but readers should use their own common sense and knowledge of history as they consider the message that the author trys to present in some cases. She is obviously knowledgeable in this field and I consider her books an excellent source. But I reject some of her opinions, particularly her statement that "in this century, women have managed to change things for the better, and they owe this achievement in large part to their Christian heritage, though they may be unaware ot this". I reject it because it is completely false. Women have obtained all of their rights; to vote, to own property, to keep their inheritance after marriage and freedom from physical abuse at the hands of their own husbands, not with the help of the church/clergy, but inspite of it. The church and clergy fought them every step of the way on every issue and was nothing but an impedement as they have been through out history in many aspects of civil and human rights. True there were some people of faith who advocated for civil rights and womens sufferage. But for the most part, aside from their faith, they were simply 'humanists' and some agnostics, who with or without religion, had human intelligence and a genuine concern for humanity.
If 'intelligent' human beings hadn't made sacrifices and fought the clergy, women would still be second rate citizens who are chattel property of their husbands, to do with what they please, and denied so-called 'artificial'methods of contraception. Civilized people would still be afflicted with small pox,(as they opposed the vaccine at one time), we'd still be kowtowing to some Pope insisting that the earth was 'flat'(rejecting Galileo)in fear of being persecuted. If not for human 'intelligence' and 'reason', we'de still be Stone Age people, squatting in the dust, picking fleas off each other, as they have been in Afghanistan under fundamentalist rule there. The elements of humanism, have been the true moral compass for guiding both religion and humanity out of barbarity and inequality.

Stunning book. How can it be out of print? They must be planning some sort of reissue; maybe she is re-writing. I admit that I have read several others of her books and seen her speak and she is formidable. I think I am more impressed by this book than the others I have read. A remarkably erudite account of how the monotheistic religions of the West (it is NOT just about Christianity, although more space is devoted to that religion; Armstrong is an ex-nun) have systematically created and promulgated myths about the nature of women which have had tragic and violent consequences for them. The ancient complex which has targeted women in the Western collective mind is so immense and so deeply rooted that the book may surprise even those who are aware of it.

It's most unfortunant that this important work is out of print! Karen Armstrong is obviously a master of both history and theology to have explored the plight of women in such a clear easy read. Her treatment of Christianity's historical roots for relegating women to second class status makes it understandable why even now, women's struggle to gain recognition as equal to their male counterparts is still ongoing.

I got this book to see if Karen Armstrong faced many of the same obstacles I did after leaving the convent's "protected" enviroment. The book was engrossing and in many ways close to my experiences after leaving. I had to laugh as we both faced the drafty mini-skirt experience and relief when skirts lengthened. But that adjustment to secular dress is minor to the real adjustments to the secular world.

The hardest journey is the slow and painful shedding of convent life and not recreating it in the new world entered. Like her I stayed in the academic world and recreated a convent life by attending a woman's college. She studied literature, I studied religion. She lived with a special needs child and I taught in a special needs program. The similarities were so shocking as I read I both had to put the book down and pick it upagain. I could not let go of the book and the book of me. At times I felt we were in the same place but I was not as she was in a Roman Catholic convent in England and I was in an Anglican/Episcopalian convent in the United States.

We both shared the convent's abuse rooted in a life of emotional repression as best described by one of her superior's as well as mine. "Feelings do not count." Even our abuse had similarities and life long consequences.. that is why the hardest journey is after leaving. The convent veils had to be cut,torn, penetrated and sugically removed to enter life, human life.

Thank God, we both did.

Dr. Schmidt and the distinguished contributors to The Changing Face of God offer very broad perspective in an easily approachable package. Thanks and admiration to Dr. Schmidt are in order for having the wisdom to share in book form for all to experience an important lecture program at the Washington National Cathedral. I think it serves equally well for group or individual study.

My own "Spiritual Journey" consists of picking up pieces along the way from clergy and lay alike, and seeing how they fit into my personal doctrine puzzle. Comparing and contrasting these perspectives to my own about who God is has helped validate some of my feelings, delineate others, and even dispense with a few. That these learned scholars have some of the same doubts, concepts and questions as I do is compelling; and when presented in so much more eloquent terms than I am capable of thinking in, it is captivating.

No doubt there are many theological authors, lecturers and homilists who can strike a chord in each of us. To me, the distinguishing characteristic of The Changing Face of God is the broad spectrum presented that might, in other circumstances, pose more questions than it answers. Instead, despite the eclectic backgrounds and experiences of the editor and the contributors, a pattern of new thinking about God emerged that helped me reach a new comfort level with my picture of God.

