The Lord’s Prayer, a beautiful, liberating prayer Jesus himself gave us, is a foundational Christian prayer. All of the patristic theologians considered it to be the foundation of all Christian prayer. It is said in all Christian churches, at the close of the vast majority of twelve step meetings, and in the privacy of all Christian homes. With such standing, it influences both the conscious decision making of all Christians, but also the unconscious attitudes we have toward reality, God’s initiatives and the way we live our faith. The very words of the prayer are internalized by Christian children who then carry them with them throughout their whole life. We develop an understanding that God is a loving father, that his name is holy, that he exists in some kind of heavenly state, that there is a fundamental difference between earth and heaven, that God’s kingdom is breaking into our world, that we need to forgive and that we are forgiven, that God provides for us, that evil is real, and that God acts and that we need to act as well. All of these concepts and symbols act on our conscious awareness and in our unconscious values, attitudes and feelings.
Because this prayer is so very important, it is important to ask if we are translating it correctly. We live in the twenty-first century and are influenced by the insights of science, the wonder of space travel, the tremendous accomplishments of collective action on behalf of peace and justice, and the prophetic work of feminist theology. How then are we to translate this prayer in the twenty-first century? In this essay, I will examine each verse of the prayer and propose a re-translation.
“Our Father, who art in heaven.” We have come to realize that since all people and things flow from God, both femininity and masculinity are present in God. “Mother” could be substituted for “Father” (as Blessed Julian of Norwich did in the fourteenth century). The reality of God includes all that is good in both men and women. Moreover, Jesus did not just experience God as Father, but as Abba—Daddy—tender, loving parent. Why then did Jesus maintain masculine language? He did so for the same reason that he refers to God as living in the heavens. He was fully human. Although his wisdom (sapientia) was infinite, his knowledge (scientia) was limited by space and time (as it is for all human beings). He could not have known about feminist contributions to religious studies in the same way that he could not have known about space travel or Einstein’s theory of relativity.
We know from critical Biblical scholarship that the phrase “the heavens” is a symbol for God. We know from science that there is no heavenly firmament dividing the upper atmosphere from the abode of God and his angels. Jesus was a first century Jewish man so he knew first century Jewish cosmology. Some might argue that because Jesus was divine he knew everything, including twenty-first century astro-physics and modern/post-modern science. This claim is a form of monophysitism which claims that Jesus’ divinity swallowed up his humanity. The Church has correctly taught that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. As a fully human being, his knowledge of science would be limited to the science of his day (once again the difference between sapientia and scientia). Hence, the double decker universe of heaven above earth. We also know from our collective spiritual experience that God is everywhere (an experience heightened by the dynamics of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius). So, the first line of the prayer could read: “Our Father (Daddy), who is everywhere” or “who is in all situations and people.”
“Hallowed be thy name” stands as it is. In his commentary on the Gospel of Luke in the New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Robert Karris, O.F.M. interprets this verse as “may all the evils which defile your creation be removed, especially those in our hearts, so that the gracious love, witnessed to in your name, may be manifested.” I will also point out that it would be characteristic of a Jewish teacher such as Jesus to reverence the mysterious name of YHWH, the name revealed in the spiritual-political liberation of the Exodus. Since the name was revealed in the context of the Exodus--“I am YHWH, I will free you” (Exodus 6:6)—the name of God in and of itself is liberating and points to the reality of spiritual-political transformation of a sinful, oppressive situation (as Karris notes above).
“Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done” was prophetic in the first century and remains prophetic now. Robert Karris notes that from Luke 4:14 to the Our Father (11:2) Jesus “has been narrating the nature of God’s kingdom, which breaks boundaries separating rich and poor, hale and halt, men and women, clean and unclean, saint and sinner.” God’s kingdom undoes the dynamic of primitive social bonding over against a scapegoat and ushers in the reality of inclusion.
