Engriced a tippet, best-selling author and Ted Price winner Karen Armstrong has been

called the most provocative, original, and inclusive thinker about religion in the modern

world.

Yet at one point in her career, she set out to debunk the Christian faith.

Instead, she found Christianity filled with new ideas, and she discovered a delight in

other religions as well.

I'll speak with Karen Armstrong about her love for figures like the Apostle Paul, the

Prophet Muhammad and Buddha.

You miss the essence of these people.

If you imagine them just sitting uttering a list of doctrines, I think we should take

great care when we write our theology so that when people listen to a theological idea,

they feel touched as when they read a great poem by say Milton or Dante.

This is Speaking of Faith, stay with us.

This public radio podcast is supported by the Fetzer Institute as part of its campaign

for Love and Forgiveness, online at loveandforgive.org.

I'm Christa Tippet.

Karen Armstrong has a new bestseller, the case for God, and this month she unveils the

charter for compassion, a kind of global call to action she initiated after winning the

prestigious Ted Price in 2008.

When I interviewed Karen Armstrong in 2004, I wanted to understand the woman behind the

ideas, what compels her, and how she evolved from a disillusioned young nun into a thinker

with a singular influence on religious understanding in our time.

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