Week of January 24, 2010

  • Pastor Duane Cross
  • Jan 25, 2010

John (Jay) Phelan is the president and dean of North Park Theological Seminary.  In the January, 2010 issue of the Covenant Companion he wrote (in my opinion) an outstanding article.  I share this with you in two parts, this week and next.

Scapegoats, violence and America

The French scholar Rene Girard, who spent most of his academic career teaching in the United States, once said that fundamentalists are the scapegoats of America.  For Girard scapegoats are individuals or groups that are viewed by those in power as the source of the violence, corruption, and dissolution within society.  Although they may actually be marginal and powerless, they are invested with almost magical abilities to destroy all that is considered good and healthy and right.  And it is true that in these days powerful people in the media, in academia, and even in the church heap scorn on religious fundamentalists.

In many ways fundamentalists—especially southern, white, Christian fundamentalists—are people to whom the rules of “political correctness” evidently fail to apply.  They are fair game for caricature, mockery, and abuse.  It is apparently perfectly acceptable to assume that someone with a southern accent and conservative religious and/or political views is ignorant, bigoted, violent, and racist.  This requires no effort, whereas listening to the concerns of an individual southern Christian does.  It is much more satisfying to make sweeping assumptions and feel smug in one’s superiority.

Scapegoating, in fact, is a popular social and political sport these days.  Media figures develop enormous followings by telling us what, or more to the point, who is the problem with America.  Michael Moore says it is corrupt bankers and money men.  Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh say it is liberals.  Lou Dobbs argues that it is illegal immigrants.  Christopher Hitchens says it is religious people in general and Christians in particular.  The Republicans say it is the Democrats and the Democrats say it is the Republicans.

It would be simple if we could determine that this or that group was the problem.  Then we could get rid of them, sacrifice them, to use Girard’s loaded term, which recognizes that scapegoating almost inevitably leads to violence.  Once you have identified the “other,” it is much easier to isolate and destroy them—you create resentment, you exaggerate, you make generalizations, you lie.  And pretty soon blood is shed.

 

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