Is it possible for a Protestant to be opposed to liberal order? Can Protestantism resist the lure of liberalism or stand up against its bullying? Does it have the resources to mount a fundamental challenge? Terry Eagleton doesn't set out to answer this question in his recent Radical Sacrifice, but it's the question the book posed to me.
As his title suggests, Eagleton defines liberalism by a rejection of sacrifice. Liberal wisdom views self-fulfillment and sacrificial self-dispossession as opposites. For Hobbes and latter-day Hobbesians like Ronald Dworkin, self-preservation is our ultimate duty. According to Dworkin, we're obligated to expend ourselves for others, but only if the cost is tolerable.
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