The Literary Critic and Anthropologist as Theologian

I think it appropriate, especially in light of what has happened in the last twenty-four hours, to note the death earlier this month of René Girard.

A little over two years ago I purchased a copy of his Je vois Satan tomber comme l'éclair.  Much as I would have liked to take this occasion to review it, I have to admit that I haven't yet started it.  The volume, largely untouched since March, 2013,  reproaches me from the bookshelf, along with a considerable distinguished company.

I can only note the facts I knew before I purchased it, that Girard, a member of the French Academy and a long-time faculty member at Stanford, began, through the study of literature, to formulate a theory of human desire, that it is mimetic; that is, that human beings learn to desire what other human beings desire, and the result is conflict, violence and then a method of dealing with conflict which we call scapegoating.  Following out those observations, Girard moved from literary criticism to anthropology, and then to a conception of Christian atonement as the "way out" from the cycle of violence.  That Girard is himself a Catholic, and finds the gospels vindicated through this train of thought, naturally makes him suspect to a skeptical world.  But his proposals to have given rise to a wide-ranging re-thinking of the meaning and function of atonement and sacrifice, arguably the most original since St. Anselm's Cur Deus Homo.

These kinds of things, of course, always sound better in French.  The following is from his obituary in Le Monde:

C’est ici qu’intervient une distinction fondamentale aux yeux de Girard : « La divergence insurmontable entre les religions archaïques et le judéo-chrétien. » Pour bien saisir ce qui les différencie, il faut commencer par repérer leur élément commun : à première vue, dans un cas comme dans l’autre, on a affaire au récit d’une crise qui se résout par un lynchage transfiguré en épiphanie. Mais là où les religions archaïques, tout comme les modernes chasses aux sorcières, accablent le bouc émissaire dont le sacrifice permet à la foule de se réconcilier, le christianisme, lui, proclame haut et fort l’innocence de la victime. Contre ceux qui réduisent la Passion du Christ à un mythe parmi d’autres, Girard affirme la singularité irréductible et la vérité scandaleuse de la révélation chrétienne. Non seulement celle-ci rompt la logique infernale de la violence mimétique, mais elle dévoile le sanglant substrat de toute culture humaine : le lynchage qui apaise la foule et ressoude la communauté.

Girard, longtemps sceptique, a donc peu à peu endossé les habits du prédicateur chrétien, avec l’enthousiasme et la pugnacité d’un exégète converti par les textes. De livre en livre, et de La Violence et le sacré (1972) jusqu’à Je vois Satan tomber comme l’éclair (1999), il exalte la force subversive des Evangiles.

Attribution Update:  I should acknowledge that the image above is from a painting done by my wife, Jeanine Allen.  It was sold through a gallery in Santa Fe, and so, thanks to the peculiar customs that prevail in the retail art business, we have no idea who now owns it.