The homily at mass today reminded me that Jesus didn’t come just to save the Catholics. Okay, that’s not what Father said exactly, and the Pope has, of course, said just the opposite. Today is the observance of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome, the church built by Emperor Constantine and the ecclesiastical seat of the Bishop of Rome (Pope). It is “Mother Church of the Entire World.”
Today is also the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time. I’m not sure when this week of Ordinary Time (not ordinary as in “unremarkable,” but ordinary as in “counted” — the time after Pentecost) was changed to observe the basilica, but obviously it’s meant to rally the troops, unify us around a symbol, and remind us how old and worthy the Church is.
The Church is Not a Democracy
You may have noticed I’m not really a team player. Not that I don’t appreciate tradition, but to imagine that precedence in history confers Truth, power, and a right to expect obedience is a conceit. The history of the Church and all the women and men who have dedicated their lives to its message of love and peace are worthy of respect, but obedience is more wisely given on a case-by-case basis. Especially in the age of sexual abuse coverups.
You may have seen recent stories emphasizing that the Church is not a democratic body. In fact, the Roman Catholic Church is so anti-democratic, it once considered American Democracy a heresy. We scared the Church a great deal in the early 20th century. Probably now, too. Hence, the clamp-down. Hence, the new observance of the Church’s origins with the intention of conferring a sense of respectful obedience. Hence, a recent interview on First Things, where even Rene Girard has finally taken sides, so to speak, in how his theories are being put to use.
Why Queers Are Dangerous
Girard’s mimetic theory, which says that desire is a learned and not autonomous feature of being human, has been applied in subtle and brilliant ways by James Alison to show why the Church’s anti-gay agenda is fundamentally unChristlike and how the queer community can use the theory to resist internalizing the hate, while making peace with the Church’s slow moral evolution. Unfortunately, Girard seems to be chastizing Alison for using his theory this way.
It’s not surprising, given that mimetic theory’s adherents have broken into two groups.
- There are the Gil Bailey followers who we might label “conservative.” They’ve followed Girard’s theory to the logical conclusion that humans must have a model from which to learn desire, and if a good model is lacking, we will likely substitute a poor one. How true. We have a modern secular culture using pop stars and hedonistic sports icons to model their desires rather than Jesus.
- Then there are the “progressive” followers of Girard, like Alison, who see the same situation, but are not so cynical about human nature. Progressives agree human nature pushes us to find scapegoats because we are fearful or angry or envious. We are willing to be manipulated. But we can overcome this tendency to experience love deformed by envy.
The Baileys of the world are willing to continue the game of mimesis unabated, and they’ll choose the scapegoats for us while keeping the mass happily ignorant. They argue for bringing back the good ol’ days when men were men, women were women, and we trusted the Church to know the “correct” version of Jesus. In other words, the Church and Jesus are pretty much synonymous.
The Baileys worry, I guess, that the Alisons might choose to mimic an incorrect version of Jesus that lets them love people with the same kind of genitals. Because as we know, Jesus was all about merging the correct genitals, which the Church so clearly shows through a laborious treatise it calls “Natural Law”. If you’re not familiar with this scientific theory, you can get an idea of it by imagining phrenology meets social Darwinism supported by the anecdotal evidence of martyrs and saints.
Is Mimetic Theory a Description or a Prescription?
Conservatives seem to take Girard’s theory as a mere description and accept human nature as a limitation. Progressives see the theory as a prescription for how to evolve. Progressives want to break free of scapegoating and they believe that is the very purpose of the Revelation of Jesus Christ.
It seems to me that the conservatives are afraid to let us bring definitions to Jesus and to love that conflict with the official teaching. The Church, as mimetic theory clearly shows and Jesus clearly warned, is invested in keeping the scapegoating mechanism fully intact by keeping it invisible. Invisibility is all that keeps scapegoating palatable, and by designating a class unworthy of full equality, the Church declares they are not innocent at all — not scapegoats – but guilty and worthy to be victims of violence. The scapegoat is now invisible.
Violence escalates from a loss of rights and hate speech ultimately to physical harm. As mimetic theory shows, violence is a continuum. To name a scapegoat but refuse to acknowledge it as one is to initiate escalation. Escalation is endemic to the process. Murder is the only stopping point, when the victim is revealed to have been a scapegoat afterall.
But what in mimetic theory says that a group experience is more true than an individual experience or that authority speaks more honestly? In fact, doesn’t mimetic theory suggest the opposite of that is true?
Progressives believe we can choose a model in Jesus by being willing to suffer violence rather than inflict it. And inflicting violence is what you do whenever you make an entire class of people evil, whenever you set up an Other as a scapegoat so that you can bring cohesion to the rest, whenever you blindly follow the deformed love generated by mimesis.
Who Owns The Truth?
For me, the weak link in the conservative view, as in the Church generally, has always been why a particular subset of a particular gender should be trusted to be more wise than any other, and why I should believe their experience of God is any more true than mine. The Church would say I should trust these men because Jesus did. But Jesus didn’t.
Jesus didn’t come to save the Catholics. He didn’t come to save the straight people. Or the men. Or the priests. Or the powerful. He came to save us all. Through his example, we can understand how to choose a love that is not deformed by envy, and through his divinity, we can share eternal life by participating in a love completely free of envy, of obligation, of any conditions.
Filed under: religion, rene girard | Tagged: anthropology of religion, first things, gay rights, gays in the church, gil bailey, james alison, lgbt, liturgical year, mimetic theory, queer, rene girard, roman catholic church, st john lateran
Thank you, Teresa. This is just a brilliant analysis. I’ve been reading Girard for more than thirty years and have watched the evolution of his theory. About a decade ago, I discovered Gil Bailie and James Alison and became aware of this bifurcation that you speak of. At last summer’s COV&R (Colloquium on Violence and Religion) conference in Riverside, CA, the tension between these two basic orientations was almost palpable, but couldn’t find anyone interested in talking about it.
