Undying Love in "Kiku's Prayer"

The work of Japanese Catholic novelist Shūsaku Endō thankfully received some recognition in contemporary anglosphere after Martin Scorsese directed Silence in 2016. Audiences, for the first time, were exposed to Endō's masterfully crafted historical fiction and blown away by the existential questions contained therein. Despite the film's critical success, Endō, as seen from Western eyes, remains somewhat of an anomaly in the world of literature, and this is due to the fact that the dominant theme of his novels is Christianity.

This analysis, however, is not about Silence, instead it's about a recently translated work of Endō's. Kiku's Prayer, like Silence, is set against the backdrop of a Japanese shogunate hostile to Christianity; it continues the saga of Japanese Christians struggling to keep their faith in the face of remorseless persecution. Set mostly in Nagasaki during the violent transition towards the Meiji restoration, Kiku's Prayer is a story of love, faith, and suffering with multiple layers that defy one's normative understanding of all aforementioned topics.

Kiku, the protagonist of the story, is a village girl from Urakami. Described by Endō as somewhat of a tomboy, Kiku uncharacteristically falls for a boy named Seikichi, and as we shall see, this newfound romance is no mere thing. She often fantasizes about him and dreams of becoming his wife, but her optimism runs into several mammoth hurdles. First, Seikichi turns out to be a kirishitan–a Christian. Not only is Christianity prohibited in Japan, but the Japanese people have attached various stigmas to Christians and prefer not to associate with them. This, of course, does not stop Kiku from loving Seikichi; in fact, she often considers Seikichi's kirishitan faith as a nuisance which he could do without. What really gets under her skin is Seikichi's devotion to this strange lady (and a virgin, of all things!) called Santa Maria. Indeed, Kiku is bothered so much by this aspect of Seikichi's life that she often sneaks into the newly constructed Ōura church and scolds the statue of Santa Maria.

Kiku's desire to be with Seikichi is met with a tragic fate when the Japanese authorities launch a series of violent persecutions against the Christian population of Urakami. Upon seeing Seikichi in chains, Kiku is terrified for the boy's safety, and it is here where an unusual relationship develops between her and the Santa Maria of the Ōura church. She often scolds and pleads to the Virgin Mary for Seikichi's safety. "You’re a woman, too," Kiku prays to Santa Maria, "So you must understand how I feel. I prayed to you every single day that nothing terrible would happen to Seikichi…. But … but you made terrible things happen to him. Since you’re a woman … you must understand how sad … how painful … how painful …"

Endō's portrayal of the persecutions is filled with interesting perspectives on the East vs. West debate on sovereignty, authority, and various other things. For example, we are presented with a conversation between a Japanese magistrate and a troubled French Catholic priest over the question of the foreign missionaries preferring safety despite the brutal tortures being inflicted upon the impoverished Japanese converts. What kind of a pastor would subject his laity to endure terrible punishment while telling them that everything would be okay? Another angle that makes this question so interesting is that many of Endō's characters are allegories for nations and cultures. The French priest Petitjean is the face of Western Christianity rendered helpless to the challenges set by the East. Kiku, on the other hand, symbolizes Japan.

Kiku's approach to faith is simplistic, but in a manner that makes all grand theories or intellectualism obsolete; it can be said that her faith is more Christian than that of many significant Christians who value differentiation over compassion. Whenever her lover Seikichi is put under intense suffering, Kiku ceases to be herself and immediately rushes to Santa Maria, begging with tears for the Holy Virgin to pour forth empathy while appealing to their commonality of being women, as we see above. Her faith, however, does not stop there.

With Seikichi suffering, Kiku refuses comfort and embraces humiliation. Reminiscent of Dostoevsky's Sonia Marmeladova, Kiku subjects her body to humiliation and pain while working in a brothel, just so that she could bribe Seikichi's persecutors and save him from further suffering. The author of Crime and Punishment would immediately recognize this action as Christlike. Just as Christ endured humiliation for the salvation of His creation, so would Sonia and Kiku sell off their dignities for the sake of their loved ones.

The complete lack of abstractions in Kiku's faith is telling to the reader who is so used to the sensory overload of grandiose ideas. The way Kiku goes out of her way, ultimately dying, for the person she loves is truly a sight to behold and a stern lesson for those squabbling at dinner tables. In Kiku's faith, there is nothing but flesh and blood; to her, abstract narratives proclaimed from pulpits appear silly and confusing until they turn real in one's life. And God becomes real only when one completely throws herself at His feet while relinquishing all control and certainty.

Many people came away from Silence and its ending of apostasy with dashed hopes, but they would do well to continue reading Shūsaku Endō's remaining works. If they do, they would be rewarded with simple yet profound stories of redemption through self-sacrifice and compassionate love that breaks all barriers in ways one couldn't imagine.

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The Disenchanted – A Novella in Three Parts

 

Disenchanted is a novella that I have been working on for quite a while. It's a part-fantasy, part-dystopian tale about faith, love, and freedom. The concept was born more than five years ago and ever since then I have been refining and condensing it to its very essence. It's a story that is very close to my heart and something that I hope you will enjoy. Here are the links to the episodes for you to read.

Click here for episode one.

Click here for episode two.

Episode three is coming soon...

Also, if you've been wondering why I haven't been posting on this blog for a long time, be sure to visit the website of A Neighbor's Choice where I have become a regular contributor of essays and articles and where I am still writing about similar topics that I used to write over here.

Blatty and the Otherizing of Man

In 1971, William Peter Blatty wrote ‘The Exorcist.’ Till date, the novel is considered one of the scariest horror stories ever written. The movie adaptation traumatized many people in cinema theatres across the world. Roger Ebert called it a ‘frontal assualt’ and for good reason because it certainly is.

In the novel, we witness a young girl possessed by a demonic spirit. The demon recreates the innocent girl into a hideous gargoyle-like creature that screams obscenities, self-mutilates, and assaults everyone near her. The possessed girl even murders a friend of her mother and then proceeds to taunt her mother about what her beloved child did. Towards the end of the story, two Catholic priests are called in as a desperate attempt by the mother to cure her daughter of this strange supernatural illness. But the priests, relentless as they are in their attempts, are left in despair while the demon simply refuses to leave the girl.

During their momentary break from the exorcism rite, the younger priest, Damien, asks in frustration, ‘I don’t understand. Why her? Why this girl?’

The older priest, Merrin, replies, ‘I think the point is to make us despair, to reject our own humanity, Damien: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial, vile and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy. And there lies the heart of it, perhaps; in unworthiness.’

This otherizing of a human being—the twisting of God’s likeness into a hideous beast—is an anthropological phenomenon rarely touched upon by modern-day intellectuals. We see this phenomenon play itself out in culture, politics, and every other sphere in human history, including individual human lives. How often do we tend to conceptualize our opponents into half-animal, half-satanic hybrid entities hell-bent on destroying us through mischief? The Nazis propagated the Jews as devilish, not only in character but also in appearance. The Soviets did the same with the kulaks and any other state-designated ‘enemies of the people.’

