VHC 6: Atonement and Mimetic Violence

In Chapter 6 Boersma addresses Rene Girard's anthropology. Let me over-simplifying Girard's impressive work by summing it up here: Human rivalry about objects of desire is the start of religion and culture (133). (This must shape our understanding of the atonement.) This desire comes because another already desires the object (135). The frequent example if the child who desires a toy only when another child picks it up. This battle of desires is mirrored by another and the process snowballs. The unrest created by this snowballing violence is then passed from the community onto the "scapegoat" who bears responsibility for the violent state of affairs. By expelling the scapegoat, the community feels it has dealt with evil. "Ironically, the scapegoat mechanism works" (137). Once the violence is vented, there is peace and harmony in the community. But this peace is obviously the result of the scapegoat, and so they are divinized because "only a god could have brought an end to their troubles..." (137). So, violence is the root of culture; myths are told about the genesis of culture from the perspective of the murderer; finally, religions create boundaries to keep the mimetic violence within control. So, these religious rituals, stories, and rules "ensure the peace of the community" (138).

Girard's metanarrative shows its modernity. He sees the punitive justice system as a form of mimetic violence, and points the irony that in this system cultures find their peace. The secularization of of rituals and "disappearance of religious rituals" have succeeded in suppressing violence. But Christianity, not just secularization, has also influenced Western culture which has flourished democracy because (?) of its equality and concern for victims (139). The only victims left, says Girard, are Christianity and its Scriptures: because they have unmasked violence, they are found responsible for its origin (serving as scapegoat).

Boersma asks whether the critics who implicate Christianity with violence are wrong. Girard's atonement work says that Christ unmasks the violence of the mob for what it is. Jesus becomes the scapegoat for the violent mob. Removing God from the violence of the cross leaves Girard in a Marcionitic pickle. He has a tough time showing connectiong between the Old and New Testaments. Girard does, however, cite Cain/Abel and Joseph as stories where the victim was chosen rather than oppressor. But his difficulties with Deuteronomic election and sacrificial system remain (140). Girard, then, focuses on the gospels. He points out how Jesus is different from the typical scapegoat, while admitting similarities (transference of violence, divinization of the victim): First, Jesus is never demonized as the guilty one by Christians; second, it is a rebellious minority that crucifies Jesus (not the majority). Jesus' submission to the mob's violence reveals the structure of true religion: flowing from peace rather than violence (141). The cross saves, then, because it breaks the cycle of mimetic violence, not because of God's love (MIT). Girard does not merely emphasize cross, however, but cross and resurrection: without resurrection, the reversal of violence is impossible to imagine.

Boersma's main critique of Girard is via John Milbank. Does the world truly have a fundamental ontology violence? Does Christ not create culture? Girard's emphasis on violence leading to culture falls short of the Christian doctrine of creation. In spite of elements of Christus Victor in Girard which Boersma appreciates, he cannot follow Girard in saying that God does not need to be reconciled to humanity and that humans need to recognize the violence of culture and be reconciled to one another and to God. Boersma sees penal representation as essential to God's eschatological peace and calls for the church to mirror such violence (recall his def'n of violence) in order to stem violence against victims and the oppressed.