c. 2006 Religion News Service

MONTREAL _ For years, she was tagged the “runaway nun,” the rebellious ex-Catholic with outspoken ideas about religion _ comparing, for example, Pope John Paul II to a Muslim fundamentalist.

Karen Armstrong’s first book, “Through the Narrow Gate,” described her seven years as a nun in a Roman Catholic order, which she quit in 1969. She has since published numerous best-sellers, including “A History of God”; “The Battle for God”; “Islam: A Short History”; “Buddha”; “The Spiral Staircase” and most recently, “The Great Transformation.”

Among the most-quoted experts on religion today, the London-based Armstrong, 61, is a keynote speaker at the interfaith “World Religions After September 11” conference in Montreal.

RNS spoke with Armstrong about the conference, which ends Sept. 15. The interview has been edited for length.

Q: What is your assessment of the state of religious faith five years after 9/11?

A: Well, there’s good news and bad news. The bad news is there is still an immense amount of bigotry and rage on all sides. The rise of extremist forms of Islam are producing distorted visions of the West. Similarly in the West, there is a lot of talk that demonizes Islam and equates it all with violence and terror. That is one part of the story.

The other part of the story is a reaction … (to) this narrow perspective. People are seeing where that narrowness has led and that it produces no cure for the ills of humanity.

All the world religions have a core of compassion … that is absolutely central to all the world’s great traditions. And this pluralism, this new appreciation of other world faiths, has been developing since the 20th century. It is a very important religious development.

Q: How has Islam itself changed, both in the West and in the Islamic world?

A: You have to understand that what the (Sept. 11) terrorists did was against all the tenets of Islam. What we call fundamentalism _ whether it’s Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Sikh _ is profoundly unorthodox. It is actually often anti-orthodox.

So what happened on 9/11 was in no way representative of Islam. It was largely dictated by politics. Politics are at the heart of this.

In the West, unfortunately, the events that have unfolded since 9/11 have tended to attract more people toward this extremist, unorthodox, politicized form of so-called Islam.

There is also a hardening line, and it is often promoted, I’m afraid, by the media, or by unscrupulous politicians who exploit the situation and feed into the (belief) that there’s something in Islam that makes (Muslims) hate our freedom. This is nonsense. We can’t afford that kind of inaccuracy.

And there have been Christians who’ve said the Prophet Muhammad was a terrorist or a pedophile. Again, this is quite contrary to the truth and is dangerous talk that we simply cannot afford in these perilous days.

Q: One of the questions being explored in Montreal is whether to adopt a Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Duties by the world’s religions as a bulwark against extremism. Is such a thing feasible?

A: I think people have different conceptions of how you actually define human rights. In the West, we value freedom of speech more than is possible in some areas of the Muslim world where modernization is at a lower stage of development. Freedom of speech is the result of modernity. It’s modernity, economic and political conditions (that) make freedom of speech possible.

But basically, every single one of the major world faiths is convinced of the absolute sacred holiness of each individual person. If we work on that, I think it is possible.

Q: Do you see that as a positive response to 9/11 from within and among the world’s faiths?

A: 9/11 was a wake-up call to the West about its political behavior in different parts of the world. It was also a wake-up call as to what can happen when bigotry reigns.

I’d like to see a bit more of the different faiths not just pointing a finger at others, but more creative self-criticism of our behavior and our own traditions before we attack others. This is good, sound religious practice.

Very often, institutions and religious leaders are very quick to defend their own tradition and attack others, (but) gloss over inconvenient realities that muddy those clear distinctions.

Q: Do you think the media have over-emphasized religious conflict and differences, or do they contribute to them?

A: I have no desire to put a blanket embargo on all the media, any more than I’m inclined to put an embargo on the whole of Islam or the whole of the West.

But I do think there has not been a sufficient emphasis in the press on the political aspects of 9/11, and too much discussion about “is Islam a violent religion?” _ asking the question in a way that expects the answer to be “yes.”

And (there has been) too much picking out of extremists as being more newsworthy (while) not looking at the many people who are just trotting off to the mosque every week in a perfectly peaceable way. That’s not really news, but I think it needs to be emphasized more.

Q: Five years after 9/11, do you find yourself optimistic or do you despair from time to time?

A: I do despair from time to time. I think what happened in the Middle East this summer has been atrocious. I shudder that the world community can look at what happened in Lebanon without feeling it necessary to intervene.

But there is such a longing for change. People are looking throughout the world at this sea of suffering and we have the means _ if we have the will, we have the means _ to find a solution, if we’re not blinded by chauvinism, short-term economic or oil interests but can look further than our own nose.

We can’t afford to despair because despair leads to atrocities like 9/11, when people feel there’s nothing to lose.

Q: Catholic theologian Hans Kung says there won’t be peace in the nations until there’s peace among religions. Do you agree?

A: Well, I would say there won’t be peace among religions unless there’s peace among the nations … because the political is playing such a large role in the unhealthy religious trends of today.

But I think the solution (lies) not in any narrow doctrinal or dogmatic or denominational sense, but in looking at the duty of compassion _ concern for everybody, and the sacredness of every single human being.

KRE/JL END CSILLAG

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