Blatty touched upon this phenomenon with the deconstructing brush of the gospel. The demonic accusatory spirit twists and destroys the beautiful image of God within his creation in a way as to make it so that a human being must be handled with force and caged like a wild animal. This is an anthropological truth, regardless of one’s belief in demonic possession.

We see the hypnotic possession of a nation in all its hideous glory when the news media point us to a scapegoat to further political agendas of lobbyists and the like. As a result, the masses are polarized, and conflict, whether physical or psychological, is perpetuated; a mechanism that regards the human being like a wild animal is put into place so that society’s illnesses is solved through coercion and violence.

The satanic spirit of accusation and otherizing is an ever-present reality that stands whether or not one believes in the supernatural. It brings out the worst in people, and with it a strange contradiction of becoming the very thing one detests. In our mission to hunt down the animal, we become animals ourselves. We try to fight evil with evil.

The older priest, Merrin, says to Damien, “... I tend to see possession most often in the little things, Damien: in the senseless, petty spites and misunderstandings between friends. Between lovers. Between husbands and wives. Enough of these and we have no need of Satan to manage our wars; these we manage for ourselves... for ourselves.”

Father Merrin continues, “... At last I realized that God would never ask of me that which I know to be psychologically impossible; that the love which He asked was in my will and not meant to be felt as emotion. No. Not at all. He was asking that I act with love; that I do unto others; and that I should do in unto those who repelled me, I believe, was a greater act of love than any other.”

During the writing of this article, it became legal to carry out late-term abortions in the state of New York. It is now legal to inject poison into a child. How can such things come to pass in a self-proclaimed civilized society? The answer is very simple: when we deny the likeness of God in each and every individual, we set a precedent for mass murder. That is the trick of the demon in ‘Exorcist,’ to make everyone think that an innocent child is vile and disgusting. It is also the trick of this secular religion we call ‘the state,’ to engineer society as if we are all mere spokes in a wheel.

The antidote to this degeneracy of man cannot be anything other than the imitation of Christ. Blatty illustrated this wonderfully at the end of his novel. Damien, devastated by the death of Father Merrin, rages at the possessed girl. He pounces on her and starts beating her, but he immediately changes his mind and channels his fury into something else other than hate. ‘Come into me!’ he shouts at the demon inside the girl. The demon fulfills Damien’s wish and invades him, leaving the sobbing, traumatized girl once and for all. Damien then, overcoming the demon’s will within himself, hurls himself through the window and falls to his death; he sacrifices himself for the girl.

When we see the divine within each and every individual, we don’t look for scapegoats. We don’t sacrifice human beings on our altars of hate and desperation. No, instead we seek their well-being. If we face an ‘enemy’ we seek reconciliation and the rehabilitation of those we deem to be ‘other.’ We die for them. ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,’ that was what Jesus said before dying on the cross at Calvary.

To imitate Jesus is to find the divine spark within each and every individual. And when we fathom this truth, we seek to preserve the gift of that spark that was bestowed upon us all. It doesn’t matter if we are not able to feel this truth. Sure enough, we will come across individuals who are pathological to the core; we will come across those who are truly possessed. But God has the final say, and if he says that all are created in his image and that Christ is the only way, then that’s all there is.

Creating Beauty out of Sorrow

"Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon."

--Akira Kurosawa

Films in India are largely known for their overly melodramatic content coupled with song and dance routines, but one filmmaker stood out from the usual Bollywood circus of noise and saturation. Satyajit Ray remains, to this day, one of the finest directors to have ever graced the world of motion pictures. His films speak of suffering, sadness, social issues, and the beauty of nature. Probably his best-known work among western audiences is the ‘Apu’ trilogy. The name ‘Apu’ may strike a chord of familiarity with Simpsons fans; after all the creators of that animated show borrowed the name from the film character.

The trilogy consists of ‘Song of the Little Road,’ ‘The Unvanquished,’ and ‘The World of Apu.’ All three movies depict the daily struggles of a poverty-stricken Brahmin family. In ‘Song of the Little Road’ we see Apu for the first time as an adolescent. We see Apu within the confines of childhood, where the harsh realities of adulthood are simply out of reach. Apu’s father is a priest who barely earns a living, and his mother is a simple housewife who takes care of the children. The two of them shield their children from a world that is bitter and cruel; they allow their son and daughter to blossom in their innocence.

Apu wanders and plays through the countryside with his sister, who takes care of him in an almost maternal way. They gaze at the world around them in wide-eyed wonder. They laugh, giggle, and play endlessly. And then one day, Apu’s sister suddenly dies from a fever. The family is overwhelmingly grief-stricken at the death, and the young Apu’s journey into the world has just begun.

After the death of his father, Apu desires to study in a school as he wants to gain more knowledge about the world around him. The mother wants him to stay, but she soon gives in and joins in his excitement; she sacrifices almost all of her savings so that Apu can go to the city to study and work. The distance between the mother and the son during this time makes the mother yearn more for her son. She treasures each and every one of his visits, though the visits are few; but she is thankful. Roger Ebert described this relationship in an essay:

“The relationship between Apu and his mother observes truths that must exist in all cultures: how the parent makes sacrifices for years, only to see the child turn aside and move thoughtlessly away into adulthood. The mother has gone to live with a relative, as little better than a servant ("they like my cooking"), and when Apu comes to visit during a school vacation, he sleeps or loses himself in his books, answering her with monosyllables. He seems in a hurry to leave, but has second thoughts at the train station, and returns for one more day. The way the film records his stay, his departure and his return says whatever can be said about lonely parents and heedless children.”

One day, Apu returns home only to find that his mother has passed away. He is heartbroken, but he decides to move on whilst cherishing the memories of his beloved mother.

In the third film ‘The World of Apu,’ a bizarre turn of events sees a much older Apu getting married. The message of the movie is particularly interesting when we consider that Satyajit Ray was a member of the Communist Party in India. Despite social ills being prevalent around the characters of the movie, Ray’s message seems to be of self-giving and the acceptance of responsibility rather than any sort of radicalism. Apu marries a supposedly ‘jinxed’ girl, not because he wants to settle down and start a family, and not even because he loves the girl, but rather because he thinks it is an only way to save the girl from social ostracism. Perhaps the absence of revolutionary zeal in Apu’s ‘solution’ was why many of Ray’s socialist comrades were so irked by the great auteur’s films.

Though initially sad and nervous, the girl, Aparna, grows quite fond of Apu once she gets to know him. A loving relationship begins to grow between them. But alas! Tragedy strikes again. It happens when Aparna gives birth to a son. She dies during childbirth, and for Apu it is the final nail in the coffin of what he once knew as life. He blames the death of his wife on his newborn son and runs away from the responsibility of fatherhood.

The further our souls stray from beauty, the more emptiness we are in. Life, from one perspective, is a series of endless tragedies. To make up for the emptiness, we develop a mindset of consumption and entitlement; ‘the more you consume and the more rights you enjoy, the happier you are.’ Such things, however, do not redeem the endless sorrows we encounter almost daily in our lives. In Ray’s films, we find the things that indeed redeem the suffering we go through. The love of Apu’s mother, for example, vividly illustrates a self-giving nature that is reminiscent of the Trinitarian dance. Later, we see this same self-giving when Apu sees Aparna on the brink of being excluded from society and decides to marry her.

The poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote:
“The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.”

This way of self-giving not only redeems our suffering, but it connects our souls to the divine dance of heaven. It gives us a gateway to a state of existence that is above the natural. Isn’t that what beauty is supposed to be about? Beauty is that which connects us to the divine, and whenever we are confronted with that which is truly beautiful we are at a loss for words and find ourselves in awe. This is exactly what Apu experiences when, after running away from fatherhood, he witnesses the sun rising in the horizon and painting everything with a brilliant layer of light.

Having witnessed the power of creation, Apu returns to see his son. The son, now an adolescent, cannot recognize his father, but he is willing to accept Apu as a friend. Apu cheerfully picks up the boy and carries him on his shoulder, embracing fatherhood and its inevitable struggles, and continuing the journey of his own self-giving mother.

Reflections on the Gulag Archipelago

Life is filled with suffering, and suffering is magnified and multiplied by the endless stream of malevolence. I am discovering this first hand as my mother lies in a hospital bed beside me, a victim of a violent assault. It's the act of evil committed upon the innocent that shatters us the most. No one is immune. The arbitrary nature of evil cannot be denied. It is self evident as there is no shortage of examples. Having acknowledged this fact, the question that each and everyone of us should ask ourselves is: how should one walk in the face of such evil?

While I sat beside my unconscious mother, I read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 'The Gulag Archipelago,' a mammoth Nobel prize-winning book written by a Russian dissident who suffered at the hands of a brutal Communist regime. Solzhenitsyn was a soldier who had served in the Second World War. While fighting against the German army, he witnessed first hand the atrocities committed by the Red Army against German and east European civilians. The looting and raping of civilians by his comrades were the first cracks in Solzhenitsyn's long held illusion about the rulers of his motherland. Very soon he would be sent to a series of labor camps. He was convicted for his criticism of Stalin in a private letter to a classmate; the sentence was eleven years. For eleven years he would suffer like the lowest form of animal, working away like a beast without limits, and scratching away at every crumb he received whilst barely able to keep himself warm in the coldest hell on earth.

Solzhenitsyn had every reason to hate his captors. He had every reason to feel victimized and plot revenge. After all, he was an innocent man wrongly convicted for speaking the truth. But he did something that would go beyond victimism and scapegoating. He looked within himself. He searched his life and looked for how he might have contributed to the creation of such a regime that had imprisoned him.

It took him time spent inside a series of labor camps to realize that the degradation of the society and state goes hand in hand with the degradation of the individual. When the Russian revolution erupted, many innocent lives were lost at the hands of furious mobs acting at the behest of the 'oppressed' people. This coincided with the massive loss of lives on the battlefields of the first World War. Before the revolution, and before the hypnotic frenzy of the crowd, Russia had been a flawed but thoroughly devout and traditional country. She was soon to be fed from Europe an overwhelming amount of socialist and utopian ideas. The import of radical socialist ideology came after a combination of liberalism and nihilism supplanted the traditional axiom of Orthodoxy that had held the country together. Fyodor Dostoevsky would write about this era of nihilistic movements in its embryonic form in his novel 'Demons.'

Dostoevsky argued that for a morally upright society, or a society striving for moral uprightness, to sustain itself must have a foundation that is not only firm but also transcendent; and by transcendent, meaning that even Kings and Queens must subject themselves to it. For Dostoevsky, that foundation had to be God. Once that foundation is removed, the ground becomes ripe for artificial religion, i.e. hateful ideologies, to grow and spread like wildfire. Man is an innately religious animal, and he must have an axiom by which to live and exist, either devouringly or fruitfully.

That is why Solzhenitsyn echoed Dostoevsky when he said the following:
"...But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened."

What does it mean to not forget God? What does it mean to follow God? That is an interesting question, and it is closely tied to the first question about walking in the face of evil. The recognition of evil, the discovery that malevolence is when one subjects another to his/her version of an inferior man-made existence, is closely tied to what Jesus unraveled on the cross. And this unraveling of evil on the cross gives birth to conduct that treats the other, not as a piano key or spoke of a wheel, but as a worthy individual capable of having autonomy--a unique individual created in God's own image. Ideology does not provide this way of conduct, it gives us the reverse. Ideology dismisses the individual's true stature as an expression of divinity, and attempts to squeeze the individual into its utopian vision, with or without consent. This collective, coercive way of the world leads to tyranny. It leads to the Soviet Union and its Gulag system.

Solzhenitsyn wrote the following about ideology,
"Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble – and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb, too. The imagination and spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations.... Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago."

To impose one's worldview on another is to forget God. For ages, men have tried to bring about good by evil, violent means. Thieves try to provide by theft. Murderers try to fulfill life by killing. Politicians try to solve by scapegoating. Generals try to bring peace through war. Jesus called this 'satan trying to cast out satan.' While it may have worked before during pagan times, it works no longer because of the crucifixion at Calvary. The memory that men had once lynched the innocent Son of God haunts us to ends of the earth. The face of Christ is etched on the countless men, women, and children we sacrifice in war, clinics, and prisons for the sustaining of fragile society.

But the question still remains: how must we conduct ourselves? It begins with the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus sets a precedent for us: resist not evil with evil. The act of turning the other cheek is a recognition of the autonomy of the other person. Not only that, it is also the recognition that the attacker is bitterly fighting a war within himself. The decision to not reciprocate violence with more violence urges the attacker to introspect and encourages him/her to find the Christ within.

Solzhenitsyn wrote,
"Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains ... an unuprooted small corner of evil."

Solzhenitsyn also urged us to live not by lies. The greatest lie is the idea that we can bring about good from evil, that peace can come from violence. The Soviet Union believed this lie, and its leaders thought constantly and morbidly that they were only one execution away from utopia--one labor camp away from a worker's paradise. Likewise, the motto of the concentration camps in Nazi Germany was: 'Work will set you free.' The perversion of reality, that is the lie preached by authoritarian cults all around the world.

Solzhenitsyn summed this up perfectly:
"Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence... Any man, who has once proclaimed violence as his Method, is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle."

After years of inhumane suffering in the camps, Solzhenitsyn was diagnosed with cancer. He fought and won this battle too. Years and years of living in the very depths of hell had transformed him. Earlier, he had already compared himself to the camp guards who ran the Gulags, and concluded that he was once, when serving in the Red Army, no different than them. But he could no longer keep living in a lie. He had to speak the truth. He began by jotting down his own account of time spent in the Gulags, and at the same time, he began collecting testimonies from hundreds of eye witnesses. He had already demonstrated a remarkable ability to memorize when he composed a poem comprising of thousands of verses whilst living in the Gulags.

In 1962, a novel called 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' was published in the Novy Mir magazine. It detailed a single day of a Gulag inmate. The horrors of camp life became vivid in the eyes of readers across Russia. The book became enormously popular. It also earned Solzhenitsyn the wrathful eye of the totalitarian state watchdogs. Many attempts were made by the KGB to confiscate the manuscripts of his unpublished works, but by now the Gulag Archipelago had already been completed, translated, and distributed in the west. The party could no longer tolerate Solzhenitsyn; he became a non-person and was finally exiled from the country of his birth.

