Don’t I feel special

I skimmed The Observer’s profile of Karen Armstrong yesterday, but I must have done a sloppy job of it, because I failed to notice something that if I’d really been properly skimming, would have jumped out at me. I never would have known about it if Nicholas Lawrence hadn’t told me.

But like Kissinger, Armstrong has enemies. Many devout Catholics quietly accuse her of treachery, while professional theologians despise her for emphasising the opposition between rationality and faith. Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom have accused her of being a religious apologist who covers up inconvenient texts to bolster the idea there is no conflict between modern morality and religion in matters, for instance, of gender and sexuality.

Well now I call that handsome! I should send Vanessa Thorpe a box of chocolates. Really – many devout Catholics, and professional theologians, and JS and me. Pretty select company, do admit. The sum total of Karen Armstrong’s enemies (by which is meant, people who think Karen Armstrong is wrong about some or many things), and I get to be in that august company. I even get to be named. I think that’s pretty exciting.

Mind you, she could have plugged the book while she was at it, but one can’t have everything.

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