Violence
Renounced: René Girard, Biblical Studies and Peacemaking, Edited by Willard M. Swartley, Telford, PA:
Pandora Press, 2000, 343 pages.
By Wayne Northey
“René Girard is, in my opinion, the most
significant theorist of violence in the twentieth century (p. 72).” So
claims Charles Bellinger in a profound volume entitled The Genealogy of Violence.
Such accolades abound in the academic and increasingly Christian
theological worlds. Not only has Girard
generated an impressive list of publications himself, his work has elicited a
vast array of secondary literature, in particular in the social sciences,
literature, and theology. Since 1990 an
annual gathering called “Colloquium on Violence and Religion” attracts
academics and activists internationally.
A society publishes The Bulletin
of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion, and an award-winning journal, Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and
Culture is published in response to Girard’s work. Recently a five-part Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation Ideas radio series produced
by David Cayley (praised by Girard and repeatedly aired) made Girard’s thought
accessible to a worldwide audience.
It is no surprise then that an historic
peace church tradition, the Mennonites, would hold a conference (in June, 1994)
to interact with René Girard’s thought. As Bellinger writes in the volume
quoted above: “I argue that [Girard presupposes] the paradigm for the
interpretation of Christian history which forms the basis of Anabaptist
thought. This paradigm holds that an
ethically disastrous ‘fall’ of Christian integrity took place during the age of
Constantine. Christianity’s apparent triumph over the
world was in fact a defeat, from this point of view (p. 98).” This book is volume four in “Studies in Peace
and Scripture Series” sponsored by the Institute of Mennonite
Studies.
Many years ago, Jacques Ellul suggested that no theologian would take
Girard seriously due to his nonsacrificial reading of
the biblical texts. On the
contrary! This volume pulsates with just
such dynamic interaction with Girard.
There is a Foreword, a Series Editors’
Preface, an Editor’s Preface, and an Introduction (by the Editor), before one
gets to the two main parts, each made up of seven essays. Part I is entitled “First Reading: Girard for
Biblical Study and Theology”, and Part II, “Second Reading: Girardian Theory,
Biblical and Critical Analyses, and Theological Critique”. While one can become impatient with
preliminaries, each of these is well worth reading. And frankly, the “Introduction” is so well
done by the book’s Editor, it is a stand-alone as the
best succinct book review available.
Nonetheless, I shall persevere…
As Swartley
indicates in the Introduction, “… Girard beckons us to see that Scripture is
the only literature in the world that exposes the violence perpetrated by
humans, sides with the victim, and thus calls humans to renounce violence in
the name of the One who forged for us another way to live and die (p.
26).” “The first seven [essays] lay a
foundation for the reader to understand Girard’s theories and how they interact
with biblical study and basic theological doctrines, especially the atonement
(p. 21).”
Chapter Two begins:
“There is a paradox in human religious experience. On the one hand, religion is a main (perhaps the main) dynamic in death-dealing
violence in the world. On the other
hand, religious faith also often provides the main basis for the fruitful rejection of violence (p. 49).” One can hear John Lennon’s plaintive
sentiment in “Imagine”: “And no religion too…” to appreciate the pathos behind
a desire to rid the world of religiously motivated violence, Christian for
sure, and otherwise. Yet the univocal
voice of the New Testament is nonviolent.
And though religion therein is depicted as violent to the core, and thus
rejected, so is “empire”. “The empire,
ultimately, is violent. The empire is
the force that nailed Jesus to the cross (16:4 – 7; 18:24).
John presents evil not as the threat of anarchy but as the system of
order. This system of order
institutionalizes violence as the foundation of its way of being (p. 62).” Lennon could as legitimately have sung, “And
no government too…” to capture the tragedy of state-sanctioned violence
blessed, since the fourth-century legalization of Christianity by Roman Emperor
Constantine, by majority Christendom including Western democracies which have
as readily slaughtered their tens of thousands as have all totalitarian régimes past and present.