“On earth as it is in heaven” should now be read as “now as it will be fully in the future.” As we noted above, heaven is not above our heads. Heaven is “the abode of God” and God is in all things, in all people, in all situations. Therefore, heaven is in all earthly situations. “Heaven” is a spatial symbol for the reality of God. Why was heaven chosen as a symbol of God’s reality (according to Aquinas it would be a symbol of reality itself since God is the being whose essence is existence)? One only needs to get away from the bright lights of the big city to see the awesomeness of the heavens at night. Using heaven as a symbol for God’s presence appeals to the sense of transcendence one experiences when one witnesses the grandeur of the sky. Rain also falls from the heavens, watering crops, making the land fertile, and God gives rain to sustain us, so it makes sense to think of the heavens having floodgates which God himself opens. The problem is that now, in the age of space travel, we know that there are no floodgates. Rain comes from the clouds, and an astronaut travelling through what was thought to be the heavenly firmament will not find a divine throne surrounded by angels, but will find the incredible expanse of outer space. Heaven is not the abode of God above the earth. Heaven is found in all situations when we allow God’s kingdom to break into our personal, ecological and social worlds. “Thy kingdom come” is an invitation to the person praying to allow the reality of triune God to move us to union with all of creation and history. “Thy will be done” is asking for the grace to let go of control so that, in the time we are living, in time, not above time, or outside of time, but in time, we might live from our deepest reality—the authentic thoughts and feelings that God is infusing into our hearts at every moment.
At this point, it is important to ask the following question: if we are to let go of the language of heaven and earth, will we lose our sense of the transcendence of God? Is God merely to be a material reality since there is no heaven above our physical earth? The Scriptures and our Tradition have always maintained both God’s immanence and God’s transcendence. It is very important to maintain God’s transcendence or we will fall into the errors of the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. No one reality, no physical reality, can exhaust the mystery of God. To maintain God’s transcendence we need to move from a spatial symbol (earth and heaven) to a temporal understanding of God’s will and kingdom. Thus we use the expression “now as it will be fully in the future.” The future is transcendent. It is beyond us. But, some will maintain, “now” is easily controlled by human beings. Let us examine this. Try to live in the now and you will find your mind wandering in a variety of directions. When you finally have the mindfulness of living fully (or almost fully) in the now, you will experience a transcending peace. To live in the now is a grace and thus is also transcendent.
We have now changed the translation of this important verse of the Our Father to “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, now as it will be fully in the future.” Now is an important reality. As a matter of fact, it is the only reality. We are now praying to live in the present moment, experiencing the great “I AM.” “Thy will be done now” leads to the question—how is your will operating now, YHWH? It brings me into my present reality, into mindfulness which Buddhists and others have demonstrated is the precondition of peace. One also is reminded of DeCaussade’s The Sacrament of the Present Moment. To know God’s will now, I must empty my mind of regret about past mistakes, resentment about past injuries, and anxiety about the future. I allow myself to just be, to live in existence (once again, we are nurtured by Aquinas’ understanding of God as existence and by Rahner’s understanding of God as the mystery of existence).
At this point, we need to think about history. God acts in history, not outside of history. We know this from the Exodus. God acted in history to liberate an oppressed people. We can also think of the Filipino People Power Revolution in which the Filipino community, in prayer, acted in tremendous solidarity to remove an oppressive ruler from power using non-violent methods. There are many other examples—the Solidarity Movement in Poland, many of the actions of the United States to liberate oppressed peoples (although some, and I mean some, have not always been completely Godly. Here I think of Abu Ghraib and the anxiety that led us into the Iraq War).
What can we then say about how God acts in history? It would seem that, in prayer and in reflection, there are thoughts that “bubble up” from the mysterious, transcendent reality of God that tend toward justice and charity (and at times that includes charity for oneself, which is what motivated the Filipinos to oust Marcos). We are drawn toward the actions these thoughts propose to us. We are not compulsively, or reactively driven to these actions. We feel drawn to them in a powerful, gentle way. Margaret Silf gives an excellent analysis of this experience in her book Inner Compass. When we share these thoughts with others, it consoles them as we were consoled. We are then led into collective action by something consoling. Consolation comes from God. It is God’s will acting on us, moving us to labor for his kingdom. In his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Benedict Viviano, O.P. notes that “God’s will is for justice and peace (Rom 14:17). The [Our Father] presupposes that the kingdom is not yet here in its fullness and thus represents a future eschatology.” In commenting on the verse “on earth as it is in heaven” he notes that “the prayer expects an earthly, this-worldly realization of God’s will.” The translation of “now as it will be fully in the future” integrates these insights.
The remaining verses of the prayer do not present any difficulty for modern or post-modern worlds. “Give us this day our daily bread” reflects the need of people of all eras to rely on God. It also refers to the importance of Eucharist. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” remains as the motivation for individual and collective action for justice and peace. We love others out of our experience of being totally accepted by God. “Lead us not into temptation” refers to the trials that many Christians, first century and twenty-first century expect to undergo in this final phase of human history. “Deliver us from evil” refers to evil in all of its forms, but especially to the activity of the enemy of human nature.
