Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong
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November 2009 55
56 Foreign Policy
and Ignorant."
. The new atheists insist vehe
mently that religion is puerile and
irrational, belonging, as Hitchens ar
gues, to "the infancy of our society."
This reflects the broader disappoint
ment among Western intellectuals that
humanity, confronted with appar
ently unlimited choice and prosperity,
should still rely on what Karl Marx
called the "opiate" of the masses.
But God refuses to be outgrown,
even in the United States, the richest
country in the world and the most reli
gious country in the developed world.
None of the major religions is averse
to business; each developed initially in
a nascent market economy. The Bible
and the Koran may have prohibited
usury, but over the centuries Jews,
Christians, and Muslims all found
ways of getting around this restriction
and produced thriving economies. It is
one of the great ironies of religious his
tory that Christianity, whose founder
taught that it was impossible to serve
both God and mammon, should have
produced the cultural environment
that, as Max Weber suggested in his
1905 book, The Protestant Ethic and
the Spirit of Capitalism, was integral to
modern capitalism.
Still, the current financial crisis
"God Is Bad for Women."
shows that the religious critique of
excessive greed is far from irrelevant. It is unfortunately true that none of the major world religions
Although not opposed to business, has been good for women. Even when a tradition began positively for
the major faith traditions have tried to women (as in Christianity and Islam), within a few generations men
counterbalance some of the abuses of dragged it back to the old patriarchy. But this is changing. Women in all
capitalism. Eastern religions, such as faiths are challenging their men on the grounds of the egalitarianism that
Buddhism, by means of yoga and other is one of the best characteristics of all these religious traditions.
disciplines, try to moderate the ag One of the hallmarks of modernity has been the emancipation of wom
gressive acquisitiveness of the human en. But that has meant that in their rebellion against the modern ethos,
psyche. The three monotheistic faiths fundamentalists tend to overemphasize traditional gender roles. Unfortu
have inveighed against the injustice nately, frontal assaults on this patriarchal trend have often proven coun
of unevenly distributed wealth?a terproductive. Whenever "modernizing" governments have tried to ban
critique that speaks directly to the gap the veil, for example, women have rushed in ever greater numbers to put
between rich and poor in our society. it on. In 1935, Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi commanded his soldiers to
To recover from the ill effects of shoot hundreds of unarmed demonstrators who were peacefully protesting
the last year, we may need exactly against obligatory Western dress in Mashhad, one of Iran's holiest shrines.
that conquest of egotism that has Such actions have turned veiling, which was not a universal practice before
always been essential in the quest for the modern period, into a symbol of Islamic integrity. Some Muslims today
the transcendence we call "God." claim that it is not essential to look Western in order to be modern and
Religion is not simply a matter of sub that while Western fashion often displays wealth and privilege, Islamic
scribing to a set of obligatory beliefs; dress emphasizes the egalitarianism of the Koran.
it is hard work, requiring a ceaseless In general, any direct Western intervention in gender matters has back
effort to get beyond the selfishness fired; it would be better to support indigenous Muslim movements that are
that prevents us from achieving a agitating for greater opportunities for improved women's rights in educa
more humane humanity. tion, the workplace, and politics.
Karen Armstrong has spent the past 25 gion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New explain shifts in belief over time, and Econo
years writing about the centrality of religion to York: W.W. Norton, 2004), Richard Dawkins' mist editors John Micklethwait and Adrian
the human experience. Before her most recent The God Delusion (New York: Houghton Mif Wooldridge's God is Back (New York: Pen
book, The Case for God (New York: Knopf, flin, 2006), and Christopher Hitchens' God Is guin, 2009), examining the curiously vital
2009), she wrote The Bible: A Biography Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything relationship between modernity and religion.
(New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2007), an (New York: Hachette Book Group, 2007).
account of the not entirely orthodox way that Religion scholar John Esposito and polling
the Bible came into being. Recently, some books have sought out expert Dalia Mogahed argue in Who Speaks
a middle ground between atheism and for Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really
Over the last few years, the so-called New fundamentalism. These include Robert Think (New York: Gallup Press, 2007), a book
Atheists have become increasingly vocal about Wright's The Evolution of God (New York: based on more than 50,000 interviews in
the dangerous shortcomings of religion in such Little, Brown and Company, 2009), which Muslim countries, that Westerners have been
books as Sam Harris' The End of Faith: Reli incorporates evolutionary psychology to getting Islam wrong for decades.
60 Foreign Policy