Violence and the kingdom of God: Introducing the anthropology of Rene Girard

Anglican Theological Review, Fall 1998 by Marr, Andrew

It is, of course, the Passion narratives that definitively reveal the truth of sacred violence. The crowd in Jerusalem demonstrates that when mimetic contagion takes over, all awareness of the truth is lost. The same crowd that throws palm branches on the road in Jesus' honor then cries out for Jesus' crucifixion. So great is the contagion that Jesus' closest disciples flee when their leader is arrested, and Peter denies that he knows Jesus rather than separate himself from the crowd in the courtyard of the high priest. Jesus, as we all know, was executed on a cross, the most dishonorable death possible at the time. Contrary to any notion that Jesus was in anyway a sacrifice offered up by God or to God, the Gospel texts clearly show that the death of Jesus was committed entirely by a collective effort of human beings who blamed the Just One for all the social tension in Jerusalem. Caiaphas stated the logic of sacred violence straight out: "You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed" (Jn. 11:50).

If Jesus had stayed dead, the Gospels as we have them would never have been written. The disciples recovered from mimetic contagion to the extent that Peter heard the cock crow, and some of them gathered in a locked room. But how could such a small group, that was running scared, end up proclaiming the truth of Jesus' death with such boldness? It was humanly impossible for the disciples to overcome the mimetic contagion to that degree. But God did what humans could not do. God had not sacrificed Jesus in any way. What God did do is raise Jesus to life. The risen Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit, the Breath of God, on the disciples to give them the gift of God's life. Girard says:

It is, of course, the Risen Jesus who re-gathered the disciples and gave them this power. The Resurrection is responsible for this change, of course, but even this most amazing miracle would not have sufficed to transform these men so completely if it had been an isolated wonder rather than the first manifestation of the redemptive power of the Cross.17

In his anthropological approach, Girard does not try to tackle ontological questions. However, he insists "the Son alone is united with the Father in the fullness of humanity and divinity." Jesus is the "only mediator, the one bridge between the kingdom of violence and the Kingdom of God."ls In short, the the acts of Jesus are the acts of God."

Mimesis and Jesus

Jesus himself modeled the human quality of mimesis for us. Jesus carried out the works his father had given him to carry out (Jn. 5:36). He did not speak and act for himself. It was the Father living in him who was doing the work (Jn. 14:11). Raymund Schwager points out that Jesus studied carefully the models of the Messiah offered in the Old Testament and other Jewish traditions and he was very selective as to which models he followed. The term "Son of Man," for example, had two contrary meanings in the Jewish world of Jesus' time. One meaning was the image of the powerful warrior appearing to avenge all of the enemies of God with violent wrath. The other meaning was derived from the Songs of the Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah, which stressed the suffering of the Son of Man at the hands of the people. It was the latter model that Jesus chose to follow.l9 When Peter rebuked Jesus for predicting an ignominious death, Peter was called "Satan," a stumbling block,Zo because he was tempting Jesus to follow the wrong model. No wonder Peter had trouble allowing Jesus to wash his feet!