My Religion is Kindness

Karen Armstrong is a noted religious historian and former Roman Catholic Nun. Her most recent book, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of our Religious Traditions, explores the evolution of several major religious traditions in what is known as the Axial Age between 900 and 200 BCE. In a recent interview with the magazine Zions Herald, she talked about the evolution of her own religious beliefs. Responding to a question about whether there might be a new religion that emerges that blends together the ideas common to all religious traditions, she said:

I don't think we need a new religion. I think we've got what we need. It's there. All the religions teach the same things. I was with the Dalai Lama in September, and he said to a Buddhist girl, a Buddhist American: "You know, really, you might as well have stayed Christian. There is no need to convert from one religion to another. They all teach the same. They all teach kindness and compassion."

My religion, you see, is kindness. That's it. And that is a constant discipline. Whereas people often want spiritual highs and lows and exotic experiences--that's so much rubble. You get your experiences of transcendence--this is what the real practicioners say--through the practice of the Golden Rule. And anything else can be a bit of an ego trip.

My religion is kindness. Is there a more challenging spiritual discipline? Is there any greater need in our world today than for Christians and Muslims and Jews and Buddhists and Hindus and pagans and athiests to search their scriptures, their heritage, and their hearts and find the stories of compassion, forgiveness, love, and the golden rule, and to seek to make those stories the ground and goal of their own religious path? My religion is kindness. Can we make that our religion?