In 1970, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He lived in the United States, and returned to Russia in 1994 after the communist government had fallen.

Solzhenitsyn used the greatest weapon of all: Truth. The truth need not be accompanied by violence. It is powerful of its own accord. It has the strength to bring down empires. Solzhenitsyn wrote nothing but the truth about what his country was going through and what he was going through. He spoke truth about others, but most of all, he spoke truth to himself. In today's world of superficiality it is often the trend to lie to oneself. In the lies we tell ourselves, we claim that since we have only one life we should live for the moment. We drown in our own materialism and hedonism. We trap ourselves in the prison that calls itself pleasure island. We waste away without meaning, without purpose, and the best we can come up with is the wagging of fingers and waving of placards. Solzhenitsyn said otherwise. His message transcends the superficiality of our times. Against materialism, he argued for a Stoic approach to life and finding contentment. Against finger pointing and blaming others, he encouraged a life of continued death and rebirth, for before taking on the world one must first sort himself out.

The tyranny of compulsion still exists today. Society still goes by the principle of might makes right. The lie of sacrificial violence is well and alive, but it is loosing its stranglehold on humanity thanks to the revelation of the cross. As Christians, we would do well to further the demon of state tyranny on its way to hell. We would do well to demotivate the culture of violence in society by being shining lights of peace ourselves. We can start following Solzhenitsyn's example. We can stop telling lies and start telling the truth whilst carrying the burden of existence.

"You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me."

As I wait in the hospital for my mother to regain consciousness, I decide to start small. There is no point in revenge; nothing becomes better by doing that. I have to be a better son than I was before, and I have to find meaning through responsibility. Start small, like taking care of your loved ones, and healing those nearby who are in great pain. Truth and beauty goes hand in hand. Together, they provide meaning by which we can weather the storm, and in all of this, there is an abundance of freedom as only God can provide. 

Identity Politics or Pesonal Action

Image copyright: Prager University

Question: Should we consider the king's judgment in Matthew 25 an example of "identity politics"? The Human One [Christ] seems to identify whom we should serve solely by victimary identity: the hungry, thirsty, sick, naked, imprisoned, and stranger, i.e., the typical losers in human politics.


My Response:

This is what I call reading scripture through a conflict theory lens. There is a difference between serving the marginalized of the society and forcing others at gunpoint through the state to 'serve' a state/culture-designated marginalized class. Also notice here that Jesus speaks about actual victims with inflictions that go beyond race, gender, religion, nationality, etc--inflictions that are universal to all corners of the world regardless of 'identities.'

Also notice the emphasis on personal action in the actual text in Matthew 25.

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."

Nowhere does Jesus speak about enforcing these actions through the power of the Roman empire or through Herod. He speaks about 'giving something to eat/drink,' 'inviting in,' 'clothing,' and (even more strikingly) 'visiting the prisoner in his/her cell.' All personal actions, i.e. taking full responsibility and being in close proximity to the one you're supposed to help. One could object that here Jesus addresses the 'nations,' but that still does not make it okay to 'help' the marginalized through the use of state coercion. An identity-political reading, as implied by the question above, would indicate that Jesus would punish any person if he were to not support the right policies designed by sacrificial institutions.

On the other hand, a girardian reading of the text would indicate that the otherized scapegoats of society are not to be expelled but instead included into the family of God and treated with dignity. This is also why Jesus' parable of the Samaritan neighbor is masterfully designed to eradicate the identity of the other that existed in Judean culture at that time. Christ presented the Samaritan as a human being closer to God, not because the Samaritan has a racial/ethnic identity that belongs (or deserves to belong) higher up in the ladder, but because the Samaritan has transcended the racial boundary. The Samaritan chooses to 'be his brother's keeper,' not through recognition of identity but through recognition of the universal human identity--a fellow-image bearer of God.

Jesus explicitly stated that his kingdom is not of the world, and that his band of followers are a government unto themselves, who brings peace as God gives it and not as the world gives it. Christ's intention was and is always to impact the world from the bottom up and not top down. This is not about individual pursuit, as some would mistake, but rather, it is the proper way to change the world. The kingdom of God is a contagion of love that builds up from the micro aspect of society through imitation of Christ. Wouldn't one agree that conversion first starts with the individual, with the realization that each and every one of us is at least a potential persecutor? If one claims collective guilt of any kind and of any group, one risks falling into the trap of man-made sacrificial Christianity.

It is obviously desirable to band together and help fellow human beings. What's certainty undesirable, as I've already pointed out, is to band together and force others at gunpoint to 'do good.' Christ does not do that, and neither should we.

Jordan Peterson and the Devouring Mother

In one of my recent facebook posts, I pointed out that we as a society are failing our youths and we are failing drastically. When I had posted this sad observation, I expected a serious discussion on how we can help our young neighbors, but instead I got drawn into a petty argument about laws. This modern day insistense that we must have an excess of institutional supervision creates nothing but a rule of the devouring mother, and sadly it has given birth to a lot of angry and directionless boys.

The root of the problem lies deep, like ancient bones underneath enormous layers of earth. That is what many of our laws are; they are sacrificial, drawn out of the scapegoats of our ancestors. When we cling on to laws with demands that a few be sacrificed instead of the whole nation, we get kids like the Columbine and Parkland shooters.

The detached culture which we live in transforms a large portion of the youth within a society into bitter, resentful, and alienated human beings. Is it any wonder that we see murders committed in schools or playgrounds? And we look for quick fixes from institutions, where none exists at all. Even worse! We are willing to turn away from the dark alleys, where state laws have sacrificed a good portion of the population so that those who are not sacrificed can live in safety.

But enough about worldly laws, and onto the main concern. A friend of mine asked me how we can guide our young neighbors out of the cages of misery. I suggested to him that every individual in society must voluntarily help those young people who are close to them. There are many out there who are neglected in a variety of unbelievable ways. Here I will give a vivid illustration on how we can help the youngsters around us. The following is from a book that I'm currently reading.

I saw a four-year old boy allowed to go hungry on a regular basis. His nanny had been injured, and he was being cycled through the neighbours for temporary care. When his mother dropped him off at our house, she indicated that he wouldn’t eat at all, all day. “That’s OK,” she said. It wasn’t OK (in case that’s not obvious). This was the same four-year-old boy who clung to my wife for hours in absolute desperation and total commitment, when she tenaciously, persistently and mercifully managed to feed him an entire lunch-time meal, rewarding him throughout for his cooperation, and refusing to let him fail. He started out with a closed mouth, sitting with all of us at the dining room table, my wife and I, our two kids, and two neighbourhood kids we looked after during the day. She put the spoon in front of him, waiting patiently, persistently, while he moved his head back and forth, refusing it entry, using defensive methods typical of a recalcitrant and none-too-well-attended two-year old.

She didn’t let him fail. She patted him on the head every time he managed a mouthful, telling him sincerely that he was a “good boy” when he did so. She did think he was a good boy. He was a cute, damaged kid. Ten not-too-painful minutes later he finished his meal. We were all watching intently. It was a drama of life and death.

