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A Different Mode of Encounter: Egalitarian Liberalism and the Christian Tradition
Abstract
This essay reads Politics and Passion as a philosophical complement to theological
projects that see no innate conflict between Christianity and liberalism and
considers the significance of Waltzer’s “more egalitarian liberalism” from the
perspective of one who believes there to be compelling theological, ethical
and political grounds for “making common cause” with liberalism. Liberal
human rights discourse provides the lens through which this case is argued.
This essay endorses the revisions proposed in Politics and Passion and suggests
that developments in human rights discourse since the early twentieth
century allows one to regard this discourse as a still unfinished version of
Waltzer’s more egalitarian liberalism. I argue that it is precisely because of the
pressures identified by Waltzer that a thicker, more contextually varied conceptualization
of rights has been generated. Moreover, when human rights
language is understood as a discourse of egalitarian rather than emancipatory
liberalism, then the claims that it is irredeemably secular, individualistic and
voluntaristic, and that its adoption will result in the marginalization of Christian
narrative traditions, are no longer tenable.
projects that see no innate conflict between Christianity and liberalism and
considers the significance of Waltzer’s “more egalitarian liberalism” from the
perspective of one who believes there to be compelling theological, ethical
and political grounds for “making common cause” with liberalism. Liberal
human rights discourse provides the lens through which this case is argued.
This essay endorses the revisions proposed in Politics and Passion and suggests
that developments in human rights discourse since the early twentieth
century allows one to regard this discourse as a still unfinished version of
Waltzer’s more egalitarian liberalism. I argue that it is precisely because of the
pressures identified by Waltzer that a thicker, more contextually varied conceptualization
of rights has been generated. Moreover, when human rights
language is understood as a discourse of egalitarian rather than emancipatory
liberalism, then the claims that it is irredeemably secular, individualistic and
voluntaristic, and that its adoption will result in the marginalization of Christian
narrative traditions, are no longer tenable.