“The empire (or all other states, including democratic ones) asks at
times for loyalty that buttresses power politics and treats with violence any
who threaten the peace and tranquility of the status quo (p. 65).”
Two helpful essays reappraise the books of
Deuteronomy and Joshua. Then the Book of
Hebrews is discussed, a book Girard initially thought failed to
delegitimize scapegoating as revealed in Christ. The writer, Michael
Hardin, observes
helpfully: “This self-critical nature of the Bible is perhaps its most
important asset – in that the religious culture that produced writings
to
justify violence also canonized writings that critique violence (p.
103).” Acknowledging Girard’s earlier difficulty
with Hebrews, Hardin says: “In contrast, our contention is that Hebrews
subverts the sacrificial process, albeit under cover of sacrificial
language
(p. 103).” He helpfully demonstrates his
thesis, concluding: “Our observations have sought to show that this
letter,
while using the language of sacrifice, rejects all connections between
violence
and the sacred. Instead, Hebrews offers
a new paradigm of what real self-giving (human and divine) is all about
(p.
116).”
Chapter Seven presents “An Incarnational Theory of Mimetic Participation” in
understanding the atonement. It is both
critique and affirmation of elements of Girard’s rejection in particular of
satisfaction and penal readings of the atonement. Robin Collins depicts Girard’s reading as
“essentially a highly original version of the moral influence theory… (p.
133).” The essay raises some helpful
alternative considerations, interacts suggestively with other religious
traditions, in particular Buddhism, yet does not deliver adequately an
alternative. Perhaps the author would
find helpful and corroborating J. Denny Weaver’s recent (2001) The Nonviolent Atonement, in its
affirmation of a “narrative Christus Victor” understanding of atonement.
James Williams, author of Chapter Nine,
“King as Servant, Sacrifice as Service: Gospel Transformations”, is both a Hebrew
and a Greek scholar, and noted Girardian researcher. In the essay before us, he explains: “My
thesis is that the New Testament Gospels witness to and represent a
transformation of sacral kingship (p. 179).”
He concludes: “This revising of sacrificial language is a gospel
transformation of the meaning of kingship and sacrifice. It renders the ‘king’ as no longer the
supreme differentiator through violence…
Rather, he now is the differentiator through servanthood,
through giving one-self rather than sacrificing – or letting others be
sacrificed – in war and ritual (p. 194).”
And: “My reading of the New Testament, to this point, leads me to the
conclusion that in most of the instances where clear, heavily freighted
sacrificial language is used, the sacrificial meaning is transformed. This consistency could only be so because the
New Testament has a real transformative center, the innocent victim, Son of
man, Son of God, whose actuality cannot be swallowed up either in historicism
or intertextuality (p. 195).”
As “Professor Emeritus” of Religion at
Syracuse University, a secular setting, Williams makes some telling remarks
about the extensive scapegoating of biblical texts and religion in secular
academic (and other) contexts. These
connect to the immediately foregoing quote: “In intellectual culture there is a
powerful stream of thought that attacks all models of authority, and this means
that Christianity and the Bible are the primary objects of intellectual
hostility… It is an irony of history
that the very source that first disclosed the viewpoint and plight of the
victim is pilloried in the name of various forms of criticism… My code word for this ideology is
‘multiculturalism.’ (Another code term
is ‘political correctness,’…)
“However, it is in the Western world that
the affirmation of ‘otherness,’ especially as known through the victim, has
emerged. And its roots sink deeply into
the Bible as transmitted in the Jewish and Christian traditions… the standpoint of
the victim is our unique and chief biblical inheritance. It can be appropriated creatively and
ethically only if the inner dynamic
of the biblical texts and traditions is understood and appreciated. The Bible is the first and main source for
women’s rights, racial justice, and any kind of moral transformation. The Bible is also the only creative basis for
interrogating the tradition and the biblical texts. Why sell this birthright for a stew of
multiculturalism? (pp. 195 & 196).” In light of this plaintive plea for
acknowledgement of the uniquely transformative power of the biblical text,
Williams writes: “The paradigm periscope, Mark 10:35 – 45 [“Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among
you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all
(verse 43).”], is crucial because it witnesses to the Servant Son of man as the
transformative center of the movement of faith and theology into ethics and
practice. It witnesses also to the
movement of ethics and practice into belief and understanding (p. 196).”
