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Book Review of The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness

The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness
confundido avatar reviewed A must for those at a spiritual crossroad on
Helpful Score: 3


Wonderful.
If hope and faith are grounded on belief in doctrine, what happens when belief begins to crumble?
Armstrong struggles with this question and more with a recounting of the four decades of her adult spiritual life, starting in the tumult of the sixties and bringing us to the tumult of the post-9/11 world. During this time, she explores the importance of belief, doctrine, obedience, and hope in matters of faith, juxtaposing her Christian experience with personal discoveries she garnishes from Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam -- All this before the haunting backdrop of the words of T S Eliot, "Because I do not hope to turn gain / I do not hope..." (Ash Wednesday 1) Armstrong recounts her fall from faith, her climb from a personal darkness, her loss of hope, and how she later reclaimed it, becoming a world-renown religious scholar in the process.