“The Sex Offender as Scapegoat” – Vigilante Violence and a Faith Community Response – by Hugh Kirkegaard & Wayne Northey
John 12:20 – 33; John 11:49-52:
49But one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! 50You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”
51Caiaphas did not say this on his own. Instead, as high priest that year, he was prophesying that Jesus would die for the nation,52and not only for the nation, but also for the scattered children of God, to gather them together into one.
Wayne Northey: The above is the classic scapegoating text in the New Testament. You will learn much about scapegoating by reading on.
It was my longstanding friend and colleague Hugh Kirkegaard (currently (2021) and for some years Director of Chaplaincy, Correctional Services Canada, Atlantic Region) who inspired and co-authored this paper; and had worked closely in Toronto with B. O. He arranged for CSC funding for us to attend the COV&R (Colloquium on Violence and Religion) Conference at Emory University, Atlanta in 1999, where we presented on what was turned into the paper highlighted below.
You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.—Caiaphas
It has been translated, published in anthologies, and referenced numerous times since, thanks to the power of René Girard’s insights on scapegoating. The original paper is still on the Emory University COV&R ’99 website here.
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