The MWS Podcast 100: Karen Armstrong on Religion and the Charter for Compassion

We are joined today by the religious historian and best-selling author Karen Armstrong who has been described as “arguably the most lucid, wide-ranging and consistently interesting religion writer today” (Wikipedia). She is perhaps best known for her books on comparative religion, including A History of God, A Short History of Myth and The Spiral Staircase. Her work focuses on commonalities of the major religions, such as the importance of compassion and the Golden Rule and her latest book Fields of Blood challenges the notion that the wars are generally caused by religion. She received the TED prize in 2008 which was the impetus for the creation of The Charter for Compassion, a document which urges the peoples and religions of the world to embrace the core value of compassion. She’s going to talk to us today about religion, the Charter for Compassion and how they might relate to the Middle Way.


MWS Podcast 100: Karen Armstrong as audio only:
Download audio: MWS_Podcast_100_Karen_Armstrong

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About Barry Daniel

I live in the Lake District in the UK where I run a guesthouse with my partner Kate and my cat Manuel. I enjoy painting, hillwalking, reading, visiting and entertaining friends, T’ai Chi and playing the guitar. I’m engaged to a certain degree in the local community, as a volunteer with Samaritans and I’m a fairly active member of the local Green party. I’ve had a relatively intuitive sense of the Middle Way most of my adult life but it found a greater articulation and a practical direction through joining the society. It’s also been interesting and great fun engaging with other people with a similar outlook. My main contribution to the society is conducting the podcast interviews, something that gives me a lot of satisfaction and that I’ve learnt a lot from.

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