“Look,” she said, holding up his bowl. “You finished all of it.” This boy, who was standing in the corner, voluntarily and unhappily, when I first saw him; who wouldn’t interact with the other kids, who frowned chronically, who wouldn’t respond to me when I tickled and prodded him, trying to get him to play—this boy broke immediately into a wide, radiant smile. It brought joy to everyone at the table. Twenty years later, writing it down today, it still brings me to tears. Afterward, he followed my wife around like a puppy for the rest of the day, refusing to let her out of his sight. When she sat down, he jumped in her lap, cuddling in, opening himself back up to the world, searching desperately for the love he had been continually denied. Later in the day, but far too soon, his mother reappeared. She came down the stairs into the room we all occupied. “Oh, SuperMom,” she uttered, resentfully, seeing her son curled up in my wife’s lap. Then she departed, black, murderous heart unchanged, doomed child in hand. She was a psychologist. The things you can see, with even a single open eye. It’s no wonder that people want to stay blind.
--Jordan Peterson, '12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos'

It is this closeness that transforms and saves lives. It involves the 'soiling of one's own hands,' as my friend Andrea Romano says. Dostoevsky depicts this beautifully in 'Crime and Punishment' through the character of Sonya who helps and redeems a murderer with nothing but love, humility, and genuine concern.

I do not speak of a coming utopia. A utopia is not the same as the kingdom of God, for the ushering in of a utopia needs violent revolution and sacrifices of scapegoats. To say that we need more scapegoats until we are ready for Christ is to say that we're one execution away from utopia. Those who says that we are one scapegoat away from the kingdom of God are the real dreamers of utopia.

I speak of action and full participation. I speak of taking up responsibility. This way is harder. This way is the imitation of Christ. I'm speaking of the carrying of crosses and bearing the burden of suffering; this is hardly utopian. This Christ-like love which was illustrated in Dr. Peterson's book, not the love (at gunpoint) of the world, is what we need, and we need it urgently, before the cycle of vengeance comes full circle yet again. We can either behave like the black-hearted mother in Dr. Peterson's story, or we can become like Dostoevsky's Sonya. The choice is yours.

The violent birth of Dionysus

Many sceptics dismiss the Gospel accounts as mere fiction due to their similarities to prior mythology. There is a popular belief in circulation today that Christ himself was an imagined archtypal hero in the same vein as Zeus or Archilles. According to the adherents of this belief, the Christian God is Zeus retold, minus the virtue of strength and will to power. This was certainly similar to the view held by Nietzsche. According to René Girard, this line of reasoning shamelessly misses the point and, therefore, fails to see the real uniqueness of the gospel stories, a uniqueness wherein lies the salvation of mankind.

Take for instance the similarities of the divine birth narratives. In the ancient mythological stories, there are many instances of the gods copulating with mortal women in order to give birth to hybrid divine heroes. The birth of Dionysus comes to mind. Zeus, the chiefest of all gods, becomes the father of Dionysus through a mortal woman by the name of Semele. Similarly, the gospels also speak of a divine being, the Holy Spirit, conceiving Jesus inside the mortal Mary. Here the sceptic will go, "Aha! Do you see the origin of your 'divinely inspired' nativity story now?" In saying this, the sceptic misses the point. There is a world of a difference between the two in one key aspect: the issue of force, namely violence. Girard explains this in his book, 'Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World':

"Stories of this kind always involve more than a hint of violence. Zeus bears down on Semele, the mother of Dionysus, like a beast of prey upon its victim, and in effect strikes her with lightning. The birth of the gods is always a kind of rape...These monstrous couplings between men, gods and beasts are in close correspondence with the phenomenon of reciprocal violence and its method of working itself out. The orgasm that appeases the god is a metaphor for collective violence."

Compare this story to the nativity accounts, where Mary's status, unlike Semele's, is elevated by God to that of nobility. In the gospel of Luke, the angel Gabriel greets Mary by saying, "Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" God makes known to Mary that she will bring forth his son, to which Mary replies, "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." There is a complete absence of violence and coercion in the virgin birth story. There is no element of force whatsoever. This is no coincidence, neither is it a proclamation of harmlessness as Nietzsche would have it.

For centuries, humanity has drawn a particular image of God that uses coercion combined with sheer might in order to impose divine will on creation. This human depiction of God is okay with, and even demands, ritual sacrifice. Our modern day society, despite the lack of extravagant mythologies, still operates under this same principle. We often think that for justice to prevail there has to be scapegoating, and for good to come about there has to be coercion. Our societies operate under this false precedent that good comes out from using evil against evil. This kind of idea, when put into practice, gives rise to war, rape, abortion, homicide, domestic abuse, and countless other malevolent acts. We can observe this phenomenon acting out vividly when the state, the religious priesthood of our time, sanctions theft against its own citizens and throws non-violent dissenters into cages like wild animals.

In the myth of Dionysus, Semele, under the might of coercion, becomes nothing more than a means to an end. She is glorified in her utter humiliation. This is what pagan sacrificial culture leads to, and what our modern day pseudo-pagan culture continues to enforce. Through the rape of a fragile mortal woman, heroes and deities are born, and order is brought forth. On the other hand, the God of the Bible brings order through non-violence. The mortal and vulnerable is proclaimed to be the image bearer of God. Mary is honored and praised by the angel Gabriel, and later her dignity is defended by God. From the elevation of Mary comes the true hero Jesus.

Jesus is the perfection, redefinition, and embodiment of true heroism. The hero of the Bible does not act out the carnal, coercive nature of fallen man, but, rather, exhibits bravery and determination in perfect combination with gentleness and compassion. There is no weakness in him because the powers and principalities of the world holds no power over him. In him resides the perfect balance of the cosmos. He is able to triumph over evil, not with the parasitical force of Satan, but through the reversal of the Satanic contagion itself.

The gospel revelation encourages us to be imitators of this mighty yet gentle Christ. Through the imitation of Jesus, we are unable to extort goodness from our neighbor. We cannot rape anymore Semeles. We cannot scapegoat those vulnerable than ourselves. We cannot demonize or lynch our enemies. The catharsis from all these ungodly acts are wearing thin. We are instead called to universal chivalry for our fellow human beings. We are left with no choice but to infect the world with the love of Christ through the love of our neighbor.

Ramayana and the birth of 'high morality'

The study of ancient literature, particularly the great mythologies, helps us understand the origin of culture and society. Within each heroic and magical tale, and beneath each culture that springs from that tale is the story of a lynch mob and a sacrificed victim.

Take for example, the great poem of Ramayana. This epic poem tells us the story of a banished prince who lives in exhile as a hunter along with his wife. The name of this prince is Ram and his wife Sita. One day, a wicked king named Ravana deceives and kidnaps Sita; he takes her and imprisons her within his fortified kingdom of Lanka. Ram, the archetypal hero, must now undertake a hazardous journey out of his home and into the wild in order to save his wife. He raises an army and invades Lanka. After a fierce battle, he slays Ravana and thus saves his wife.

A Jungian analysis of this story reveals the archetypal hero's journey. Much like St. George, Ram ventures out into the unknown, confronts the dragon, and saves the virgin. But a Girardian examination reveals a deeper truth--a truth that is more real and grittier than that of an extravagant fable with moral truths.