After having examined each verse, our proposed translation of the Our Father reads as follows:
Our Father (or Mother depending on the context), who is in all things,
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done,
Now as it will be fully in the future,
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us,
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
Now that we have analyzed the Our Father and updated its language so that it better reflects our post-modern understanding, we need to ask if the temporal translation should replace the traditional spatially symbolic translation? I would answer no. The traditional prayer is a classic. Tertullian thought that it summarized the entire Gospel. I think we should use both translations. Liturgically, to contemplate the mysteries of the heavens as they point to the mysteries of God is beautiful and uplifting, but when it comes to action, the temporal understanding is very helpful. God communicates with us through our imaginations which are the “psychic places” where our minds meet the future, the great temporal beyond (I use the phrase “psychic places” as a metaphor or analogy for the “places” in our minds are the dynamics of neural pathways). Our imaginations communicate with the whole of our beings, especially with reason and emotion, stirring us to particular actions. Frequently, our understanding of a situation is multi-faceted and God calls us through the polyvalent, multifaceted universe that communicates with our minds and within in our minds. In short, it is good for our minds to then have more than one version of this prayer. Praying different versions of the Our Father will help us understand that we are rooted in a liberating, active tradition which nurtures us through self-reflective liturgy and prayerful action on behalf of peace and justice.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Christmas, an Act of the Imagination
If 99% of modern and post-modern Biblical criticism is to be accepted (and I accept both), all of the Gospel texts dealing with the birth of Jesus are, more or less, acts of the imagination. None of the disciples knew Jesus in his childhood. Luke and Matthew’s accounts do not really complement each other. So that we don’t all panic over this, it is pretty clear that there is some history (interpreted history, but history) in the Gospels’ accounts of the public life of Jesus.
When I first began to study this, there was a part of me that was a little threatened by it. For this reason, I understand why some Christians are hesitant to accept this criticism. Nevertheless, once you let go of some of what Paul Ricoeur called the naiveté of a precritical Christian faith, you find that historical critical reads of the texts are liberating. They basically contend that the early Christian communities imagined what the birth of Jesus was like and that these communities read some very rich symbolism into this beautiful, awe-inspiring event.
In Christmas, we celebrate that God took the form of a human being, specifically that God trusted humanity so much that God took the form of a vulnerable child. That is worth imagining! Since the evangelists and their communities imagined what the birth of Jesus was like, we can do the same.
So, let us imagine: imagine Mary giving birth. What are her labor pains like? Did Joseph feel any fear about her labor? How did he cope with that fear? Did he ever worry that he could lose her and the child? Does it console us to know that Mary and Joseph understand what our fears our like? Does that give new meaning to our reverence for the Holy Family?
Imagine holding the Christ child. Feel his soft brow. Hold his cheek to your cheek. Smell his baby smell. Little miracle! Feel how fragile he is. You are holding the Messiah in your hands. You are holding God’s son. He needs you. He relies completely on you. What an act of trust! That God might let human beings, with all of our virtues and vices, hold his son. What does that say to you about how God feels about you? What does that say to you about finding God in all children?
Imagine Jesus growing up in Nazareth. Imagine Mary teaching him. Imagine Jesus imitating his earthly parents. This is how all children learn, which is why there is a very tender, very real truth to the idea that Mary was a great theologian. She and Joseph taught the Christ child right from wrong. They held him when he was frightened. He could not have carried out his mission if he had not been loved by his earthly parents.
Now return to your own life: where do you need the tenderness of the Christ child? Do you believe that God trusts you? Talk with the Lord about that. Consider Mary and Joseph’s wisdom in raising the Messiah. Do you have questions for them? Do you need their help? Talk with them. Let your prayer go where it will . . . . .
Merry Christmas!
When I first began to study this, there was a part of me that was a little threatened by it. For this reason, I understand why some Christians are hesitant to accept this criticism. Nevertheless, once you let go of some of what Paul Ricoeur called the naiveté of a precritical Christian faith, you find that historical critical reads of the texts are liberating. They basically contend that the early Christian communities imagined what the birth of Jesus was like and that these communities read some very rich symbolism into this beautiful, awe-inspiring event.
In Christmas, we celebrate that God took the form of a human being, specifically that God trusted humanity so much that God took the form of a vulnerable child. That is worth imagining! Since the evangelists and their communities imagined what the birth of Jesus was like, we can do the same.
So, let us imagine: imagine Mary giving birth. What are her labor pains like? Did Joseph feel any fear about her labor? How did he cope with that fear? Did he ever worry that he could lose her and the child? Does it console us to know that Mary and Joseph understand what our fears our like? Does that give new meaning to our reverence for the Holy Family?