I have never seen a more complete book made for teaching. It is well-written and very interesting for the teacher and student alike. A must-have book for the elementary school teacher!

Each year of the century covered. Politics, history, science, sports and pop culture. A fun read. Fascinating facts. Great infotainment. Exceptional value.

This was the first book I ever read about Jewish mysticism, and it has prompted me to read more. The book is very accessible to readers with only very basic biblical knowledge, and although many of the concepts and Hebrew terms are difficult to grasp, the compiler has added copious notes and an excellent glossary. The cost of the whole book is made worthwhile by the understanding gained of the Ezekiel throne vision provided in the first chapter. Fascinating! Some of the more recent Jewish mystics' writings are not quite as interesting, but if you enjoyed the mystical angle in the movie "Pi", I think you'll be enlightened by the descriptions of the techniques used by these "modern" mystics.

The four medieval mystics discussed here bear witness to the depth and intelligence of English spirituality in the 14th century, and their work may show the way forward for a religion that seems to have become sterile, especially in its Protestant version. Armstrong discusses each of the four mystics in an introduction to selections from their major works that are reproduced here:
(a) The eccentric Richard Rolle of Hampole and his work The Fire Of Love
(b) The author of The Cloud Of Unknowing followed by this deeply moving text
(c) The sober Walter Hilton and his Ladder Of Perfection
(d) Julian of Norwich and her work Revelations Of Divine Love.
My favorite text is The Cloud Of Unknowing which is mentioned in Leonard Cohen's song The Window on his album Recent Songs (1979). It is very accessible in its gentle humor and its emphasis on the heart-felt spiritual experience but I can also relate to the more serious work of Julian of Norwich. Richard Rolle is a bit extreme and one-dimensional for my taste, while I found Walter Hilton to be not "mystical" enough. But all of them journeyed inward to the depths of the self and each in their own way created a personal faith that offers a more intimate experience of the divine. Armstrong's insightful introduction demonstrates how the mystical experience is similar in all religions and her interpretations of these texts are guaranteed to encourage modern seekers of spirituality and transcendence in the Christian tradition. Above all, in this book Armstrong has done much to restore the greatest voices of the long-lost Western mystical tradition to their rightful place. In this 21st century, many adherents of mainstream Christianity may rediscover the mystical experience and find it to be a more meaningful form of religious practice than the conventional and dogmatic expressions of faith.

If you accept what William Blake said, that all religions are one, then you should have no problem accepting that all prayers seek to accomplish the same goal: communication with the divine. For me, there is no distinction between monks singing a Gregorian chant and a group of individuals in saffron robes chanting Hare Krishna. Both strive to evoke God's presence, although they choose to address God by different names. If people realized that there is essentially no distinction between religions, except the names chosen to address God and different messengers teaching the paths to enlightenment, the world would be a better place.

My one critique on this book is that it contains a disproportionate number of Christian prayers. Personally, I would have preferred it to be a little more balanced.

This is a wonderful collection of prayer, which I use on a regular basis to bring in fresh and refreshing prayer forms into the standard Sunday service.

The book's title comes from a prayer offered up by Akhenaten, the monotheistic Egyptian pharaoh who might be described as one of the world's early ecumenicists (although, as a historian, I can argue strongly against that, too).

The book is divided functionally (something that I as a service-constructor appreciate) -- Prayers for Days and Seasons, Prayers of Contrition and Atonement, Prayers of Praise, Rites of Passage, etc. Within each functional category, there are examples from many different religions and time periods. There are indexes both by religious traditions and by first lines of prayers. There is a brief pronunciation guide for those prayers included in their native tongues, and a brief introduction by Karen Armstrong. 'To expect to have faith before embarking on the disciplines of the spiritual life is like putting the cart before the horse. In all the great traditions, prophets, sages, and mystics spend very little time telling their disciples what they ought to believe. Indeed, it is only since the Enlightenment that faith has been defined as intellectual submission to a creed. Hitherto, faith had been seen as a virtue rather than a prerequisite.'

Prayer and meditation, including silence and reflection, has been an integral part of all spiritual practices and almost every religion in history. They all seem to reach for similar things ultimately, even if the particulars are different.

