Margaret Placentra Johnston

Margaret is proud to announce the publication of her second book. In Overcoming Spiritual Myopia: A View Toward Peace Among the Religions, the provincial nature of exclusive belief systems is characterized as a culture-wide Spiritual Myopia. Its symptoms include Personification, Literalism, Fundamentalism, Triumphalism, simplistic Binary Logic and the Need for Certainty. New Lenses for Spiritual Clarity include Global Communications and Cultural Intermixing, the Perennial Philosophy, Big History, the New Physics, the Interfaith Movement and Interspirituality. 

 

While challenging current assumptions, Overcoming Spiritual Myopia presents a hopeful view for an inclusive, interconnected and more loving society that would be ours if only more people could appreciate the unifying potential of postmodern spiritual understandings. 

 

Margaret's first book, Faith Beyond Belief: Stories of Good People Who Left Their Church Behind, was named GOLD WINNER of the 2013 Nautilus Book Award in Religion/ spirituality (Western.) 

 

As a practicing Optometrist for over three decades, Dr. Margaret Placentra Johnston's writing is aimed at encouraging expanded spiritual vision. She challenges readers to examine certain aspects of human existence that are only becoming available today in light of recent cultural and scientific developments. Globalized communications are exposing us to spiritual wisdom from other cultures, scientific discoveries show the universe to be much more complex than we ever thought, and studies about individual and cultural human development paint quite a different picture than that promoted in conventional organized religion and that supported by conservative values. 

 

Margaret laments the divisive and insular concepts still promoted today in popular religion and the misguided ills this causes in our multicultural world. She also regrets that by now so many have thrown the proverbial “baby” of spiritual awareness out with the “bathwater” of the literal religious beliefs they have reasoned themselves out of. She remains amazed that our mainstream culture has so successfully suppressed broader spiritual awareness that so many educated, well-informed people still limit themselves to a choice between outmoded literalist beliefs and stark atheism.

 

Margaret is confident that helping people move beyond the #spiritualmyopia of conventionality has the power to bring an end to religious intolerance and to bring about a kinder, more gentle world. 

Margaret offers courses and speaks to groups on the topic of spiritual development, and has been interviewed on numerous radio shows. She has two grown sons and lives with her husband in Northern Virginia.