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.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the harsh realities and sacrifices associated with love and justice as portrayed in the New Testament.
Terry Eagleton emphasizes the brutal reality that those who stand up for love and justice often face severe consequences, as highlighted in the New Testament through the figure of Jesus. The quote suggests that the essence of human existence is intertwined with suffering and sacrifice, challenging the illusions people may hold about morality and faith.
In practice
During a sermon reflecting on the sacrifices of historical figures for justice.
Nations sometimes flourish by denying the crimes that brought them into being. Only when the original invasion, occupation, extermination or usurpation has been safely thrust into the political unconscious can sovereignty feel secure.
One side-effect of the so-called war on terror has been a crisis of liberalism. This is not only a question of alarmingly illiberal legislation, but a more general problem of how the liberal state deals with its anti-liberal enemies.
All communication involves faith; indeed, some linguisticians hold that the potential obstacles to acts of verbal understanding are so many and diverse that it is a minor miracle that they take place at all.
Capitalism will behave antisocially if it is profitable for it to do so, and that can now mean human devastation on an unimaginable scale. What used to be apocalyptic fantasy is today no more than sober realism.
Poetry is the most subtle of the literary arts, and students grow more ingenious by the year at avoiding it. If they can nip around Milton, duck under Blake and collapse gratefully into the arms of Jane Austen, a lot of them will.
Works of art cannot save us. They can simply render us more sensitive to what needs to be repaired.
People hurried past, the others of the street, endless anonymous, twenty-one lives per second, race-walking in their faces and pigments, sprays of fleetest being.
History can predict nothing except that great changes in human relationships will never come about in the form in which they have been anticipated.
The genius of a composer is found in the notes of his music; but analyzing the notes will not reveal his genius. The poet's greatness is contained in his words; yet the study of his words will not disclose his inspiration. God reveals himself in creation; but scrutinize creation as minutely as you wish, you will not find God, any more than you will find the soul through careful examination of your body.
RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the grass.
The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity.
There is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves.
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