The text of Ramayana alludes to past struggles that may have occurred in circa. 1500 BC between armies from Persia/Central Asia and Dravidian natives. In those days, it was not uncommon for scribes to romanticize the feats of their beloved patron kings. In the light of this knowledge, the Ramayana can be interpreted as a war between two kings, or maybe it is the sacrifice of a defeated king. In traditional artistic depictions, Ravana is usually painted or carved out as a powerful man with dark skin and features similar to that of Dravidians. Also, his kingdom of Lanka is thought to be situated somewhere around or within modern-day Sri Lanka.

Once Ram has defeated Ravana, he establishes a period of 'Ram Rajya'--a culture/state of high morality. This is reminiscent of Cain's feat after he murders his brother. Like Ram, Cain founds the first civilized society. And civilization, culture, society, and even language are all the result of violence, specifically the sacrifice of a single victim, who is later deified because of the catharsis that comes from his demise.

I have personally found Jung's study of the unconscious mind fascinating, but I think Girard was right when he said Jung didn't go deep enough. Had Jung gone deep enough in his study of mythological symbols, not only would he have been able to uncover the lynches, but he would have also recognized the reverse mythology of the gospels that internalizes the sacrificing within the realm of the person.

When Christ saves the adulterous woman from getting stoned to death, he challenges each person to look within themselves, and in the process, he breaks the hypnotic frenzy of the crowd. The individual recognition that each of us has within us an inner persecutor, who is ready to burst out at any moment, is probably the most potent weapon against collectivism. It is this weapon that causes us to transform and start imitating Christ.

Today, we need not adhere to groupthink, and we need not sacrifice a scapegoat to keep our societies functioning. The ancient stories of good vs evil, retold countless times today, were subtle cover-ups for violent scapegoating. The only real battle is within our hearts; any external battle is false and based on a lie. Once we realize that we are each potential persecutors, we create within us the heart of Christ. We develop a heart that naturally comes to love our neighbor, whether they be victims or oppressors. This was Paul's Damascus experience, and it should be ours as well.

The Hostile Brothers

The fascinating stories of sibling relationships found within the book of Genesis tells us a lot about the journey of the human species. It tells us about man's relationship with his brother, and how that relationship developed from envy and hostility to forgiveness and reconciliation.

In the story of Cain and Abel, we see the rise of sibling rivalry and the eventual first murder. Out of the two brothers, Abel is the one who pleases God the most. This does not make Cain happy; in fact, he grows bitter and envious towards his brother. Cain's anger and frustration in trying to live up to this model/obstacle version of brotherhood ends with the murder of Abel. This speaks volumes about the artificial brotherhood of the world, one based entirely on stepping over the other and acquiring a desirable object.

This is an interesting start because the story of Cain and Abel bears a striking resemblance to the ancient mythologies of the hostile brothers. The tale of Romulus and Remus is one example of a story similar to that of Cain and Abel. But a distinction is placed between the two--one that separates the romantic lie from reality. Abel is innocent, and Cain, though guilty, is protected by God. The deconstruction of mythology has just begun.

The competitive/rivalry-based relationship of Cain and Abel continues to define the modern 'secular' world which we inhabit. The ultimate aim of this kind of relationship is to please false gods, whether that be the ego, a third person, a certain status, or a collective entity. There is no option for failure, i.e. the conceding of the desirable object. As a result, according to Dostoevsky, the rich die from dissatisfaction, and the poor kill each other. Is there any surprise why this kind of relationship is most likely to end in hostility and violence?

We see the same theme of rivalry continuing in the story of Jacob and Esau. This story, however, does not end in violence, but, rather, it ends in realization of error. Jacob deceives Esau and steals his brother's birthright and blessing. He flees when Esau is enraged, and for a short while, it appears as if he would get away with it. But it is not long before Jacob himself is tricked into extra labor and duped into marrying someone whom he does not love. Jacob learns of the wrongness of deception. He is finally able to look from his brother's perspective, and is ultimately moved towards a mutual understading with Esau.

Finally, in Joseph's story, we see the foreshadowing of Christ. Joseph is envied by his brothers because of his predicted dominant status; he would rule not only his entire family but also the entire region. He is beaten, thrown into a pit, and sold into slavery. And just when he climbs out of one pit, he is thrown into another. He is accused of rape by his master's wife and thrown into prison. Despite all these betrayals and deception, Joseph does not rebel. He maintains his integrity, and at the same time makes no effort to 'compete' against his persecutors. His is the model of a relationship grounded in non-violence--a relationship not of coercion but of persuasion through the imitation of the divine.

Joseph's innocence is eventually restored, thanks to his ability to interpret dreams. Not only is he restored, but he is also elevated to a position of authority. It is during his reign as a man of power when he comes face to face with his brothers who had sold him into slavery. The former persecutors approach Joseph; they are in need and, though they are unable to recognize him, they must depend entirely on his mercy. The power positions are now reversed.

If this were some story written with an ideological pen, Joseph would have been perfectly in the right to give his brothers a taste of their own medicine. After all, according to Nietzsche, might is meant to be exercised, and weakness must be discouraged. The übermensch does not conform to the slave-morality of the Judeo-Christian God. The übermensch belongs to aristocracy and not to slaves. But, as if God knew beforehand about Nietzsche, it is the Christ-man who is of the aristocratic minority, and the persecutors are slaves to the power of the crowd.

When Joseph sees his brothers, he immediately recognizes them and puts them to a test--a unique test designed in such a way that they may realize the wrongness of what they had done to their brother years ago (see Genesis 42-44). The brothers are dismayed by their failure to get away scot-free. Finally they realize the full depth of the violence that had been committed towards Joseph. It is right then when a teary-eyed Joseph reveals himself to his brothers. The brothers are finally reconciled. Jacob, Joseph's father, learns of this episode and travels with his entire family to Egypt so that he can live with his son once again.

Joseph, twice a victim of persecution, and now a ruler, does not exact vengeance upon his brothers. He makes it known to them that he has the power to kill them, but he does not take revenge. He sheaths his sword and chooses mercy, similar to what Christ does in Gethsemane and Golgotha. What prompts Joseph to choose mercy? We have to recognize that Joseph was a precursor to the coming Messiah. Joseph understood that even the harshest of men were made in the image of God. This simple understanding is pivotal in man's relationship with his fellow man, and only in the Bible is this made known.

It is fitting that this particular story is the redemptive ending to the book of Genesis. Joseph concedes the rivalry, recognizes the image of God in his persecutors, and embraces them as his own. This is the familial image of Christ dying on the cross whilst praying, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' This is God, not punishing, but embracing his persecutors. Joseph becomes a Christ figure to his brothers. He imitates the coming Messiah and saves his brothers from mimetic rivalry whilst giving them hope of a better home. He becomes the precursor to the true human being in Christ Jesus, and therefore, he points out the true human relationship grounded in Christ mimesis.

