CUERPO I: PROCESO ADMINISTRATIVO
9. Corrección de Errores
Much of Girard’s work has focused on anthropology and the study of mythology. His understanding of the single victim mechanism is bound up with his understanding of the origins of human culture and civilization. Broadly, he argues that in pre-‐historic societies, now only half-‐remembered through myth, the single victim mechanism was the means by which emergent civilizations were saved from seemingly inevitable self-‐destruction.67 The murder of the scapegoat by the community purged the contagion, and civilization was born.
The victim, seen as the monster responsible for the crisis, became a divine figure who saves through their death.68 Ritual murder as a means of saving society became the basis of religion, and the foundation-‐stone of culture, from which modern means of regulating violence through systems of justice
66 John, Permanent, Faithful, Stable.
67 TS, 36-‐8, 76-‐85.
68 TS, 42-‐44; IS, 70-‐2.
eventually emerged.69
This aspect of Girard’s work is less relevant for our purposes (not least because, as we will see, he is clear that the ‘divinization’ he identifies as occurring in mythology is no longer a possible outcome of the single victim mechanism), but three points of significance should be drawn from it. First, Girard adopts the New Testament language of Satan, the demonic, and the principalities and powers when describing the way these processes shape us as individuals and as a civilization. Both the demonic and the Powers that protect against it may be understood as Satan. Girard argues that the gospels use ‘Satan’
as well as ‘scandal’ as a term to describe mimetic rivalry. Following this usage, he refers to rivalrous contagion up to and including the single victim mechanism as ‘Satan’ or ‘satanic’, using the term to denote the cycle as a whole or any stage within it. Thus humanity is in bondage to Satan who has provided a satanic means of creating order and defending itself against the contagious violence that he himself is responsible for. Satan casts out Satan in human culture, based on the single-‐victim mechanism.70 Satan is the seductive desire to transgress prohibitions in imitation of a rival. Satan is the accuser who becomes a
stumbling block to create scandal. Satan is the cycle of reciprocal violence that becomes contagious and threatens to destroy the world. And Satan is the promise that violence can be used to defeat violence – that in destroying others we can bring reconciliation and peace.71
69 VS, 10, 21-‐4, 93-‐101; TH, 76-‐79; IS, 79-‐83; EC, 198-‐9.
70 TS, 187-‐8; IS, 43-‐5.
71 IS, 33-‐5; BE, 46.
Human civilization has evolved from the founding murder as a sinful and satanic compromise with violence, yet ultimately it is only the satanic use of violence to contain violence in cultural institutions that protects us from the demonic forces that would otherwise tear us apart. The ambiguous status of the Powers in New Testament writings reflects this compromised and
compromising heritage. The Powers are institutionalised violence to protect us from violence – ultimately opposed to the kingdom, but all that prevents
contagious violence being unleashed on all of us.72 Indeed, Girard is clear that many of our cultural institutions are genuinely morally superior to their predecessors and to the prospect of unconfined contagious violence, but he is equally clear that they are not and can never be the kingdom of God.73 Indeed, creative and redemptive violence is a satanic delusion. Girard’s understanding here forms the basis for the work of New Testament scholar Walter Wink, who developed a social ethics from a close reading of the Powers as presented in the New Testament. Wink (who acknowledges his indebtedness to Girard),
describes them as simultaneously institutions and spiritual realities that create a domination system that imprisons humanity in a cycle of violence.74
The second point of significance is the ambiguous status of religion.
Religion, on this understanding, is itself one of the Powers. Indeed, it is the first and greatest amongst them. Although Girard is clear that the Christian gospel has a distinctly different origin, he is also clear that the church continues to take
72 IS, 95-‐8; EC, 247.
73 EC, 198-‐9; BE, 108.
74 Walter Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1984); Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces that Determine Human Existence (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1986); Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992).
the form of religion, and is in itself sinful compromise with satanic violence.75
The third point of significance is the role of pharmakoi. Girard describes the role of pharmakoi within Ancient Greek society -‐ a group of potential scapegoats maintained at public expense in order to be sacrificed when the community reaches a point of crisis.76 This was an early stage in the
development of institutions of justice. The idea of a group within society having been marked out as potential scapegoats is a fruitful one in understanding the effects of evangelical rhetoric. As I will describe in chapter 3, as a gay Christian, and especially as a gay liberal Christian, Jeffrey John was marked out by the evangelical community as pharmakos – a potential scapegoat. His nomination as a bishop was all that was required to bring him to the attention of the
community.
1.3.5 Revelation in Human History, Apocalypse, and the Need for