Imagine holding the Christ child. Feel his soft brow. Hold his cheek to your cheek. Smell his baby smell. Little miracle! Feel how fragile he is. You are holding the Messiah in your hands. You are holding God’s son. He needs you. He relies completely on you. What an act of trust! That God might let human beings, with all of our virtues and vices, hold his son. What does that say to you about how God feels about you? What does that say to you about finding God in all children?
Imagine Jesus growing up in Nazareth. Imagine Mary teaching him. Imagine Jesus imitating his earthly parents. This is how all children learn, which is why there is a very tender, very real truth to the idea that Mary was a great theologian. She and Joseph taught the Christ child right from wrong. They held him when he was frightened. He could not have carried out his mission if he had not been loved by his earthly parents.
Now return to your own life: where do you need the tenderness of the Christ child? Do you believe that God trusts you? Talk with the Lord about that. Consider Mary and Joseph’s wisdom in raising the Messiah. Do you have questions for them? Do you need their help? Talk with them. Let your prayer go where it will . . . . .
Merry Christmas!
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Imagine Lake Erie Olympism
Imagine the possibilities of the Lake Erie region. Just imagine. Rather than focusing on what we have lost, imagine new possibilities. This is the path to a renewed economy, to a new vision, to a new attitude about our lives. Imagination, the psychic “place” where the mind meets the future. Ignatian imagination, the human openness in which and through which God draws us into a future wholeness.
Imagination. The imagination bears fruit as we contemplate the future, but it is true that we also need to learn from past mistakes. Otherwise, we will repeat them. Our imagination helps us as we learn from the past. For example, we could imagine that we might have followed a better path and we could imagine what it was that urged us to make the mistakes that we made. Nevertheless, we produce even more fruit when, after briefly reflecting on mistakes made in the past, we open ourselves to live in the present by imagining the virtues of a better future. What does this mean for the Lake Erie region which is home to the two poorest cities in America—Detroit and Cleveland? What does this mean for Northeast Ohio, where I currently reside, a region I have grown to care about, a region with some of the brightest and most talented people in the world that paradoxically continues to lose jobs and industries to global competition? What does this mean for our world, in which the gap between the wealthiest and poorest continues to grow?
All of these questions occurred to me as I read a little book called Olympism, a 1996 publication by the United States Olympic Committee. Yes, Olympism. What could possibly be the connection between Olympism and the economic plight of the Lake Erie region? Well, for one thing, athletics has always been an important cornerstone of the Lake Erie region, especially in Northeast Ohio, the cradle of football. A few years ago, I found myself asking myself the following question: why can’t we intelligently harness this love of sports and develop something new? At the same time, I had been reading about the martyrdom of four American Church women, two of whom worked with the Cleveland diocese, as they protested against an oppressive regime in El Salvador. Love of sports, local intelligence, and a commitment to social justice—the three came together in two blog essays I published in November 2009. In those two essays (one of which was the reproduction of a letter I sent to the International Olympic Committee) I considered the possibility of developing a progressive Olympics—one that would help liberate the poor.
How then did my reading of Olympism bring me back to that blog? As I read, I was drawn to a passage that reflected the importance of imagination in Olympic training:
"The Greeks’ recognition that the care of mind and spirit were integral to athletic performance was an important part of the Olympic tradition. However, only in recent years did sports psychology and mental training in imagination reintroduce the view that mental and psychological attitudes were an important aspect of physical performance . . . .And so we are no longer surprised by the statement that ‘the more man’s thought communes with the divine harmony, the more spiritual, powerful and healthy he becomes,’ made by modern Greek anthropologist Theodore Papadakis, reflecting once more the spirit of ancient Olympism." (2)
Pondering how mental training in imagination improved athletic performance, I was drawn to a related question: how can mental training in imagination improve the social performance of the Olympic Games? For years now, the organizers of the Games have been criticized for neglecting the needs of the poor in host cities. In a parallel way, the makers of sporting uniforms and shoes have been criticized for paying workers in developing countries unfair wages. It is time to train our imaginations so that the Olympic Games maximize their social performance. In doing so, our thought communes with what Papadakis calls “the divine harmony.” Why is this so? In teaching how to commune with the divine harmony, all of the great spiritual traditions of the world emphasize the need for their adherents to be compassionate and to care for the poor. In the Christian tradition, we have developed the specific teaching of “preferential option for the poor,” which means that when one imagines various social alternatives, one chooses the alternative that most aids those with the most need. If the Games are truly a global celebration, then they need to invite and include all, especially and preferentially the poor and the vulnerable. Christians will understand this as the Olympic movement caring for the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters (Matthew 25). In order to abide by preferential option, the Games cannot force evictions of the poor from their homes, and they cannot take funds away from social programs by leaving host cities with overwhelming budget deficits which pressure host cities to cut social spending. Abiding by preferential option, the International Olympic Committee needs to encourage wealthy Olympic countries to help fund the training of athletes from poor countries. The IOC needs to abide by preferential option when choosing among candidate cities. That is, when faced with the choice between two cities with the capacity to host the Games, the IOC should choose the city most in need of development which can also demonstrate that its Olympic effort will not cause evictions of the poor from their housing.