Sandor Goodhart, a Jewish Girardian and biblical
scholar, supplies a creative rereading of Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, in
particular chapters 52 and 53. Along the
way he notes, contrary to much popular Christian scholarly opinion, “The criticism
Jesus makes [of ‘the Jews’] is an internal Jewish affair… It is with the tradition of prophetic
criticism that Jesus speaks, not as repudiation of Judaism, nor of ‘the Jews’ –
of which he is one (p. 204). Goodhart posits the tensions between Jews and Christians
ultimately as “something of a family quarrel.”
He adds: “But considering Judaism and Christianity as part of a family –
and not as a set of independent perspectives – we also open the potential for
reconciliation and consequently for hope (p. 216).” Though he acknowledges this is a long way in
the future!
Chapter Eleven, “Discipleship and Imitation
of Jesus/Suffering Servant: Mimesis of New Creation” by the Editor is a
compelling call to imitation of Christ.
“… what is necessary is a double transformation: that by transcendent
provision we are given an object for mimesis whose very nature and action does
not lead to rivalry when imitated, and that through the empowerment of this One
our human desire(s) be transformed so that we will desire to imitate the nonrivalrous,
nonviolent Person.
“In this chapter I seek to show that major
strands of NT teaching are directed specifically to just this reality:
transformation of desire that enables a positive, nonacquisitive mimesis.
This study seeks to show how foundational and
ubiquitous this idea is in the New Testament (pp. 218 & 219).” The
author accomplishes his task well! Along the way, he challenges
Luther’s view
that any sense of imitation of Christ smacks of works-righteousness.
On the contrary, failure to imitate Christ is
part of the ethical malaise of an ahistorical satisfaction and penal
substitution Atonement that reintroduces the violence renounced by
Jesus, and
leaves Christians ethically unchallenged about living out this
rejection of
violence in favour of love of neighbour/enemy modelled by Jesus! As
Bellinger states in the work cited above,
“To a great extent, the history of Christianity is the history of the
resistance of immature ‘Christians’ to the possibility that they could
actually
become followers [imitators] of Christ (p. 111). Swartley concludes
his study: “A mimesis pattern lies at the heart of NT
thought. Any theology or ethics of the
NT should make this point foundational, but few do… Further, the
pervasive NT teaching on ‘love
of enemy’ and ‘nonretaliation against evil’ is the
outworking of this new mimesis in an ethic for conflictual
relations. To pursue these themes
adequately requires another paper (p. 239).”
The author then points to earlier presentations in the “Studies” series
of which this book is volume four.
Jim Fodor’s
Chapter Twelve, “Christian Discipleship as Participative Imitation: Theological
Reflections on Girardian Themes”, complements Swartley’s
contribution, which he indicates. He
says: “By developing some of Swartley’s ideas in a
more wide-ranging and intentionally theological manner, I hope to set the
notion of imitation and discipleship in a Trinitarian framework that will
encourage a distinctively Christian appreciation of Girard’s insights regarding
mimesis and imitative desire (p. 248).”
Along the way, Fodor critiques Girard’s lack
of theological development of biblical themes, especially the Trinity and the
Cross/Resurrection. He does not fault
Girard for his primary anthropological reading
of the New Testament, rather delineates modifications and supplementations
necessary to affirm Girard theologically.
He concludes: “Christians may, no doubt, find in Girard an important
ally… In these matters, however, the ore
always comes mixed with clay… (p. 266).”
Fodor’s is a sobering biblical challenge and
corrective to aspects of Girardian thought.
Chapter Thirteen by Rebecca Adams, “Loving
Mimesis and Girard’s ‘Scapegoat of the Text’: A Creative Reassessment of
Mimetic Desire” proposes “that we examine the Girardian theory [of mimetic
desire] itself as a metanarrative to see how it
performs according to its own insights about violence (p. 278).” A central critique of Girard’s thought is its
failure to construe positive mimetic desire.