'These teach us that our words cannot define God or the divine mystery, no matter how eloquent our prayer. They can serve only as springboards to the sacred, helping us to open ourselves to the deeper currents of existence and thus to live more intensely and fully.'

In the first section of prayer, entitled Essential Prayers we are given the text of those prayers considered essential by various religions, including the Sh'ma Yisra'el, the Lord's Prayer, the Azan Call to Prayer, Hindu and Buddhist mantras, Native American prayers, Simple Gifts (an essential Shaker prayer), Ein Keilo-heinu (Sephardic Jewish daily prayer), Mayan texts from the Popol Vuh, and Psalm 23.

Other chapters are equally rich in given word to the unspoken mysteries that have been pondered by people everywhere in every time. Masterful scripturally-based prayers are combined with brilliant original prayers; traditional prayers rest side-by-side with modern prayers; the similar cries to God can be seen in the unity-in-diversity that is the role of humanity before the divine.

Sit nomine Domini benedictum,
Ex hoc nunc et usque in saeculum,
Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini,
Qui fecit coelum et terram.

I enjoyed this book for it's view into the cloistered life of a nun- pre-Vatican II era, but the problems I perceived from the author's vocation seems to have resulted more from personality conflicts and clashes than anything. I couldn't relate effectively to her plight and wondered why she stayed as long as she did. I was also bewildered by her declaration that she didn't believe in the resurrection of Christ. I'm still scratching my head over that one since she obviously believed in the virgin birth (which requires alot of faith as well) and the divinity of Christ or else why the heck was she there in the first place??? I think there was more going on in her head when she decided to leave the convent than she leads us to believe, especially considering her more recent books like The History of God. I think maybe one of the mother superiors in her book had it nailed when she said that karen had a problem with intellectual pride.

....cloistered in a psychological as well as a physical sense.
Karen Armstrong, a woman of prodigious intellect and talent, a woman who has written seminal books on the subject of religion, goes inside her own personal experience as a cloistered nun in Through the Narrow Gate.
It's not a particularly pretty picture, this story of her seven years immersed in a life full of bleakness, medical neglect, sexual frustration, and mindless negation of intellect. For someone of Armstrong's mind-set, that last privation must have been hardest to bear. Outside the walls of the cloister, meanwhile, the chaos of the 60s was raging, making the life within more inexplicable - and ultimately, irrelevant.
There is one bright, kind, and encouraging Mother Superior, however, who provides the necessary window of light, a person who provides Armstrong with both a reason to stay and a reason to leave the convent.
It's a blessing for us that she did leave and go on to live her life as a scholar, teacher and author. It's almost an equal blessing, however, that she endured those 7 years and writes about it so poitnantly; it makes her presence in the world all the more valuable.

Behind the walls of the cloister, religious life goes on, hidden, and it is difficult for the lay person or anyone who has never attempted religious life to understand or imagine its character. For this reason, Karen Armstrong's Through the Narrow Gate (1981) provides an uncommon, precious look into religious life not simply in its externals but more importantly from the perspective of the individual psyche of the member of the religious community.

Several aspects of the book commend it for its insights into religious life.

First, the inner religious motivation of the individual is acknowledged so that a transcendent reality is even indicated: "As I looked at the tabernacle, which contained the Real Presence of Christ, I felt a pull toward Him that was almost physical in its intensity" (p. 38).

Second, the strictures that paradoxically both sustain and undermine religious life are highlighted. For example, there is the obligation of unthinking obedience: "One of the things that had to die was my mind....But the mind dies hard. To think and judge is a reflex. How do you ever manage to embrace the absurd?" (p. 163). There is also the injunction against preferential human affection, "particular friendship," so that in some cases the natural emotional life is distorted: "What a fuss! They celebrate when one of the sisters dies, but look at the emotion produced when something happens to a cat! There was something wrong here" (p. 226). In grappling with the many apparent contradictions, the author accounts for the inner struggles that eventually lead her to decide in conscience to leave religious life, and in the process, without condemnation, she raises troubling questions that institutions of religious life would do well to ponder.

Finally, at the moment of truth, the author continues to affirm the validity of the total commitment of the religious to a transcendent reality: "I did want things other than God's love. I wanted human closeness, beauty, freedom of mind....God's love should have been enough" (p. 260).

The whole book, then, affirms the genuine inspiration of religious life, while at the same time upholding the painful decision of the author, who comes across as a person of integrity, to pursue the spiritual quest elsewhere.

