Saturday, July 26, 2008

Lay Not Violence At God's Feet

While it is true that the Holy Spirit blows where it will, freeing persons from slavery to the primitive sacred insofar as one renounces our human addiction to the victimary mechanism, it is of utmost importance to realize the categorical uniqueness of the biblical revelation. As René Girard has said,
Revelation is the reproduction of the victimary mechanism by showing the truth, knowing that the victim is innocent and that everything is based on mimetism ... The more we understand the truth of this description, the more we understand that it discredits not only those who crucified Jesus, but all the myth-makers in the history of humanity ... The mimetic theory rectifies the figural and shows what is most essential: the violence which is not divine but human. (My emphasis).
What this clearly means is that part of the workings of the Holy Spirit, perhaps the most essential part of all, is our realization that God is never the one demanding violence, bloodshed, and/or killing of our fellow human beings. Never.

This is the clear message of both the Old Testament and the New Testament. We will know that a corner has been turned when we can come to agree as humans of all ethnic backgrounds and religions that it is the not divine which is asking us to show fealty and faithfulness by doing violence to other humans. When, like Abraham not sacrificing Isaac, we counter holy writ made holy by God with God's own intent, we will be on to something.

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