So, let’s use our imaginations. Imagine the Cleveland Olympic Park, built on what is now Burke Lakefront Airport. Its construction would not force one person into homelessness. Imagine the Olympic torch, sitting in the midst of a fountain in the Lake, lighting up a blue collar city, a symbol of Cleveland’s desire for renewal and Cleveland’s interdependence with the poor of the Western Hemisphere. Imagine the Cleveland Center for Intercultural Healing and Reconciliation, a place of peace, a place where athletes and spectators from the entire world can meet to plan and discuss actions on behalf of global peace and justice. Imagine this center built next to the Cleveland Olympic Park so that people can visit and meditate and tour the art while they wait for the next Olympic event. Imagine that some of the topics participants will meditate about and discuss include the planning of an Olympics in the Holy Land, one that would unite Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Saudi Arabians, Jordanians, Syrians, and the Lebanese. One of the goals of Olympism is the promotion of global peace. Imagine a global forum about peace in Cleveland, during the Games, attracting international attention. Imagine that at this forum we discuss the possibility of expanding and re-defining the Olympic truce by promising to award host city status to countries currently at odds with each other if they reconcile. Such an expansion might include North and South Korea co-hosting the games as a reward for unification and nuclear disarmament. Imagine bringing the Winter Games back to the Bosnian city of Sarajevo, helping the Bosnian people re-build and renew a beautiful Olympic city that has been scarred by war. There is so much more that we can imagine.
What can you imagine? Following the ancient Greek tradition of Olympism, we have successfully imagined paths to developing well-rounded individual athletes. Can we now imagine a path to a well-rounded global society? Share the fruit of your imagination: help plan the Lake Erie Olympics. Help renew the Olympic vision.
Imagination. The imagination bears fruit as we contemplate the future, but it is true that we also need to learn from past mistakes. Otherwise, we will repeat them. Our imagination helps us as we learn from the past. For example, we could imagine that we might have followed a better path and we could imagine what it was that urged us to make the mistakes that we made. Nevertheless, we produce even more fruit when, after briefly reflecting on mistakes made in the past, we open ourselves to live in the present by imagining the virtues of a better future. What does this mean for the Lake Erie region which is home to the two poorest cities in America—Detroit and Cleveland? What does this mean for Northeast Ohio, where I currently reside, a region I have grown to care about, a region with some of the brightest and most talented people in the world that paradoxically continues to lose jobs and industries to global competition? What does this mean for our world, in which the gap between the wealthiest and poorest continues to grow?
All of these questions occurred to me as I read a little book called Olympism, a 1996 publication by the United States Olympic Committee. Yes, Olympism. What could possibly be the connection between Olympism and the economic plight of the Lake Erie region? Well, for one thing, athletics has always been an important cornerstone of the Lake Erie region, especially in Northeast Ohio, the cradle of football. A few years ago, I found myself asking myself the following question: why can’t we intelligently harness this love of sports and develop something new? At the same time, I had been reading about the martyrdom of four American Church women, two of whom worked with the Cleveland diocese, as they protested against an oppressive regime in El Salvador. Love of sports, local intelligence, and a commitment to social justice—the three came together in two blog essays I published in November 2009. In those two essays (one of which was the reproduction of a letter I sent to the International Olympic Committee) I considered the possibility of developing a progressive Olympics—one that would help liberate the poor.
