Bøger af Karen Armstrong

A fascinating account of the life of St Paul, by the world's foremost religious historian. 'Karen Armstrong is a genius' A. N. Wilson

The war years, the loss of territory, the resettlement of the Karelian population, and the reparations paid to the Allied Forces, were experiences shared by most people living in Finland between 1939 and the late 1950s. Using a family's memoirs, the author shows how these traumatic events affected people; how they coped physically and emotionally.

This timely selection of readings represents the work of some of the best and most influential writers the Christian feminist movement has produced--both in Britain and America. With its helpful introduction and editorial commentary it will be warmly welcomed by all who wish to be better informed about the wide range of key theological issues...

The Man Who Inspired the World's Fastest-Growing Religion Muhammad presents a fascinating portrait of the founder of a religion that continues to change the course of world history. Muhammad's story is more relevant than ever because it offers crucial insight into the true origins of an increasingly radicalized Islam. Countering those who dismiss Islam as fanatical and violent, Armstrong offers a clear, accessible, and balanced portrait of the central figure of one of the world's great religions.

The Bible is a groundbreaking explanation and interpretation of the single most influential text of all time, by the world's foremost religious historian. 'The best sort of popularizing: there is no sacrifice of integrity and no dumbing down.' Edward Norman, Literary Review

The foundation stone of Jewish and Christian scriptures, the power of the Book of Genesis lies in its stories - Creation, the Fall, Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, Jacob and Joseph. Karen Armstrong traces the themes and meanings of these stories, examining what they can still tell us about the human quest for meaning.

Tracing the history of faith from the Palaeolithic Age to the present, the author shows that meaning of words such as 'belief', 'faith', and 'mystery' has been entirely altered, so that atheists and theists alike now think and speak about God - and, indeed, reason itself - in a way that our ancestors would have found astonishing.

A superb introduction to the life and thought of a revolutionary spiritual thinker. 'Karen Armstrong has been one of the most persistent and powerful voices in the eminently respectable task of popularising religious scholarship in the anglophone world' GUARDIAN

A raw, intensely personal memoir of spiritual exploration from one of the world's great commentators on religion.After seven years in a convent, which she left, dismayed by its restrictions, an experience recounted in 'Through the Narrow Gate', Karen Armstrong struggled to establish herself in a new way of life, and became entrapped in a downward spiral, haunted by despair, anorexia and suicidal feelings.Despite her departure from the convent she remained within the Catholic Church until the God she believed in 'died on me', and she entered a 'wild and Godless period of crazy parties and numerous lovers'. Her attempts to reach happiness and carve out a career failed repeatedly, in spectacular fashion. She began writing her bestseller 'A History of God' in a spirit of scepticism, but through studying other religious traditions she found a very different kind of faith which drew from Christianity, Judaism and Islam and, eventually, spiritual and personal calm.In her own words, her 'story is a graphic illustration - almost an allegory - of a widespread dilemma. It is emblematic of a more general flight from institutional religion and a groping towards a form of faith that has not yet been fully articulated but which is nevertheless in the process of declaring itself'. Her lifelong inability to pray and to conform to traditional structures of worship is shared by the many who are leaving the established churches but who desire intensely a spiritual aspect to their lives.'The Spiral Staircase' grapples with the issue of how we can be religious in the contemporary world, and the place and possibility of belief in the 21st-century.