Adams believes that in fact, therefore,
positive mimesis is scapegoated by Girard, a fact he
fails to acknowledge. Her development of
this theme becomes very technical, and presupposes an intimate knowledge of
Girardian theory not present in most readers of this review. Adams proposes that with her corrective to
Girard’s scapegoating of positive mimetic desire that Girard’s “mimetic theory
becomes much more convincing as a general theory, one on which we might build a
common ethic, understanding of human beings, and practice of peacemaking (p.
298).” She spells out several compelling
ramifications of her reassessment. She
concludes: “From a reassessed Girardian point of view, the implication is that
to imitate (follow in the way of) love in the way I have described is to ‘imitate Christ.’ To participate in an intersubjective
dynamic of loving creativity with others through mimetic desire is to imitate, image, or reflect
God. I do not believe it is essential to
have the Judeo-Christian Scriptures to understand, or more importantly, to
participate in this truth. However, I do
believe Christianity does have a unique claim regarding the gospel revelation
from a Girardian point of view, a claim which has been made by no other
religious tradition or human system of thought: that is that Jesus is the full,
historical incarnation of this love which is both fully human and fully divine,
and this love is stronger than any system of death which tries to contain it
(p. 302).”
Finally, Chapter Fourteen, entitled
“Violence Renounced” is a response by René Girard. In it, he revisits “the main subject of the
symposium, which is also my one field of competence, the ‘mimetic theory.’ (p.
308).” Regrettably, he does not interact
with the more critical assessments immediately prior to his own chapter. He asserts however the independently (of
religious faith) verifiable nature of the truth of mimetic desire. “The biblical revelation (exposure) of
mythology is no ‘mystical’ insight. It rests
on commonsensical observations. It
requires no religious commitment to be understood… Far from being an ethnocentric prejudice in
favour of our own religion, the Judeo-Christian claim to unique truthfulness,
almost universally reviled and ridiculed these days, is objectively, verifiably
true (p. 313).” And again: “The traditional
problems that divide Christian believers among themselves and even Christians
from Jews pale into insignificance, it seems to me, compared to the
intellectual and spiritual revolution that the palpable proof of the
Judeo-Christian truthfulness entails.
The mimetic theory turns the supposedly ‘scientific’ basis for religious
scepticism into its very opposite. It does not demonstrate the religious truth
of the Judeo-Christian tradition, which cannot be done, as we all know, but it
does the next best thing: it demonstrates its anthropological truth (pp. 314
& 315).”
In response, I am influenced in the
direction of Bellinger’s critique, in the volume cited already a few times: “In
my opinion, Girard ought to drop the pretense of
adhering to the methodological atheism of social science, which has decreed
that religious postulates are unacceptable foundations for understanding human
behaviour… [that is] the forced agnosticism of the
Enlightenment paradigm (p. 88).”
Furthermore, as Fodor’s essay points out, the
claim of “scientific” verifiability “is nothing more than a certain ability or
explanatory power that enables one to account for all the data (p. 259).” But if this is what is meant, then it is not
so objectively verifiable after all. And
of course, in fact, Girard’s theories are disputed. It is more accurate to say that Girard’s
claims are “true” in the context of a certain community of dialogue (à la
Michael Polanyi) to which he belongs. To
which Bellinger says: “He ought to write straightforwardly as a Christian
apologist and argue that a theological mode of knowing is required for real
insight into human behaviour (p. 88).”
One could wish, given their subsequent
publications, that J. Denny Weaver on Atonement, and Charles Bellinger
on originary violence theories in general, had been brought
into the discussion in this volume.
Their books, both alluded to in this review, significantly contribute
to
the issues raised in this volume.
Nonetheless, the entire collection of essays is eminently worthwhile
reading. Not one fails to deliver at
least minimally. And many advance the
discussion significantly of peacemaking in a violent world.