How then did my reading of Olympism bring me back to that blog? As I read, I was drawn to a passage that reflected the importance of imagination in Olympic training:
"The Greeks’ recognition that the care of mind and spirit were integral to athletic performance was an important part of the Olympic tradition. However, only in recent years did sports psychology and mental training in imagination reintroduce the view that mental and psychological attitudes were an important aspect of physical performance . . . .And so we are no longer surprised by the statement that ‘the more man’s thought communes with the divine harmony, the more spiritual, powerful and healthy he becomes,’ made by modern Greek anthropologist Theodore Papadakis, reflecting once more the spirit of ancient Olympism." (2)
Pondering how mental training in imagination improved athletic performance, I was drawn to a related question: how can mental training in imagination improve the social performance of the Olympic Games? For years now, the organizers of the Games have been criticized for neglecting the needs of the poor in host cities. In a parallel way, the makers of sporting uniforms and shoes have been criticized for paying workers in developing countries unfair wages. It is time to train our imaginations so that the Olympic Games maximize their social performance. In doing so, our thought communes with what Papadakis calls “the divine harmony.” Why is this so? In teaching how to commune with the divine harmony, all of the great spiritual traditions of the world emphasize the need for their adherents to be compassionate and to care for the poor. In the Christian tradition, we have developed the specific teaching of “preferential option for the poor,” which means that when one imagines various social alternatives, one chooses the alternative that most aids those with the most need. If the Games are truly a global celebration, then they need to invite and include all, especially and preferentially the poor and the vulnerable. Christians will understand this as the Olympic movement caring for the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters (Matthew 25). In order to abide by preferential option, the Games cannot force evictions of the poor from their homes, and they cannot take funds away from social programs by leaving host cities with overwhelming budget deficits which pressure host cities to cut social spending. Abiding by preferential option, the International Olympic Committee needs to encourage wealthy Olympic countries to help fund the training of athletes from poor countries. The IOC needs to abide by preferential option when choosing among candidate cities. That is, when faced with the choice between two cities with the capacity to host the Games, the IOC should choose the city most in need of development which can also demonstrate that its Olympic effort will not cause evictions of the poor from their housing.
So, let’s use our imaginations. Imagine the Cleveland Olympic Park, built on what is now Burke Lakefront Airport. Its construction would not force one person into homelessness. Imagine the Olympic torch, sitting in the midst of a fountain in the Lake, lighting up a blue collar city, a symbol of Cleveland’s desire for renewal and Cleveland’s interdependence with the poor of the Western Hemisphere. Imagine the Cleveland Center for Intercultural Healing and Reconciliation, a place of peace, a place where athletes and spectators from the entire world can meet to plan and discuss actions on behalf of global peace and justice. Imagine this center built next to the Cleveland Olympic Park so that people can visit and meditate and tour the art while they wait for the next Olympic event. Imagine that some of the topics participants will meditate about and discuss include the planning of an Olympics in the Holy Land, one that would unite Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Saudi Arabians, Jordanians, Syrians, and the Lebanese. One of the goals of Olympism is the promotion of global peace. Imagine a global forum about peace in Cleveland, during the Games, attracting international attention. Imagine that at this forum we discuss the possibility of expanding and re-defining the Olympic truce by promising to award host city status to countries currently at odds with each other if they reconcile. Such an expansion might include North and South Korea co-hosting the games as a reward for unification and nuclear disarmament. Imagine bringing the Winter Games back to the Bosnian city of Sarajevo, helping the Bosnian people re-build and renew a beautiful Olympic city that has been scarred by war. There is so much more that we can imagine.
What can you imagine? Following the ancient Greek tradition of Olympism, we have successfully imagined paths to developing well-rounded individual athletes. Can we now imagine a path to a well-rounded global society? Share the fruit of your imagination: help plan the Lake Erie Olympics. Help renew the Olympic vision.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Christians, Our Doctrines Of Original Sin And Redemption Are Evolving
Only 30 percent of Americans consider evolution to be a scientific fact. Many of those who refuse to accept evolution do so on religious grounds. They consider the myths in the Book of Genesis to be factual accounts of creation. They are afraid to accept a non-literal interpretation because they fear that to do so would undermine the doctrines of original sin and redemption. As I understand it, their analysis goes something like this: Adam and Eve were the first human beings. They sinned and fell from paradise. This condition of being fallen has been passed on to their children and their children’s children all the way down to you and me. If we were to let go of the idea that Adam and Eve committed the “original sin,” we would have no need for a redeemer—Jesus. Jesus is the redeemer because through his suffering and death, he paid the price God demanded for Adam and Eve’s sin, thus opening the gates of heaven for all believers.
This particular understanding of original sin and redemption is problematic. It is very popular among Christians. It even found its way into C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Please recall that Aslan had to substitute himself for Edmund to “save” Edmund and that in doing so, he utilized the deeper magic that raised him from the dead and then overcame evil. Although this understanding is popular, it is very flawed. The Protestant theologian Dorothee Soelle has even called it a form of divine child abuse: an angry God demanding someone’s death for human sin whose anger is appeased by the torture and death of his own son. What kind of a God would be satisfied by that? The God of love wants no human being to suffer, especially not his own son.
