Root Cause # 1 – Our Image of God
Root Cause # 2 – Mimetic Desire
The Scapegoat Mechanism
• When violence is transferred from all against all to all against one, a peace does in fact ensue.
• If the conflict over a desired object becomes too intense, the community subconsciously chooses a scapegoat which was sacrificed (literally or metaphorically).
The Scapegoat in History
• Traditional religions and rituals were ways of transforming the scapegoat mechanism into institutions which could be used over and over to resolve the conflict.
• As rivalry becomes more acute, the rivals are more apt to forget about what they are fighting about and fight simply because the other is scapegoat.
The Scapegoat in the Old Testament
• In the Old Testament, a scapegoat is an animal that is ritually burdened with the sins of others and then is either sacrificed or driven away.
Leviticus 16:1-34
The Scapegoat in the New Testament
• Good Friday shines a light on the character of God and the nature of human civilization.
• In the Gospels, it is not God that insists on the execution of Jesus.
• Mark tells us, “the chief priests accused him of many crimes” (Mark 15:3).
• They accuse him of heresy, blasphemy and sedition.
• The work of accusation, condemnation and torture is the work of human civilization under the sway of Satan.
• This kind of satanic unity is the glue of civilization: harmony achieved through blame and scapegoating.
• On Good Friday we come to the devastating realization that our violent system of blame and collective killing is so evil that it is capable of the murder of God.
Contemporary Examples of Scapegoat
• Japanese-Americans in the United States in the 1940’s
• Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) the Japanese attacked the US.
• FDR signs Executive Order 9066 that led to the imprisonment of 120,000 Japanese Americans.
• Jews in Nazi Germany during the 1940s
• The white nationalism of Hitler used the Jews and other undesirables as the scapegoat.
• In order to justify treating humans in this manner, Jews had to be portrayed in an extremely negative fashion .
• According to the Nazis, Hitler’s perfect world could never be a reality if the Jews were around.
• The LGBT Community during the 21st Century
• The United States federal government decided in 2016 to recognize Gay marriage as a civil right.
• Since then, we have witnessed some disturbing public scapegoating carried out by more fundamentalist, right wing Christians.
• Pat Robertson likened the LGBT community to the virulent homosexuals who attempted to rape the angels in the Sodom story (Genesis 19).
• This view does not consider the commentary of Ezekiel 16:49 (the sins of Sodom were pride, an excess of food and a lack of concern for the poor and needy.)
• Robertson said the LGBT community is to blame for the wrath of God (i.e. tornados, earthquakes, hurricanes etc).
• A key for the scapegoat mechanism to work is the dissemination of false information, slander and gossip.
• Westboro Baptist Church is the most famous in the propaganda.
• If only we could ride ourselves of the LGBT community, then we could have peace and be spared from the “wrath of God”.
• The Muslim Community since 2015
• Muslims are not really welcomed by many in the US.
• Violence against Muslims is on the rise, although hate crimes based on religious beliefs is on the decline overall.
• The rhetoric triggers further hate because every Muslim is portrayed as a potential terrorist.
• The Latino Community since 2016
• The most serious concern about immigration today is the fear that immigrants are bringing crime and terror to the new country.
• Immigrants in general, and undocumented immigrants, particularly those from Latin America, are depicted as “rapists” and “violent criminals and murders,”
The Foundations of Culture and Religion
• Three ingredients of scapegoat culture are prohibition, ritual and myth.
• Prohibition
• Don’t take my woman and don’t touch my plate
• Most of the commandments in the book of Leviticus are about sex and food
• These prohibitions reflect real dangers in the day in which they were written
• To prevent hunger and extinction, there are prohibitions.
• These prohibitions assume violent forms of protection of self-interests
• Ritual
• When ancient humans noticed that their collective violence, poured onto one victim, worked to achieve peace, albeit temporary, their conclusion was their behavior was ordained by the divine.
• Ritual becomes the act of reenacting the original killing that brought peace.
• This time it is on a new victim in hopes that what worked before would work again.
• What do these rituals look like?
• Sacrifice
• Throughout history people have performed sacrifices
• This led to everything from sacrifice of virgins to children in the ancient world
• As civilization developed, especially with the giving of the Torah, the sacrifices became animals on holy days (Yom Kippur).
• The idea of sacrifice so sacred in the Torah will be denounced by later prophets.
• Mythology
• We have arrived at a crucial question: How are we, as the community who just went through a (non-conscious) mimetic crisis, only to resolve it by pouring our collective violence unto a scapegoat, going to tell the story?
• First, we certainly are not going to tell it as if we, the community, are guilty. Guilt has been attributed to the victim, the one we had to destroy for the “whole” to be spared.
• Second, myth is papering over of the truth of how we create unity using violence. The destruction of the victim is often not even attributed to the community, but rather to God or (gods). Our violence is divine violence.
• Example: Numbers 25
• In this story, a great plague falls over Israel.
• The cause is that some of the Israelites began having sex with Midianite women and worship their gods.
• The only natural thing to do is expel those causing the plague.
• The hero who carried this out is a man named Phinehas.
• Upon the murder of the scapegoats, the plague is said to immediately cease (Numbers 25:6-8)
• So, Phinehas receives a “covenant of peace” as well as a “covenant of perpetual priesthood” (Num. 25:12-13).
• The victimizer is presented as the hero.
• Consequently, we view ourselves and our people, as the embodiment of absolute goodness.
• We demonize the enemy so that our opponent is no longer human.
• Many national stories are at the core myths.
Retributive Violence
• The Bible is filled with examples of God enacting swift judgment in the form of physical brutality against groups of people for disobeying.
• Some of the better-known incidents are:
• After sending Moses to Egypt to lead the Israelites out of slavery, God comes after Moses to kill him, apparently (the text is not super clear) for failing to circumcise his son (Exodus 4:24).
• After the Israelites build the golden calf (Exodus 32), God commands the sons of Levi to go through the camp and kill “your brother, your friend, and your neighbor” (v. 27).
• Achan and his family are stoned and burned because Achan kept some of the booty from the sack of Jericho (Joshua 7).
• The Israelites are commanded by God to avenge themselves on the Midianites by killing everyone except the virgin females, whom the men can divide among themselves (Numbers 31).
• God commands the Israelites to kill everything in Canaan that breathes so they can take possession of it (Deuteronomy 7, 20).
