animating issues in the Middle East and Africa.
Patricia Pearson - Daily Beast
Detailed and often riveting...a mighty offering.... Armstrong can be relied on to have done her homework and she has the anthropologist’s respect for the ‘otherness’ of other cultures . . . [Her] oeuvre is extensive, bringing a rare mix of cool-headed scholarship and impassioned concern for humanity to bear on the vexed topic of religion.... [And she] is nothing if not democratic in her exposition.
Salley Vickers - Guardian (UK)
Eloquent and empathetic, which is rare, and impartial, which is rarer.... [Armstrong] ranges across the great empires and leading faiths of the world. Fields of Blood is never less than absorbing and most of the time as convincing as it is lucid and robust.... [This] wonderful book certainly cleanses the mind. It may even do a little repair work on the heart.
Ferdinand Mount - Spectator (UK)
From Gilgamesh to bin Laden, [Armstrong covers] almost five millennia of human experience.... Supplying the context of what may look like religiously motivated episodes of violence, in order to show that religion as such was not the prime cause.... She is no doubt right to say that the aggression of a modern jihadist does not represent some timeless essence of religion, and that other political, economic and cultural factors loom large in the stories of how and why individuals become radicalized.
Noel Malcolm - Telegraph (UK)
Fluent and elegant, never quite long enough...as much about the nature of warfare as it is about faith.... [Armstrong] is taking issue with a cliché, the routine claim that religion, advertising itself as humanity’s finest expression, has been responsible for most of the woes of the species.... The Crusades, the Inquisition, the Wars of Religion, even modern "jihadi" terrorism: each is investigated.... The picture is bleak, but certainly accurate.... Exploitation and oppression continue...but these provide a challenge for the godly and the godless alike. The proposition, like the book, is noble.
Ian Bel - Sunday Herald (Scotland)
(Starred review.) Provocative and supremely readable...the comparative nature of [Armstrong’s] inquiry is refreshing.... Bracing as ever, [she] sweeps through religious history around the globe and over 4,000 years to explain the yoking of religion and violence and to elucidate the ways in which religion has also been used to counter violence.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) A well-written historical summary of what have traditionally been viewed as "religious" wars, showing convincingly that in pretty much all cases it was not so much religion as it was political issues that fueled the conflict. —Augustine J. Curley, Newark Abbey, NJ
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Armstrong again impresses with the breadth of her knowledge and the skill with which she conveys it to us.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Epic in scale...a comprehensive and erudite study of the history of violence in relation to religion.... Armstrong leads readers patiently through history...her writing is clear and descriptive, her approach balanced and scholarly.... An intriguing read, useful resource and definitive voice in defense of the divine in human culture.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Fields of Blood:
1. Talk about Karen Armstrong's central theory that economics and politics have been the underlying causes of religious violence throughout history. Is her argument persuasive? Does her premise hold true today?
2. What have you learned about the various faiths that Armstrong covers—the three Abrahamic religions, as well as the Eastern religions? What surprised you or struck you as particularly noteworthy?
3. Discuss Armstrong's concept of the three different evolutionary stages of the human brain: "limbic," emotional, and reasoning. How does each of those stages play out in responses to violence and/or religion.
4. Is the Western world's belief in the separation of church and state a viable model for other cultures around the globe?
5. Does Fields of Blood give you cause for hope of peace?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, on and off line, with attribution. And if you have developed questions for your book club and would like to share them, we'd love to include them here—and give you credit. Thanks.)