The Gospel in Les Misérables

"I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people."
--Jeremiah 31:33 (NIV) 

The historical relationship between the Christian and the state has always been a case of curiosity. This is all the more exemplified when we see around us those self-proclaimed followers of Christ trying to bring about the kingdom of God through mimetic games designed by the state priesthood. This effort of blending two religions (one centered around Christ mimesis and the other centered on the imitation of man) together is an exercise in futility. The truth is that the incarnation paves the way for the destruction of governments on a worldwide scale. Some two thousand years ago, a babe born into an obscure middle-eastern town heralded the coming of God's kingdom and the death of empires and government. The life that came out from the virgin would destroy governments once and for all, but this destruction would come only through the viral imitation of that very life itself.

In Victor Hugo's novel 'Les Misérables' we can see how imitation of Christ leads to a contagion of God's love through individuals that ultimately affects society at large. Jean Valjean is a former convict who is shown mercy by an old priest when he is caught stealing. This act of compassion from the priest amazes Valjean so much that the criminal decides to embrace the forgiving priest as his new model. By embracing the priest as his model for imitation, Valjean has effectively chosen to imitate Christ; he is now the Christ-man. As a result of his decision, Jean Valjean rises up to become the mayor of a small town through nothing but small yet significant acts of charity and kindness. He is always helping the needy and downtrodden, and he is always humble and discreet in his actions. Soon however, his very existence is thrown up for grabs with the entrance of the zealot police inspector Javert, who wishes to exert the full force of the law upon Valjean's town, even if it means throwing reformed men into cages like animals for past sins. In more simple terms, Javert is the spirit of the accuser, more aptly described in scripture as Satan.

One day, inspector Javert comes across a wretched prostitute who has just struck a man in self defense. Javert commands his men to have the prostitute thrown in jail. He ignores the prostitute's pleas of mercy and is ruthless with his decision, but in comes Valjean, who exercises his much superior authority and pardons the prostitute. Valjean even goes as far as to medically treat the prostitute when she is dying, and he promises to take care of the prostitute's daughter. This throws Javert and Valjean into a head-on collision course. The eventual unmasking of Valjean as an ex-convict causes Valjean to flee with the prostitute's daughter. But Javert will not stop in his pursuit of justice, and he chases Valjean across the country.

Javert is the personification of the state. He is the state's high priest. His unquenchable desire to uphold the law is revealed to be ancient in origin and, hence, sacrificial. Today, many intellectuals speak of the violence of religion, yet very few speak of the violence of the state. The state is very religious, not many dare to recognize this. It operates through the ancient but effective sacrificial mechanism. Scapegoats, violent and non violent offenders, are routinely thrown into cages by the priesthood; this keeps the state in existence, and the catharsis just balmy enough to contain a full fledged all-against-all war. Valjean, on the other hand, is the Christ imitator. He is a priest of the kingdom of God. He is chained to Christ mimesis, and thus cannot use violence and coercion. His only weapon is the crucified life of Christ.

Whereas Javert does not care about a man's potential to reform, Valjean forgives freely. Javert is the law through coercion while Valjean is the law through imitation. One mercilessly throws human beings into cages and the other turns the cheek. The two are, for obvious reasons, irreconcilable.

Javert is finally able to apprehend his man after years of pursuit, but he realizes the superiority of Valjean's law and concludes that he is made directionless because of Valjean's Christ-man. He realizes the immorality of the state's use of violence and the brutal nature of its prisons where countless men languish and are broken forever. The inspector lets go of his man, and commits suicide, marking the obsolete nature of the state in the presence of a viral Christian mimesis.

To this day, thousands suffer in prison. The state-engineered media will echo the violence committed by people, but it will always downplay the violence of the state. Little is spoken of the widespread rape of offenders in prisons across the world. A man guilty of not paying back loans is just as likely to be raped as the vicious murderer. And all this while under the supervision of the state's priesthood. This is the cold reality of governments everywhere.

The state has always been a continuation of religion; violence and coercion has always been it's ritual sacrifice. But this does not mean that we should rise up and rebel against it in a mimetic manner. Such stupidity is reserved for the Marxists and clueless leftists. God revealed to us what we must do while living under the state. His answer is Jesus. This answer is amplified in Victor's Hugo's Jean Valjean. The ex-convict Valjean shows mercy not only to the victims, but also to the oppressors. His form of justice is restorative and does not require scapegoats. He helps out the workers. He practices benevolence towards those who are unfortunate enough in society. He becomes father and protector to an orphaned girl. And he, on more than one occasion, spares Javert's life.

The life of the fictional Valjean is a mirror image of the divine Savior. His life is an excellent example of how Christians must behave under the tyranny of the state. Only a fool would take the state, which makes full use of the scapegoat mechanism, as a moral agent of society. The true moral agent for mankind is and has always been none other than Jesus Christ, and his imitation, and the viral nature of it, renders all government and religious institutions obsolete.

The Persecutor Within Us

'You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye.'

Too many times, we take this particular saying of Jesus and apply it to anyone else but ourselves. This is the problem that confronts us when we read scripture with a self-centered, ideological lens. Judgment is always aimed at the reader's enemy, but benediction is always conveniently bestowed on the reader and reader alone. The outcome of this philosophy is that our own violence is always justified while the violence of the other is the origin itself. This dishonest reading of Jesus' words gives way to mimetic rivalry. Both the envious reader and his opponent mimic each other; one wants the other to 'remove the log for thine own eye,' and in the end, neither remove their respective logs at all!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once remarked that the reader should always read scripture as if God is speaking directly to him/her. The beauty of the above quote by Jesus is that it never works in a third-person setting. If we read the above quote as a third person, we enter into mimeric rivalry. We either start playing the holier-than-thou oppressor or we become the oppressor masquerading as a victim. To fully comprehend what Jesus said, we have to realize that it is we who are the oppressor and accuser. We have to realize that we have been duped by Satan all along, and that we have become Cain, full of resentment and bitterness. In our accusatory spirit we echo killers like Panzram and the Columbine shooters. These people were no different than us. They were full of hatred for humanity. They were full of hatred for being itself. And why wouldn't they be full of hatred? Mass murder is, after all, the endgame of the accusing spirit.

What then can be done about it?

René Girard said, 'Christian conversion is our discovery that we are persecutors without knowing it.' The realization that we can be infinitely more evil than our perceived opponents is the first step. This knowledge should cut to our hearts as it did to the crowd gathered on the day of Pentecost at Jerusalem. It is our scapegoating tendency that nails Christ to the cross over and over again. Obviously, we, as Christians, would not want to do that.

The second step, knowing full well that we are an imitative species, should be the embracing of a perfect source for imitation. Christ is that perfect source. The gospel is designed in such a way that merely preaching it is far less effective than actually living it. The power of imitation cannot be underestimated. We are far more helpful to our oppressive or victimized brothers and sisters when we imitate Jesus. The Nazarene befriended both the tax collector and the Samaritan woman. He healed both the rich and the poor. He healed and fed whoever that approached him. The reason for Christ's scandalous impartiality is his serving attitude towards all. This serving Christ should be our model in a world of sloganeering and accusatory ideals.