A more loving and thus more Christian understanding of redemption would be as follows: Jesus empowers human beings to identify and act on their most authentic, most human desires and feelings. Our deepest desires are to be at peace with all of creation and, in the specific circumstances of our lives, to co-create with God through acts of charity. The resurrection of Jesus reveals that the divine power at work in and through Jesus has no limits: it can even transform the murder of an innocent into a life-giving event. Moreover, in his death and resurrection, Jesus enters into every aspect of humanity. In his suffering, Jesus is our companion in our suffering. In his resurrection, Jesus reveals our deepest reality: we are not beings defined by death. We are beings defined by and destined for eternal life. God does not demand the death of Jesus. Rather, God the Father allows Jesus to die, to reveal the depth of his compassion for us, and to set the stage for the historical, cultural, and personal transformation that is the resurrection.
Having offered a more humane and thus more divine understanding of redemption, I will now return to original sin. We are beings blessed with faith and reason. As a Catholic, I understand that there can never truly be any conflict between faith and reason. There may be temporary misunderstandings due to human fear and limitations, but in essence, since God is the author of faith and reason, faith and reason will support each other. We find this harmony in the writings of Rene Girard, James Alison and Gil Bailie. Girard, a literary scholar who noticed a certain pattern to desire in various writings, turned to cultural anthropology to further understand desire. He then developed an astounding theory concerning the development of culture and religion. What Girard uncovered about desire is that it is mimetic: it is unconsciously copied. There are countless examples of mimetic desire. In Violence Unveiled, Gil Bailie, one of Girard’s students, points out that we see the mimetic nature of desire in the nursery. Consider the following: one child sits in the middle of a nursery, inattentively holding a toy. He then leaves the toy and moves to a corner of the room. A second child enters the room and begins to play with the toy that the first child has abandoned. We all know what happens next: the first child suddenly wants what the second child has—the toy he had previously shown no interest in. He wants the toy simply because the other child has it. His desire for it is mimetic, imitative. The first child reaches for the toy. The second child pulls the toy away from the first child. A conflict ensues and if an adult does not intervene, the children will hit each other.
We see mimesis in pre-teen and teenage fashion. When I was in high school, one kid came to school with a polo shirt. Then a second kid did the same. Soon everyone, myself included, had to have polo shirts. A contemporary example would be the current fascination with silly bandz. My kids want them because everyone else has them. What a silly band actually does for a person I do not know, but kids want them and they want them because they are unconsciously copying their classmates. How dangerous mimesis amongst the young can be was demonstrated in the 80s and 90s when a few teenagers threatened to kill others because they mimetically desired their gym shoes.
As Girard explains, in the evolutionary process, before the founding of cultural institutions like chieftains, monarchies and judicial systems, hominids lived in a chaotic way. Their lives were ruled by mimesis. There was no language or cultural institution to resolve differences. We had evolved beyond the animal dominance-submission mechanism which maintains order in many mammalian systems (for non-human mammals, when a conflict arises, it is resolved in a forceful but basically non-violent way). How then did culture develop from this chaotic state? To answer this question, I propose the following story which is informed by Girard’s analysis: imagine one pre-linguistic hominid (a “nearly” human being, one of our immediate evolutionary ancestors). Let’s call him “Ug.” Ug has found something useful in a field. Let’s say that it is an animal tooth which he then starts to use as a tool. He walks around, fascinated by his find, until he happens to walk across the path of “Oog,” another pre-linguistic hominid. Because of the power of acquisitive mimesis, Oog immediately begins to imitate Ug. That is, he unconsciously imitates the gesture of holding the tooth, which means that he reaches out for the tooth that Ug is holding. Because Ug wants to continue using the tooth in his hands, when Oog reaches for it, Ug pulls it back toward himself. Oog then copies this gesture, like the child in the nursery. That is, he attempts to hold the tooth and pull it toward himself. Ug will not allow him to take the tooth from him so the two begin to wrestle. One eventually strikes the other. That act of hitting is then copied by the other and the two continue mimetically attacking each other like the three stooges mimetically slap each other.
This conflict continues and then spreads because the other pre-linguistic hominids who happen to be walking by begin to imitate the two fighting hominids. They are not interested in the tooth; they just unconsciously copy the fight the way young people walking by a snowball fight feel the urge to imitate and begin throwing snowballs themselves. We can also liken the antagonistic mimesis of this scene to a bar room brawl. One person insults another near him. The insulted man throws a punch. The two begin to fight. Suddenly someone on the other side of the bar, seeing the fight, inexplicably hits the man next to him. Soon the entire bar is chaos.
