The Battle for God

Yet she also acknowledges the irony of how fundamentalism and Western materialism seem to urge each other on to greater excesses. To "prevent an escalation of the conflict, we must try and understand the pain and perception of the other side," she pleads. With her gift for clear, engaging writing and her integrity as a thorough researcher, Armstrong delivers a powerful discussion of a globally heated issue. Part history lesson, part wake-up call, and mostly a plea for healing, Armstrong's writing continues to offer a religious mirror and a cultural vision. --Gail Hudson

Product Description
In our supposedly secular age governed by reason and technology, fundamentalism has emerged as an overwhelming force in every major world religion. Why? This is the fascinating, disturbing question that bestselling author Karen Armstrong addresses in her brilliant new book The Battle for God. Writing with the broad perspective and deep understanding of human spirituality that won huge audiences for A History of God, Armstrong illuminates the spread of militant piety as a phenomenon peculiar to our moment in history.

Contrary to popular belief, fundamentalism is not a throwback to some ancient form of religion but rather a response to the spiritual crisis of the modern world. As Armstrong argues, the collapse of a piety rooted in myth and cult during the Renaissance forced people of faith to grasp for new ways of being religious--and fundamentalism was born. Armstrong focuses here on three fundamentalist movements: Protestant fundamentalism in America, Jewish fundamentalism in Israel, and Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt and Iran--exploring how each has developed its own unique way of combating the assaults of modernity.

Blending history, sociology, and spirituality, The Battle for God is a compelling and compassionate study of a radical form of religious expression that is critically shaping the course of world history.

The differences of the religions are very big, but every culture has its own Battle for God. You will understand differerent views of this phenomenon and definitely better understand how different people have different views regarding of god.

Brilliantly and enthusiastically written.


Great history, problematical analysis   July 28, 2000
Frank Paris (Beaverton, OR USA)
116 out of 141 found this review helpful

This book tries to understand monotheistic fundamentalism, that is
Muslim, Jewish, and Christian fundamentalism among all the
others. That is the "focus" of the book, such as it
is. Actually, it is a very useful mix, even though the three kinds of
fundamentalism have little in common with each other. But these three
cultures are intimately entwined in modern times, and seeing all three
fundamentalist groups being described at once provides rich
opportunities for insights into why we have the problems we have today
among these three cultures. At any rate, you would be missing an
enormous education reading only the Christian parts. In fact, she
seems to be interested in fundamentalists in the order I listed above
in my first sentence, based on the amount of space she gives each in
this book. Her knowledge of Islam is renowned, and it shows in this
book. But she may perhaps be too close personally to Christian
fundamentalism to treat it with as much dignity and depth as she does
Islamic fundamentalism. But all three fundamentalisms are treated with
a richness of detail that is simply astonishing, and it is all neatly
tied together from an historical point of view.

Armstrong's book by
volume is perhaps 95% objective and superbly organized history, and 5%
philosophy and interpretation. Her interpretations are heavily laden
with theories and assumptions, which she rather cursorily spells out
at the beginning of the book. Much of her interpretation depends on a
distinction between mythos and logos. To simplify, mythos is the
spiritual truth seen in the stories and actions portrayed in sacred
writings and traditions. The stories are regarded as pointing beyond
their literal meaning to spiritual truths that cannot be put into
literal words. Logos is practical life, getting the job done in the
most rational way possible. Armstrong seems to be saying that until
the Protestant Reformation, Christians did not read the Bible
literally, that it was always regarded as stories pointing (literally)
infinitely beyond themselves, at another plane of existence. I'm not
sure I can buy into this....

