14 LISTENER SEPTEMBER 7 2019
‘I
t is no good just hating it. Religion is a fact of human life. It
is an art form, it is something we have always done, but we
have a genius as a species for fouling things up and taking
something that is wonderful and making a monster of it.
There is a lot of bad religion around.”
Karen Armstrong, 74, theologian and scholar, is on the
phone from her book-lined study in an 18th-century house
in Islington, London, where she has spent much of herGODS & MON
The great religions’ sacred
texts have been misused
to inflame selfishness,
bigotry and even murderous
hatred. by SALLY BLUNDELL
RELIGION