I’ve often been struck by the anti-homosexual scapegoating language I find on Bailie’s blog (http://cornerstone-forum.blogspot.com/), and I suppose I am particularly sensitive to it because I am queer. (See my comments in the February and April 2009 blogs.) I find it astonishing that anyone who claims even the most basic understanding of the scapegoating mechanism could write such defamatory content about gays or endorse other writers who do. I have a host of friends who have never heard of mimetic theory but who can recognize such obvious expressions of scapegoating. And so I’ve been trying to understand what kind of “disconnect” this is in the case of Bailie and the other conservatives. Regardless of the direction that Girard has taken in his more recent thinking, scapegoating theory still stands, and anyone who takes it seriously has got to ask, “Who are our scapegoats?” If we were to start a graded list, I think we would find that almost everyone is on it somewhere, but homosexuals are very close to the top in practically every culture that I know of. In Bailie’s case, there is apparently some very strong influence that blinds him to what should be abundantly obvious in this case, and I believe that influence is his Catholic upbringing. (Catholics are on the list, too, but much farther down…)
At times in my life, I have been very drawn to certain “core” Christian teachings, as I understand them, but, at the same time, I have always been an atheist. I think that Rene Girard has made a very strong case for the anthropological significance of the Gospels, but I do not believe his basic premise requires belief in the Judeo-Christian god. In one of his recent books, he wrote, “Les athees sont corrects mais naifs.” (Atheists are correct but naive. This was in either “Achever Clauswitz” or “Celui par qui le scandale arrive,” I think, but I can’t find the sentence at the moment.) I believe I may understand what he meant by “naive”. An anthropologist with whom you are acquainted, Carolyn Marvin (“Blood Sacrifice and the Nation”) has helped me understand how religion never really disappears, but only changes forms (E.g., Communism and the various nationalisms have their sacred texts, sacred spaces, ritual time, ritual practices, saints, and venerated objects, just as does the Catholic Church.). The popular atheist writers of recent years, even the brilliant Richard Dawkins, seem not to have considered this anthropology. (Yep, atheists are on the list, and religionists in general are on the list…)
Mimetic theory can help us understand how and why a strong religious upbringing can override recognition of the realities around us. We believe what we believe, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, because we are part of a mimetic matrix that trumps everything else. This is a huge topic, of course, and I’m already assuming some familiarity with mimetic theory. An example that I’ve recently written about as a commenter on Gil’s blog is the Pope Benedict’s recent pronouncements about condom use in Africa. In the face of overwhelming scientific evidence (see the British Medical Journal) that abstinence-only programs have not worked, the Pope’s advice is still in line with the traditional teaching of the Church. Obviously, neither reason nor any amount evidence can change his Holiness’s mind while millions are dying from AIDS in Africa and elsewhere. (His Holiness is on the list, but not as high as gays and lesbians…)
This is why, as an activist queer, I know that addressing homophobia and gay-bashing has to go hand-in-hand with addressing the mimetic contagions that are so integral to religious thinking. I am also aware—perhaps more dimly—that I, too, exist in mimetic fields of force that I must learn to recognize. Where there is mimesis, there is also scapegoating, so part of my work is to identify my scapegoats. Perhaps the conservative Girardians can help me in this task, which we’ll call, “I’ll show you yours if you’ll show me mine.” We can all benefit from the exchange of viewpoints, and I hope and believe that we will start with a firm understanding of what scapegoating actually is. That’s where Girard can help us.
Doughlas Remy
Member, Colloquium on Violence and Religion
Thank you for your considered thoughts, Doughlas. I think you’re right on with your analysis and call for each of us to examine our own scapegoats. Only a progressive would say that!
The only thing I might not really agree with is that conservatives are unaware of their scapegoating. I think, rather, that they see nothing wrong in scapegoating, although the negative connotations will make them shrink from the word. (They would likely say it isn’t “scapegoating” because the victims are not innocent.) Indeed, does Girard actually see anything wrong in it, or is he merely engaged in a description to which progressives have added a layer of morality?
Conservatives (who seek to define “eternal,” noncontingent categories) don’t believe that the ability, or perhaps even the need, exists to overcome mimesis because it is essential to what we are and not some habit that can be managed by an enlightened postmodern awareness. All we can hope for is to avoid deformation of love, and that means enforcing the proper models. Hence, Jesus. Hence, their version of Jesus (which absurdly includes obedience to a notably corrupt hierarchical institution). Conservatives seem content to use Girard’s theory as a definition of culture and not as a prescription for change. Girard is becoming a tool for conservatives to shore up a cultural theory that necessitates oppression of the one for the good of the many.
Unlike Conservatives, progressives (who seek to define the contingent and to move beyond it) find in Girard’s definition of what it means to be human a further call to evolve. But I wonder: did Girard really sound a call to change? He’s the first one to say mimesis is not a theory but an observation and has come out against the use of his ideas to support gay rights. But it’s postmodern progressives who gave his ideas new life for their value in deconstructing modern Christianity.
Hi Theresa,
A really engaging discussion about hate crimes legislation is currently under way on Gil Bailie’s blogspot at http://cornerstone-forum.blogspot.com/, under Gil’s May 2 entry, “Totalitarian Tolerance.” I urge you to join it if you are so inclined. Also see Gil’s follow-up of Monday, May 4, 2009.
Doughlas Remy