I have a
problem with Armstrong's constant dependence on the distinction
between mythos and logos. In the late 20th century, which she treats
at the end of her book, her emphasis is on how in "former times"
there was always this separation between the two in everyone's
mind. They each spoke of separate domains and there could be no
conflicts. I am no historian, so I can't judge how true this was in
the past, but it is an oversimplification of what is going on in the
world today. Armstrong would say that when scientific rationalists
started "explaining away" God, fundamentalism rose up as its
implacable enemy. This is what Ian Barbour calls the Conflict
relationship between science and religion. Armstrong seems to think
that prior to scientific theories coming into conflict with a literal
reading of the Bible, everyone embraced what Barbour calls the
Independence relationship between science and religion: separate
domains of equal value in life but not to be mixed together, as they
dealt with separate planes of existence. Fundamentalism gives up
mythos and treats the Bible as logos, and that is the root of the
problem, according to Armstrong. .... Barbour favors Dialog and Integration, and perhaps they
offer a way out of the fundamentalist/humanist conflict. Armstrong
seems only vaguely aware of such possibilities in the last chapter of
her book. ....

Although Armstrong tries to understand why
fundamentalists believe and behave as they do, she does not hold back
her own personal feelings about them. ....





A Fascinating Look At Fundamentalism   May 6, 2000
103 out of 111 found this review helpful

I picked up this book hoping to gain some insight into "why" fundamentalists view the world as they do. Armstrong did her research which I expected (having read "A History of God", I sensed she would accomplish that) and she delivered interesting observations and a wealth of history. What was a pleasant surprise was that rather than trying to 'fight' fundamentalism, she made a real effort to try to 'understand' it (unlike Bruce Bawer in "Stealing Jesus" whose knowledge of fundamentalism history was unfortunately outdone by his bitterness and intent to strike back).

The contrasting of the fundamentalist perspective with the non-fundamentalist perspective was an eye opener. She points out the need for both meaning in life and reason. The trouble with applying a literal understanding of the Scriptures was discussed as well as the problem of relying upon 'reason' alone.

Even though Armstrong's observations were not as exhaustive as the history she describes, she gives you enough history to enable you to decipher and try out some theories of your own. Overall, I was much more impressed with this work than "A History of God".


Rose-colored spectacular: naive, woolly, unreliable   January 13, 2002
Laon (moon-lit Surry Hills)
83 out of 127 found this review helpful

The most influential form of religious fundamentalism today is Islamic: Wahhabism. Wahhabism is named for Muhammed ibn al-Wahhab (1703-1792), who advocated killing those who did not follow strict Islam, including the Turkish sultans but also the unfortunates who came under his rule. Wahhabism is fiercely anti-intellectual, intolerant and violent.

Today Wahhabism is preached in mosques, taught in Islamic schools, and funded by governments and "figures close to government" in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in particular (both dictatorships remain US clients, even after September 2001). It has been increasingly active in the past three decades in the Caucasus, Somalia, Yemen, the former Yugoslavia (where it should be remembered that the worst atrocities were committed by Christians, not Muslims), and in atrocities in Kashmir, the Philippines, Indonesia, Egypt and elsewhere. And of course in New York.

Karen Armstrong's book covers Judaic, Christian and Muslim fundamentalism, but in _Battle for God_'s 442 pages, Wahhab himself is mentioned once and Wahhabism four times, in passing. That the book was written before September 2001 is no excuse: the rise and danger of Wahhabism had been obvious for decades. To practically omit it from her account of fundamentalism seems more than ordinary carelessness.

So why this omission (and there are many others)? First, Karen Armstrong seems a nice person but not an outstandingly clear thinker. She exhibits a tendency to think reality is what one hopes it will be. Thus, she would like to think that Islamic fundamentalists aren't so bad really, that "jihad" is really a sort of internal struggle to become a better person: so she says itys so. (Itys disingenuous to claim that the more warlike connotation of yjihady is only a Western misunderstanding. Armstrong on jihad is like someone who stresses the ypurityy symbolised by the Ku Klux Klan's white robes, hoping people will focus on the spiritual rhetoric and overlook the ropes and guns.)

