In this series I want to make a simple point. Specifically, René Girard's scapegoat theory is a moral influence view of salvation. And because of this, René Girard's scapegoat theory is an impoverished, and therefore doomed, vision of salvation.
Why is this so? Well, if it's up to us to save ourselves, that's not going to happen. As Tolkien put it, history will prove to be a long defeat.
A further problem is how, according to Girard, the scapegoating mechanism has been exposed and unmasked for two millennium. And yet, scapegoating is still rolling on. In fact, as Girard would come to see late in his life, violence is escalating. Exposing the scapegoating mechanism, it seems, might not have saved us. It might have made things worse.
On a personal note, this series is also about my journey with René Girard, from early adopter and enthusiast toward a deeply appreciative but critical posture.
(Also, after having finished this series I went down another rabbit hole related to Girard. Specifically, how tech billionaire Peter Thiel has been going around talking about the Antichrist from a Girardian perspective. So, this seven-part series about Girard and moral influence views of the atonement is immediately followed by a five-part series reflecting upon the Antichrist, the katechon, and Christian nationalism.)
To kick this series off, let us begin at the beginning.
Many longtime readers won't need this review, as I wrote about René Girard a lot in the early years of this blog. I also used Girard's theory in my first book Unclean. This was during the time, early in Web 2.0, when Girard's theory was all the rage among Christian bloggers, especially among those in the Emerging Church movement who were looking for non-violent views of the atonement. Girard's theory was viewed as the perfect alternative to penal substitutionary atonement.
But like everything online, fads and trends move on, and René Girard is much less mentioned today. Though he continues to have devoted followers. So if you are new to René Girard some summary and introductory remarks are in order.
René Girard (1923–2015) was a French literary critic and social theorist who developed a sweeping sociological theory that linked desire, violence, and religion. He first articulated his theory of mimetic desire, the idea that human desire is imitative and leads to rivalry, in
Deceit, Desire, and the Novel (published in 1961). Girard would go on to expand this theory by adding the scapegoat mechanism, a social and mythological dynamic through which communities resolve their conflict by uniting against a victim, in
Violence and the Sacred (published in 1972). Finally, in
Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (published in 1978), Girard argued that the Christian gospels uniquely expose and overturn the scapegoating mechanism by revealing the innocence of the victim, thus breaking the sociological cycle of violence as the foundation of human culture.
Let me briefly work through some of these ideas.
First, the notion of mimetic desire and rivalry. According to Girard, human desire is mimetic, that is to say, imitative. We come to desire the same thing. When this happens we are drawn into competition and rivalry over the shared object of desire. Thus, the social psychology of human desire inexorably leads to conflict which threatens the life of the community.
Next, the scapegoat mechanism. In order to deal with the mimetic rivalry that chronically crackles within the community, threatening its peace and cohesiveness, the group identifies a scapegoat, a victim to blame. All the negativity of the community comes to fall upon this person or community. The community rises up and kills the scapegoat thereby cathartically "discharging" the violence of the community. Sort of the way electricity builds up in a thunder cloud until it is released in a lightning strike. After killing the scapegoat, communal peace is restored.
Basically, according to Girard, human communities solved the problem of mimetic rivalry through practices of scapegoating. Over time, the magical power of the scapegoat to restore peace and save the community became mythologized, sacralized, and ritualized. The gods come to demand the sacrifice of the victim. And when the victim is sacrificed disasters are averted. In short, human communities were founded upon rituals of sacred violence.
Finally, how the gospels subvert these cycles of sacred violence. According to Girard, in the history of ancient religions the gospel accounts are unique. First, the gospels are religious texts that read as history. The gospels do no present as myth. Next, at the heart of the gospels is the story of a scapegoated victim--Jesus of Nazareth. But what is unique about this story is that we, as readers, know that the victim is innocent. Readers of the gospels are viewing the scapegoating mechanism from the inside. And due to this perspectival shift, the sacred legitimizations justifying the crucifixion of Jesus, from both the Romans and the Jews, are unmasked and exposed. Readers of the gospels know that the killing of Jesus is evil and unjust. The victim is innocent. As the centurion says at the foot of the cross, "Surely this man was innocent!"
With this powerful and potent set of ideas, René Girard sets before us a profound vision of how the death of Jesus saves us. We ask the perennial question, "Why did Jesus have to die?" And the answer, according to Girard, is that Jesus, as the innocent victim, had to enter into the machinery of sacred violence to expose the bloody lie at the heart of human civilization, how we identify and kill scapegoats to maintain group identity and cohesion. By dragging this dark secret out into the light, the gospels create the possibility for a new form of human community, a community based not upon sacrificial violence but on peace. Rather than scapegoating we now stand in solidarity with the victim. And in that moment of reconciliation we are saved. Jesus becomes the victim so that there would be no more victims.
Stepping back, you can see the appeal of Girard's ideas for evangelicals who were deconstructing penal substitutionary atonement. According to penal substitutionary atonement, God demands and requires a sacrifice. And this, as we've seen with Girard, is what the gods have always done. The gods demand a killing. But on a Girardian reading of the gospels, we come to see that it is humans who need a killing. We, not God, require a sacrifice. The violence is all on our side. We're the blood-thirsty party and the murderous agents in the drama. According to Girard, this is the quintessential vision of human sin. Sacred violence is exposed as satanic.
What this creates is a non-violent vision of atonement. God wills that Jesus go to the cross not to be appeased or satisfied by a blood sacrifice. God wills that Jesus go to the cross so that the violent machinery of human society might be exposed, judged, and destroyed. As readers of the gospels we stand with the innocent victim and perceive, from that moral vantage point, the unjust and evil nature of human civilization. More, we see ourselves exposed as complicit. We participate in the scapegoating of victims. That is how my sins are implicated in Jesus' death and why Jesus goes to the cross to save me from my sins. I am converted by the cross when I reject scapegoating violence to stand alongside the victims of the world. I am saved when I cease to victimize others.
Goodness! This is, and remains, an amazing and beautiful vision. And it's true! I believe it. 100%
And yet, as true as it is, I have some concerns. After my early embrace of Girard's ideas, questions began to creep in. And late in his life, Girard raised some questions of his own.
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