The Scapegoat Mechanism in the Ancient and Modern World

Before the non-violent Christian revelation, society was largely steeped in child sacrifice and witch hunting. Conflict and disease were widespread as usual, but the solution to these problems was almost always a lynching at the hands of a mob. We see this in an episode in the life of Apollonius of Tyana. When the Ephesians were faced with a plague epidemic, Apollonius urged the Ephesian mob to pick up their stones. He directed the crowd towards a dirty beggar, designated that beggar as an 'enemy of the gods,' and ordered the crowd to execute the filthy man. The heavily mythologized version of this story narrates the beggar turning into a demon-hound as he is being killed, thus vindicating the crowd's outrage. The story of Oedipus is similar. Oedipus has to be the scapegoat to save his city, but he must also be guilty, therefore he is guilty of murder and incest.

The Minotaur of Greek mythology is another victim depicted as a villainous half man, half animal. This otherizing and animalizing of the victim in ancient mythologies is very common. They hide the fact that the victim is made in God's image and is precious before God's eye. In ancient societies, individuals who were physically deformed or mentally disabled were picked out, identified as demons, and sacrificed for the 'greater good' of many. Children were routinely dispensed with in order to quench the thirst of violent gods. The eating of human flesh--cannibalism--was another aspect to this scapegoat phenomenon where the victim is consumed for the 'health' of the society. This was the mechanism of pre-Christ humanity. The crucifixion of Jesus turns this machine inside out.

On the cross, Christ thoroughly deconstructs the scapegoat mechanism. He deconstructs witch hunting, child sacrifice, and cannibalism, and lays them bare for the evil that they are. He reasserts the Judaic concept of the innocence of the victim, and shatters the violent machinery of Satan by turning the accuser's very own machine upside down. No longer can humanity hide the scapegoat machine under the cloak of mythology, for Christ simply stripped it bare.

In the Christian age, scapegoating and witch hunting did not cease, but they were also recognized as evil acts repugnant to God. In other words, the blood of sacrifices haunted Christian societies, reminding them of Jesus being crucified all over again in the form of witches, heretics, and Jews. Eventually, the scapegoat phenomenon came to be universally decried as an act of evil.

Today, we are witnessing the return of scapegoating. With the abandoning of God, no more is an individual seen as precious and part of the transcendent. The only identities are worldly identities. The so-called secular humanist principle is that goodness can be achieved without the divine. But what secularism fails to understand is that humanity stripped of its transcendent value is even more susceptible to violence than it already is. This is why the twentieth century gave us the nuclear bomb--the single most potent weapon capable of wiping out the entire human species. Secular ideology also fails to recognize that diversity and equality are not synonymous with the scapegoate mechanism. This is why scapegoating has returned with a vengeance, but under the clever guise of social justice. Whereas once social justice movements involved the use of non-violence, today just about any street thug can pick up a weapon and declare that he/she is out to protect victims. It is as René Girard says in his book 'I See Satan Fall Like Lightning,'

'The Majestic Inauguration of the "Post Christian era" is a joke. We are living through a caricatural "Ultra Christianity" that tries to escape from the Judaeo-Christian orbit by "radicalizing" the concern for victims in an anti-Christian manner.'

The postmodern ideology of social justice is a subtle but obvious weapon of Satan. The ideologues of this outfit are in constant search for victims, and they are also always on the lookout for oppressors. Child sacrifice has also returned. 'Demon children' suffering from conditions such as Down Syndrome are often eliminated through abortion. It is disturbing that many of today's Christians no longer stand with the victim who is the single most persecuted being in society--the human child.

If we are to be known as Christians today then we must abandon the mimetic games designed for us by other humans. We must realize that many of our own has bought into the lie of the accuser. Those that have sold out to the lie can be found 'defending victims' from their pulpits and using guilt-inducing terminology most often related to a person's social identity and class. When a Christian uses words terms such as 'you're privileged' and 'you're mansplaining,' he/she is in effect saying that 'you are Oedipus--a murderer and a rapist. You must gauge out your own eyeballs to save the "victim" whom you are oppressing.' The Christian who uses such kinds of words and phrases that were designed by the secular state's priesthood has effectively chosen to worship the accusing Apollonius instead of the crucified Christ.

Christians must reject violence and coercion or else they will knowingly or unknowingly become violence unto others. The spirit of the accuser is alive and well. It roars like a lion eager for prey. A Christ follower must become aware of these hungry roars behind the prevailing hateful ideologies that masquerade as social activism and secular humanism. Our allegiance is to the King above, not to the ones below. Our Master and Savior is brother to all. He ate with both the rulers and the marginalized. He befriended both Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman. He healed both the Centurion's servant and the blind man. His mission is not of worldly justice but of world reconciliation.