Autor: Ormerod, Neil

Buch: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Titel: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Stichwort: Erlösung - Girard; Sündenbock, Mimetik, Satan

Kurzinhalt: Because of Jesus' commitment to nonviolence, his violent death exposes the scapegoat mechanism for what it is, the unjustified murder of the innocent... Girard will in fact personify this violence as the Satan, the Accuser, whose "power is ...

Textausschnitt: MODERN ACCOUNTS-THE INSIGHTS OF RENÉ GIRARD

102b The cultural anthropological work of Rene Girard has been a source of inspiration for a number of theologians working in soteriology (e.g., Raymund Schwager, James Alison, and Anthony Bartlett, to name a few).1 Although Girard's position is not without its problems, it remains highly suggestive for those working with notions of sacrifice in the Christian tradition. As we have already noted, the symbol of sacrifice is a major one in the Christian tradition for understanding the death of Jesus. (Fs)

102c For Girard, society is built upon a scapegoat mechanism whereby an innocent victim is expelled to ensure the harmony of the group. This is an act of primordial violence (e.g., the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4) upon which all culture and social order are built. Further, this act of violence arises from a process of mimetic desire. Girard holds that we "learn" to desire through the desire of others. I desire something through seeing you desire it first, something that is often evident in young children fighting over toys. This places our desires within a field of competition and conflict in their very origins. This conflict would destroy our social relationships if it were not displaced onto a convenient third party, a scapegoat who bears the brunt of our violence (e.g., Lev 16:5-10). The expulsion or destruction of the scapegoat restores social harmony and thus imbues the scapegoat with magical or divine powers. This is reminiscent of Origen's account of the efficacy of pagan sacrifices. For Girard this mechanism is the beginning of religion and of human culture. (Fs) (notabene)

103a Girard views the religious history of Israel as a progressive release from this structure of sacrifice of the scapegoat, a history of resistance to the scapegoat mechanism. With its emphasis on the poor and marginalized and social justice as the touchstone of righteousness before God, Israel develops a more purified religious observance. The mission of Jesus is the final stage in this process of purification. Because of Jesus' commitment to nonviolence, his violent death exposes the scapegoat mechanism for what it is, the unjustified murder of the innocent. In this way Jesus' mission is one of the subversion of sacrifice, of uncovering the secret violence on which society is built. For the sacrificial community, "Jesus appears as a destructive and subversive force, as a source of contamination that threatens the community."2 That community must then turn its violence against Jesus, "the most perfect victim that can be imagined, the victim that, for every conceivable reason, violence has the most reason to pick on. Yet at the same time, this victim is the most innocent."3 Thus, the violence of the scapegoat mechanism is exposed, releasing a powerful force for social and cultural change, whose implications are still being effected in human history. (Fs)

103b What violence does not and cannot comprehend is that, in getting rid of Jesus by the usual means, it falls into the trap that could be laid only by innocence of such a kind because it is really not a trap: there is nothing hidden. Violence reveals its own game in such a way that its workings are compromised at their very source; the more it tries to conceal its ridiculous secret from now on, by forcing itself into action, the more it will succeed in revealing itself. We can see here parallels with the notion of the devil overreaching itself and leading to its own downfall.4 (Fs)

103c Girard will in fact personify this violence as the Satan, the Accuser, whose "power is his ability to make false accusations so convincingly that they become unassailable truth of entire communities," whereas Jesus is the Paraclete, "the lawyer for the defense, the defender of victims."5 For Girard, the passion of Jesus is "a violent process, a demonic expulsion."6

103d Read in this way, Christianity is in fact antisacrificial. The historic mission of Christianity is to expose the scapegoat mechanism for the violence that it is, and so put an end to all sacrifice-the sacrifice of Jesus is "once and for all" (Heb 7:27). The use of sacrificial language in the Christian tradition is basically mistaken: "There is nothing in the Gospels to suggest that the death of Jesus is a sacrifice ... The passages that are invoked to justify a sacrificial conception of the passion both can and should be interpreted with no reference to sacrifice in any of the accepted meanings" of the term.7