Margaret Atwood: "I'm Not Anti-Religious"

Atwood speaking at the Parliament of World Religions

I learned three surprising things about Canadian author Margaret Atwood recently.

First, she isn’t anti-religious—despite what some might think because of her book, and popular TV series, The Handmaid’s Tale.

When you consider that Gilead, the fictional republic in The Handmaid’s Tale, is a fundamentalist theocracy where the Bible is used to justify and guide the totalitarian regime’s oppressive policies—especially towards women—it’s easy to conclude Atwood is against religion.

But she says that’s not the case.  

I heard her speak about climate change and the role of women at the November 1-7 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Toronto. 

During a Q & A, one of the first questions she was asked was about her stance on religion.

“I’m not anti-religious,” replied Atwood, who calls herself an agnostic. “I just think religion has often been misused in the service of totalitarianism.”

That doesn’t mean that “religion leads to totalitarianism,” she added. “We’ve had some atheistic totalitarianism.”

In an interview with American blogger AnnaCzarnik-Neimeyer, she elaborated on this question.

“People have sometimes said to me, ‘Oh, this book [The Handmaid’s Tale] is really anti-religion,’” she said.

“And I’ve said, ‘No, that’s not the point.’”

Religion, she said, has been “used as a hammer to whack people on the heads with. But it also has been—and is today—a sustaining set of beliefs and community that get people through those things.”

The second surprising thing I learned about Atwood is she believes religion has a role to play to “get people through” climate change.

During her presentation at the World Parliament of Religions, she said most faith traditions promote the idea of caring for creation.

“Unless people of faith get behind fixing the planet, it’s not going to happen,” she stated.

“We need people [of faith] who are vested in the earth,” she added.

And the third surprising thing I learned is that Atwood supports A Rocha, an international Christian environmental organization that promotes a “biblical call to steward creation.”

As it turns out, Atwood is a big supporter of A Rocha’s Canadian branch. She has participated in fundraising events for them in B.C. and Ontario.

She even lent her name for their website, where a blurb from her says: “If all Christians were like those in A Rocha, ours would be a radically different world.”

At one of those events, she said the organization “parallels the efforts of the fictional God’s Gardeners”—a small community of survivors of biological catastrophe in her book The Year of the Flood—by “seeking to cultivate a convergence of ecology, Scripture, and stewardship.”

Curious about how she became involved with the organization, I called Leah Kostamo, co-founder of A Rocha Canada with her husband, Markku.

It goes back to 2014, Kostamo told me, when she and Markku were booked on the same episode with Atwood on the Christian TV talk show Context With Lorna Dueck.

Titled God’s Gardeners, the show was about the need for Christians to care for the planet. Dueck thought it might be interesting for Atwood to actually meet a couple of “God’s gardeners”—the Kostamos.

Something clicked between them during the show, Kostamo said. It sparked a relationship that continues today with the two staying in e-mail contact about the organization.

“It’s humbling to have her recognize our work,” she says, noting that one of A Rocha’s goals is to build bridges between religious and secular environmentalists.

“Having an ally like Margaret shows we are able to build those bridges,” she adds.

A Rocha has had a presence in Manitoba since the early 2000s. It opened an office in Winnipeg a year ago.

According to A Rocha Manitoba director Scott Gerbrandt, its goal is to help people of faith to “take practical action” to address environmental issues, and “cultivate hope” that change is possible.

Based out of Canadian Mennonite University’s Centre for Ecological and Economic Resilience, one its big projects is the Boreal Ecology Centre in East Braintree, where visitors can learn more about the environment and talk about ways communities can be involved in creation care initiatives.

“The story of Christian faith is the story about the restoration of all creation,” he says. “We want to help people connect their faith with practical actions.”

Who knows? Maybe one day Margaret Atwood could even come to Winnipeg to give their efforts a boost.