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Razón, Fe Y Revolución (2012)

by Terry Eagleton(Favorite Author)

3.85 of 5 Votes: 4

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Paidós

review 1: Since the book was based on Eagleton's contribution to a lecture series it has more of an informal, conversational tone. It's a unique critique of the so-called New Atheist movement (mostly Hitchens and Dawins, whom he collectively refers to as "Ditchkins"). It's a stinging polemic from a Marxist perspective, so it's not geared to make many friends from any perspective. Although Eagleton is a believer himself, the book will challenge Christians and atheists alike, and it challenges capitalism nearly more than anything else!
review 2: Too much style, not enough substance. While I admit I laughed quite a bit, Eagleton doesn't say very much, at least not very much that is tenable. He takes aim at even more incorrect thinkers, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitche... morens, and, while knocking them down quite easily, seems also pretty easy to knock down. He made me laugh a lot, but I can't comfortably endorse his Marxism or his liberation theology. Eagleton argues briefly that Dawkins and Hitchens have heretical ideas of God and that even if they believed them, they would be in the wrong. First, religion is not about "believing something exists." It is primarily "about action" -- primarily a relationship. Eagleton points out, again quite rightly, that Dawkins and Hitchens commit the intellectual sin of comparing the worst to the best rather than the best to the best--that is, comparing western medicine to suicide bombers. To have a real comparison, one must compare the best of both (western medicine to the saints) and the worst to the worst (Hiroshima to the Inquisition). Anything else is dishonest.His account of the Gospel, though, is a bit off. I understand that he is using some rhetorical artifice, namely, that he is trying to make it as shocking and non-"pie in the sky" as possible. Of course, he is largely right and has some great quotes, "The New Testament is a brutal destroyer of human illusions. If you follow Jesus and don't end up dead, it appears you have some explaining to do. The stark signifier of the human condition is one who spoke up for love and justice and was done to death for his pains. The traumatic truth of human history is a mutilated body." This is obviously great stuff.He is even right when he points out that capitalism, though it grew out of Protestantism, has been a leech on authentic faith, leaving us with televangelists and New Age freaks. He is even right when he criticizes the postmodernists, the relativists (though he quotes Nietzsche with some approval), but there is nothing he nor any other Marxist in history can do to make the math come out right. Eagleton continually claims that both Christianity and Marxism betrayed their founders and have never really been tried. This may be acceptable to a Marxist but not to a Christian. If Christianity is real Christianity, he rightly says, it must be shocking. If it isn't shocking then it isn't real Christianity anymore. While Eagleton is hilarious and eloquent, there is nothing he or anyone can do to vindicate liberation theology or Marxism. These lectures then, are an intellectual great breaking two butterflies upon a wheel. less

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