The most poignant moment in the book for me is when the author is counseled with words of memorable kindness to separate from the community: "We'll miss you, dear. You yourself. But you must find your own peace. God bless you" (p. 258).

I would agree with Kirkus Reviews, "An emotive, spiritually intimate, and often quite moving memoir...written with affection, some humor, and a bittersweet regret."

Thank you, Karen, for leading us to this refreshing pool wherein we may all find our own reflection.

"In the Beginning" takes a modern look at the teachings of the book that starts it all, Genesis. I suspect that the read should be enjoyable to the believers and unbelievers alike. ( believers, excluding fundamentalists who are offended when anyone suggests anything less than orthodox about Yahweh ) In the earlier portions of Armstrong's work, she hits the nail right on the head about why people misinterpret this book. (and all of scripture for that matter) They treat scripture as a "holy encyclopedia" as she put it. They think that every word in Genesis is literal, and that evolutionary biology is gravely mistaken. Karen reminds us that, "The true meaning of scripture can never be wholly comprised in a literal reading of the text, since that text points beyond itself to a reality which cannot adequately be expressed in words and concepts. " (pp. 5) And that, "Our authors are not interested in historical accuracy." (pp. 7) We might regard a 'myth' as an untruth, but in the premodern world it was regarded as a psychological form charting the inner world. Her commentary's main focus is on the nature of religion, and God himself. She looks at it then and now, and brings up the difference in portrayal as given in the book of Genesis and modern Christian theology. She purports to show God as arbitrary, big emphasis on this, and unpredictable. Not only this but that the Genesis authors are inconsistent when writing about God, we can't fully understand the divine. She compares what "faith" was in that day, how a true religious life was lived, and the emphasis of all the great religions, kindness to others. You should try this work if you would like to open up to an alternate perspective on the God of the Israelites, and his intervention in human antiquity.

In The Beginning is written by the author of The History of God, Karen Armstrong. In The History of God, the author has left us with the indefatigable impression on the depth and width of the her intellectual and rendition power. She has without missing a single bit continued with her immense capabilities in writing In The Beginning. Her objectivity is simple breathtaking, which is almost a novelty in religious authorship.

In The Beginning deals with the first and perhaps most fascination for many, book of the Bible, Genesis. She provides a thorough and a well thought out description of the patriarch's character and personalities and most significantly, of God Himself as presented in Genesis. Any individual with a christianity background, would undoubtedly have a semblance of knowledge of the stories and individuals of the Book of Genesis. Christianity teachings are often absorbed at an early age where trust and naivety are at the forefront of personality traits. And here often lies the spiritual block and impediment of many. Certain interpretations or teachings (based on the convenient of the church or individuals) have been so deeply ingrated that a necessary reinterpretation and different facet of understanding is often impossible.

Karen Armstrong however has managed to transcend these and provided us with almost scientific objectivity in her interpretation and conclusion. Each and every point is based on the written verses in Genesis itself. No religious compunction is felt. The reader is invited to make their own personal interpretation and spiritual discovery.

A revaluation of childhood christianity teaching and belief is often necessary in the adult's spiritual progress in order to obtain a deeper faith in christianity. Such a revaluation is provided in this book and no doubt will be valued by many.

Karen Armstrong's "In the Beginning" came to me at the tail end of a two year study of Christianity. I looked at its dustjacket (a reproduction of Adam from the Sistine Chapel) with indifference, and decided to read it only because it was brief. To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement. For one thing, Armstrong is a lyrical writer -- as a copyeditor, I truly marveled at her sentences for both their clarity and poetry. For another, in this book she does something many clerics and scholars have failed to do: successfully apply meaning to the garbled message of Genesis.

She states her case pretty early on: there is no way to get a coherant understanding of God from reading Genesis. He is utterly contradictory -- creative and all-powerful in one story; vengeful and capricious in the next. This paradox has befuddled many of reader. I, for one, had come to think of Genesis as typical of the flawed meaninglessness of the Bible. But Armstrong has me reconsidering my conclusion. It seems clear, she says, that all the characters in Genesis have to endure afflictions and unfairness. Whether they are favored in God's eyes or not, their lives are difficult. A relationship with God doesn't spare them difficulties -- instead the meaning in their lives is derived in part by making it through their difficulties with their faith intact.

I really enjoyed this book. Just when I had grown tired of a subject, a new author has revived familiar terrain with a fresh perspective. I look forward to reading Armstrong's other books.