Second, while Armstrong does acknowledge the murderousness of much religious fundamentalism, my impression is that the unreasoning, utterly committed, faith of the various fundamentalisms appeals to her. She argues for a rapprochement between the secular world and the world of the fundamentalists. She sees the spiritual passion of fundamentalists as something that can add meaning to what she thinks is the aridity or "meaninglessness" of secular thought.

Perhaps. In the same way that giving moral authority to Nazis could be said to add fervour and passion to political life. It seems more credible to think of giving moral authority to religious fundamentalists (including some though not most strands of Christian fundamentalism) in terms of death: the death of freedom, most art, and many other good human things, obviously, but also the deaths of many, many, many people.

Armstrong clearly cannot think outside her own religious background. For example she assumes that monotheism is the "highest" form of religious belief, a product of advanced cultures to which all other kinds of religion led. But by any reasonable standards the cultures that produced the Greek and Roman polytheisms (and their literature, art, politics and jurisprudence) was more advanced than the tribes who eventually killed off the other gods in their pantheon and worshipped YHWH alone. And her YHWH/Allah/Adonai-centric view is insulting to Hindus, the voters in the world's most populous democracy, and to other polytheists, and animists.

Her inability to think outside monotheism means that it never occurs to her to consider one of the most crucial questions in this context. Religion does not drive animists or polytheists to kill, not on the vast scale of the monotheist religions. Instead of congratulating monotheists for their "culture", Armstrong should have asked: Why is it that the monotheist religions are so peculiarly murderous?

Nor does she consider the logic of fundamentalism. Armstrong rejects fundamentalist beliefs because they do not lead to a particularly ynicey worldview. Indeed. But from the neutrality of atheism, it does not seem obvious to me that fundamentalism is ybad religiony. Fundamentalists follow their religionys sacred text. If decent people donyt like the conclusions that yliteral interpretationy of a sacred text leads to, that is surely the fault of the texts, not of fundamentalists.

And if religion is a submission of oneys will and mind to a supposed higher power, fundamentalists are logical in advocating complete rather than partial submission. After all, anyone who decides for themself which bits of the Bible, Koran etc to take literally is placing their own judgement over the words of the text. And once a person has acknowledged that their own judgement is a better guide to truth and decency than their religionys sacred book, why bother with the book at all? Fundamentalists can argue that their worldview is not only better yfaithy than less literal belief, but also more intellectually coherent. But Armstrong merely assumes that fundamentalists offer a perversion of religion.

As well as woolly thinking and the hiding of inconvenient facts (that won't stay under the rug, post September 11), Armstrongys book offers unreliability on detail. One reviewer noted, credibly, that her account of Bahai is inaccurate. With some interest in science, I was first jolted by a serious reference to Carl Jungys nonsense about mandalas and archetypes, then by an uncritical assertion that Freud had ydiscoveredy the ydeath instincty. No wonder Armstrong thinks so little of science that she views fundamentalism with rose-coloured spectacles; she hasnyt a clue where science has been in the last 50 years, or what scientific thinking is. Not to know that Freudys ythanatosy, or ydeath instincty, went the way of yphlogistony decades ago is truly extraordinary.

By page 300 Iyd stopped trusting Armstrongys selection of facts, and I wonyt quote facts she presents without independent confirmation. That makes this book nearly useless to me. I wanted a good overview of the historical origins of fundamentalism, its intellectual background, and a survey of where the fundamentalisms are at now, including the dangers they pose. Iym still looking.

Cheers!

Laon


Armstong's Journey Continues   March 30, 2000
82 out of 92 found this review helpful

I have been following the works of Karen Armstrong for several years. I believe her to be on a fearless quest for Truth. She is not afraid to follow the path where ever it may lead. I can't wait to see where she takes us next.

In "The Battle for God," Armstrong clearly shows Fundamentalists and Modernists can absolutely not understand each other. And, how both sides need to take a clear, objective look at the other's position.

This book is an honorable and respectful treatment of sensitive subject matter.