This attitude of humility and servitude (not to be confused with self-flagellation), irrespective of persons, is the call of Christ for today's world of the ideologically possessed. The world has seen enough of people who talk the talk but can't walk the walk. We know that the world is full of suffering and misery. We know that there are tyrants, and we know that the pain will never go away. Hence, we need to live out the crucified life of Christ--a life that is true, beautiful, and good, despite the never ending pain and sorrow. We need to echo Jesus' cry of forgiveness from the cross. At the same time, we must never compromise on the truth; the truth being that scapegoating is no friend of God.

To be able to live the crucified Savior's life depends entirely on our deep realization that we are the Columbine shooters. We are Panzram, and we are the Nazi concentration camp guards in waiting. Carl Jung wrote, "No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell." Let us then remember the depths to which we have fallen, and let us, to the everlasting glory of God, become better angels to ourselves and everyone around us while imitating the man who saved us from drowning in the ocean of accusation.

Christ: The Hero for All Men

A post for International Men's Day.

Imitation is perhaps the single greatest driving force in all of humanity's history. Great men all over the world have been inspired to become either heroes or villains. Unfortunately, imitation have led, for the most part, to conflicts which then resulted in scapegoating. This is true when we decipher most of the world's greatest mythologies. But our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ shows us how imitation can be a force for good.

Every man needs a hero. When a boy is growing up, the first person he idolizes is his father. The father is often the first source of a boy's imitative learning process. The boy picks up mannerisms, communication skills, and body languages from his father. Our entire culture is a resulting factor because of this kind of imitation. By observing this phenomenon we can conclude that imitation is innate in human beings. And it is because of this that, in order to fulfill our potential as true human beings, we need the greatest source of imitation. That source is none other than Jesus Christ.

Christ is a role model unlike any other. Being a true human being, he is certainly someone we can imitate. But, being a figure of divinity, he cannot be competed against. This is the brilliance of God's positive mimesis. Today, we can imitate and stumble so easily into rivalry because of the near-absence of divine hierarchies. Imagine how many rivalries have sparked into violent conflicts. The unique imitation of Christ does not allow us this worldly rivalry that almost always leads to violence. Christ himself said that he imitates the Father, and therefore, serves humanity. This is the subtle combination of power, authority, and servitude. Who can compete with that?

Christ is the highest order of humanity; therefore, he is the highest order of masculinity. He is both the beginning and the end of the true man. Nietzsche once spoke about embracing the 'beast within' in order to fulfill one's potential. For example, men have an inherent aspect of aggression. Christ, being the fulfillment of true man, beautifully channeled that aggression into an undying love for God's creation, which is why you see Jesus refusing to give up on his people. Even on the cross he cried for the forgiveness of his tormentors. This zeal for his creation would not have been possible if our Savior had been a harmless man.

In his earthly life, Jesus was a polarizing figure--a revolutionary in the truest sense of the word. He made bold claims on just about anything and everything. He did not provide anyone the luxury of calling him a 'good man.' He was either someone you loved or someone you hated. In other words, he was a force to be reckoned with. He dared to eat with the dirty outcastes. He dared to associate with the hypocrite priesthood. He dared to converse with women. He dared to converse with the Romans. He talked to anyone and everyone who were both the impure of society and enemies of the people. He dared to speak boldly, and he didn't mince his words either. He embraced suffering and took on the consequences of his actions. He exuded authority and even claimed divinity. Need there anything else be said about his bravery and will power?

To paraphrase Jordan Peterson, the archtypal male hero is one who 'slays the dragon and rescues the virgin.' Christ is the epitome of this hero-figure. Each of us has a story, and a chance to be a hero of that story. Christ's story is the same as that of us today. We live in a time not too different from his own. There are tyrants and there are manipulators. There are virgins and there's gold. And then there are dragons, both inside and beyond. How can we become heroes of our struggles? I believe the key lies in imitating Christ, for Christ courageously stepped out into the unknown and confronted the ultimate dragon, slaying him by boldly speaking the truth, and proclaiming the love of God on the cross.

As a boy, I've had many heroes or 'role models.' But it was and still is Christ who inspires me. When I think of bravery, I see Christ. When I think of determination, I see Christ. When I think of compassion, I see Christ. For every highest virtue, Christ is the peak of the mountain. Today, I see many men who are starved of inspiration as they drown in an ocean of shallowness and vanity. This is a result of the imitation of false gods. These men need a true hero--someone who can lift them up from the endless pit of defeat and shame, and guide them into becoming men of honor and principle--someone whom others can rely upon. What better inspiration than Jesus? What better guide than the rabbi who pulled Peter from out of the water? What better Savior than the defender of the adulterous woman? What better hero than Christ Jesus?

Christ: The Impetus for True Science

Recently, I was watching a discussion on the topic of 'truth' between Jordan Peterson, Jonathan Pageau, and Bret Weinstein. The three debated for a short time on which is the superior truth: scientific truth or religious truth? Whilst Weinstein argued that scientific truth is superior in the scenario where different beliefs contradict each other, Pageau made the bold claim that science itself was nested in religion. This got me thinking.

Science--the means to understand phenomenon--and the truth it establishes are unable to tell us how we ought to act in a life replete with tragedy and suffering. Though many people have tried to explain away social sustaining elements like ethics and morality, they are not able to explain why human beings have the capacity to develop things such as morality and, more strikingly, have transcendental religious experiences. Authentic Christian ethics and morality are brought forth by the rejection of violent contagion and ignition of the positive mimesis of Jesus Christ. Much of life-affirming scientific advances have come from people who have adhered to a hierarchy of ethics and values, and this heirarchy itself comes from Christian imitation.

Science can be a positive force for humanity only when it seeks to emulate Jesus Christ. For example, scientific advances in medicine can be achieved only when one has the best interest of the neighbor's health in mind. In other words, the heart of the healing Christ gives birth to medicine. On the other hand, medicine can also be used for selfish gains and, in such a case, science does not benefit mankind and medicine ceases to be medicine. Then there are instances when science turns downright sinister. Think of the experiments in the Nazi concentration camps or look up Unit 731, and you'll have those nightmarish images sticking in your mind for a long time. Aushwitz and Unit 731, in their very essence, constitute science without God.

What is truth, and how does this truth benefit us? In the Christian revelation, truth is embodied in a person, and that person is Christ, and in Christ we find the epitome of religious and cosmic truth. In Christ we have not only a role model but the impetus for society and the individual to do good and put a stop to evil. Scientific truth, in and of itself, is unable to stop the violent contagion that multiplies misery and resentment of being. It is no good to have facts presented to us just as they are; we must be able to do something with them. This is where God comes in. Only a positive mimesis of Christ can provide a foundation for scientific endeavors that seek to alleviate the ills of the world and the human soul.

In summary, any scientific achievement, in order to be 'good' for humanity, must be rooted in God for it to become true science and not sadism. Likewise, it must also be noted that belief without science is just as shallow as science without belief. An unbelieving scientist has the potential to become a sadistic Henry Cotton while an unscientific Christian has the potential to become a manipulative Rasputin.

Christ, who is the root of all life-affirming morals, is the role model for true science. He becomes the driving factor for all that is good. Humanity and all its accomplishments, including that of science, are clueless without him.

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.