Can we define religion when scholars cannot even agree on what it is?
In short: Karen Armstrong, a former nun turned influential religious commentator, has spent decades exploring the common threads of human faith. Yet, the formal study of religion remains a fractured field, struggling to define its own subject matter. Is religion a universal human experience, or merely a collection of disparate, subjective practices?
The academic study of religion emerged as a formal discipline in the 19th century, drawing on diverse fields like anthropology, psychology, and philology. Despite this interdisciplinary effort, scholars have failed to reach a consensus on a core definition. Attempts to identify a universal element—such as the sacred, the numinous, or belief in deities—consistently face objections because religious traditions are too varied, with some faiths even treating gods as peripheral figures.
Karen Armstrong’s own journey reflects this complexity. After leaving a seven-year tenure in a teaching convent, she transitioned from a conservative background to a more mystical, liberal perspective. Her work, including A History of God and The Great Transformation, focuses on the commonalities between major traditions, particularly the Golden Rule. She argues that religion is less about rigid dogma and more about the practice of compassion, a theme that culminated in her 2008 TED Prize wish: the creation of a global Charter for Compassion.
The challenge of studying religion is compounded by the tension between objectivity and subjectivity. Scholars often debate whether one can truly understand a faith without practicing it, especially since religious experience is inherently internal. Furthermore, some thinkers, such as Karl Barth, have attempted to separate the transcendent nature of revelation from religion as a human construct. Armstrong’s work navigates these intellectual waters by looking for the shared human impulses that drive religious history, moving beyond the traditional boundaries that often divide the field.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Karen Armstrong | Biography, Books, & Facts | Britannica
- Also: Karen Armstrong
- Also: Karen Armstrong | Speaker | TED
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