The firestorm of protest which swept the
world in response to the pathetic yet gross-insult movie, The
Innocence of Muslims, opened afresh a dramatic fault-line between
Western and Islamic cultures. The violent reaction included the
killing of the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, along with
three other embassy staff. Continuing unrest has claimed the lives of
more than fifty people in Muslim nations across the world.
In these fraught circumstances it is
very easy for Westerners in general, and those citing a Girardian
analysis in particular, to feel a distinct superiority to Muslim
criteria of judgment and response.
Meanwhile, the mood on the streets of Peshawar, Kano, Benghazi and Cairo sees the arrogant West giving
itself permission to disregard the religious sensitivities of Islamic
peoples, failing to accord them the right to pursue their faith
undisturbed. Alongside, of course, there is the continually roiled
resentment at the "long war" directed at Muslim countries,
and the feeling of double standards applied to their countries and
Israel in regard to human rights
In respect of Rene Girard, he has
commented that the Koran "has no real awareness of collective
murder" (Battling To The End, p.216). In other words it lacks the revelation of the
scapegoat, manifestly present in the Jewish and Christian scriptures.
Because of this Islam represents a return to archaic religion.
From an anthropological point of view these are incredibly potent
charges.
They mean, among other things, there is
no built-in room for laxity or tolerance in Islam. Religion consists
in an untouchable, razor-sharp purity. There is nothing messy, human
or bloody on its surface or at its core, only the unqualified,
pristine divine.
The gospel is entirely the inverse.
The bloodied corpse of Jesus hangs at the center of its
consciousness. There is no insult that can ever do more to disgrace
Christ than has already been perpetrated and accepted. Which is
entirely the point. By raising up the Crucified, so that Jesus'
nonretaliation becomes a boundless historical truth, all insults and
violations are forgiven, if only the perpetrator can accept this
amazing grace.
I once taught a religion course in
which I used the notorious example of the "Piss-Christ" as
evidence of the cultural phenomenon of Christ as nonretaliating,
forgiving victim.There was a young Muslim woman in my class: while
the Christian students hardly batted an eyelid (at the most a quick
"eeww!") she was completely disgusted and angry. She took
the artifact as clear evidence of Christianity's weakness and
failure.
However, from a Girard perspective it
would be precisely the gospel revelation of the victim-- demonstrated
provocatively in this piece of pop art--which constitutes the
gospel's immense historical vigor. It is this demonstration which has
turned the world upside down, slowly liberating the cultures under
its influence from sacred order, undermining rigid hierarchy and
validating the victim, so she becomes the most compelling cultural
principle of all time.
But is there room here for Christian
smugness? Absolutely not. The theological consciousness of Christ as
revelation of the victim can hardly be said to be Christian S.O.P,
let alone that it grabs public attention in the vicious culture wars
fought around Christian morality. Again and again Girardian
commentators are forced to reflect that the revelation of the victim
takes place first in a broad secular framework, rather than in the
church. Girard's own first discoveries on the trail of mimetic theory
came from reading the secular works of novelists, not theology.
In truth, this revelation of deep
Christianity remains by and large hidden to the official West. Girard sees the
West as continuing blindly on a course of confrontation with Islam,
marching in a mirror opposition, so that it too reverts to an archaic
religiosity, tinged with superficial rationalism: "two forms of
fundamentalism," as he has called it (ibid. 211).
All of which suggests to me that the
West is just as much challenged by the revelatory crudeness of the
cross as is Islam. The whole history of institutional Christianity,
from Augustine through to the Protestant Reformation, has been a way
of integrating this deconstructive core back into traditional violent
transcendence.
Which suggests in turn there are
more and more only two religions on offer in the world. The religion
which drives ferociously toward a new sacrificial order, indifferent
to whatever "side" ends up winning; and the one which
responds from its soul to the deconstructive power of the cross in
the world. This second religion runs across all borders and
boundaries. It has no dividing line so it can be recognized as "us"
against "them," although I am sure you can know it when you
see it. It is just as likely to be expressed by Muslim scholars (as
in the "Common Word" written in response to Pope
Benedicts's Regensberg address, and eliciting from him the conciliatory
gesture of visiting a mosque in Jordan), or indeed anybody, as it is
by Christians.
It does not belong institutionally to
Christianity. In fact it does not even belong to religion. It is the
messianic principle of the cross let loose in the world and carrying
the hearts of humanity forward on its irresistible wave of
transformation.
So what is the response of the
Christian who embraces this in her heart and finds herself in the
world of mirror fundamentalisms? No different from that of early
Christianity, uninvested in the fight between the Caesars. That's the
point, to call attention to the massive crisis, but in the meantime
live the new way of life which is the true way out.
Tony Bartlett, T&P Contributing Theologian
Tony Bartlett, T&P Contributing Theologian
