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brice_mo's review
4.0
This was refreshing.
I think it's increasingly difficult to figure out where and how personal faith should intersect with politics, particularly as Christian nationalism continues to adopt any perverted contortion it needs to justify unchecked power.
I don't think the content of this book is particularly revolutionary, and yet it feels revolutionary for someone to suggest that religiously motivated self-sacrifice can have a political impact—a yielding of power to allow for grace.
I'm so accustomed to Christians adopting the "Did God really say?" serpentine approach to the character of Christ that it feels cathartic for someone to celebrate humility rather than suggest that Christians are meant to control every sector of public life.
I think it's increasingly difficult to figure out where and how personal faith should intersect with politics, particularly as Christian nationalism continues to adopt any perverted contortion it needs to justify unchecked power.
I don't think the content of this book is particularly revolutionary, and yet it feels revolutionary for someone to suggest that religiously motivated self-sacrifice can have a political impact—a yielding of power to allow for grace.
I'm so accustomed to Christians adopting the "Did God really say?" serpentine approach to the character of Christ that it feels cathartic for someone to celebrate humility rather than suggest that Christians are meant to control every sector of public life.
gijs's review
1.0
Don’t expect a well thought through and researched expose on the phenomenon of sacrafice; this is a sorry heap of pretentious babble cloaked in a mantle of excessive quotations.
jedwardsusc's review
4.0
Eagleton offers a complex narrative of sacrifice that blends religious and literary references into an effective reimagining of sacrifice as the ground of political revolution. I found it particularly notable for its description of the crucifixion narrative and its nuanced critique of postmodernism's libertarian tendencies.
aimiller's review
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
Just a really exceptional look at sacrifice and how sacrifice--radical sacrifice--can help explain and explore a whole series of ways we need to be living an ethical life. Eagleton's sources that he draws on to lay out arguments around sacrifice, and examples he uses to discuss them, are expansive but he manages to make most of them approachable in breaking down their arguments and I really felt like I understood many of his points, and that they were in fact highly clarifying in a larger sense. The part about forgiveness in particular struck me as deeply useful as a place for jumping off to more thinking and discussion, though so much else also was really useful and clarifying for me. (I will also say that his explanation of original sin is also more approachable and compelling than any I've heard or read before!)
I'm walking away from this wanting both to reread this (with my own, non-library copy so I can write in it properly,) and wanting to read like everything Eagleton has written ever, so that's a big endorsement in and of itself. Both accessible and thought provoking! Ideal!
I'm walking away from this wanting both to reread this (with my own, non-library copy so I can write in it properly,) and wanting to read like everything Eagleton has written ever, so that's a big endorsement in and of itself. Both accessible and thought provoking! Ideal!
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