These contemporary examples prove the validity of Girard’s theory: if mimesis can generate conflict now, it certainly did so in the pre-historic past. However, the story does not end there. If evolution did not generate a mechanism for channeling the mimetic chaos into order, humanity would never have come into existence. The mechanism that channeled mimetic conflict into order was the first building block of culture, what eventually turned the pre-linguistic hominids into homo sapiens—what Rene Girard has called the “victimage mechanism.” The term victimage mechanism is a scientific term for scapegoating.
Let’s continue our story. Ug and Oog began to mimetically fight. The conflict spreads through mimesis. Now, in the midst of total chaos, one of the hominids is wounded and becomes extremely disgruntled about it. He or she then makes an extremely hysterical, grunting accusation at the one who has wounded him or her. It is so loud that it immediately grabs the attention of the other hominids. Because of their mimetic character, they copy the accusation toward the one who wounded the first grunting accuser. At this point, we now have 20 or so hominids violently screaming at one hominid. The rage spills over and all of their vehemence is vented on the one. Whether through stoning or beating, the crowd kills the accused. They now stand before the corpse of their victim, strangely awed by what they have just accomplished. They are simultaneously repelled by the consequence of their violent act and awed by what it has accomplished. They notice that there is no longer chaos. No one is pelting them with stones. There is a strange “peace” (though not a real peace). The act of collective murder has brought about a form of social solidarity, the first society. It is not a pretty truth, certainly not something to celebrate, but our primitive ancestors were awed by it because they had never experienced widespread social solidarity before. They had had some kind of solidarity with their mates and their offspring, but never had they been able to act in such unison. Because of all of the mimetic conflict that had preceded the unifying act, the unifying act stood out.
The crowd takes notice of the benefits of this act—social solidarity and the end to chaotic mimesis. From time to time, social order would break down again and the crowd would once again assemble to repeat the founding social act. The first form of religious sacrifice, human sacrifice, was born. Now, what evidence do we have to support this thesis? Well, first of all, we have plenty of evidence in our own society. Consider what happens at prisons where the death penalty is carried out: crowds of people gather to hurl accusations at the convicted and to cheer as he is murdered by the state. Consider what Hitler did to the Jewish community: he falsely accused them, united much of Germany against them, and murdered many of them. Consider international relations: one nation claims a piece of territory, another mimetically copies the act. Each nation forms social solidarity against the other then there is a mimetic escalation of the conflict. Finally, there is violence.
Second, we have evidence from archaeology and religious studies: the Canaanites and the Phoenicians performed human sacrifice. We have uncovered mass graves in northern Africa where the Phoenicians lived. We have evidence from the Bible: the prophets constantly remind the Hebrew people not to imitate the child sacrifices of the Canaanites. Abraham thinks he hears God telling him to kill his son and then at the last moment, God tells him to substitute a ram. The story of Abraham is prophetic for it reminds us of the existence of the victimage mechanism but it shows that the true God does not want it. Human beings had formed human society using mimesis and scapegoating, but God speaks to Abraham to reveal a new form of social order. The Hebrew people were the first people of the Near East to reject human sacrifice. Eventually, the prophets begin to condemn the religious formalism of the Temple animal sacrifices. As a Christian, I see the definitive form of Hebrew prophecy in the acts of Jesus who condemns animal sacrifices in the Temple and reveals a new sacramental understanding of human ritual. He also reveals the total path out of scapegoating—love of enemy.
Now, all of this analysis was to call attention to an evolving understanding of original sin and redemption. Given Girard’s analysis, we can better understand what “original” sin is. It is the sin of the origin: disordered mimesis leading to collective violence. Consider how the ten commandments operate: worship only the true God, not the gods of the nations who glorify collective violence. Worship only the God who creates peacefully, by his word. Do not kill. Do not commit adultery, which is the result of losing track of the authentic desire for your own spouse and copying the insubstantial desire of another. Do not steal which is the result of wanting something that another has. Pay special attention to the last two commandments: do not covet. Do not want what another has in such a way that you become obsessed by that desire. The obsession, what Buddhists know leads to suffering, is the product of disordered copying.
The whole doctrine of original sin is not found in the Bible. It evolved out of St. Augustine’s reflecting on his experience and the stories of the Bible. You will not find the words “original sin” in the Biblical text, but it is quite a liberating doctrine. Augustine knew that there was something about our psychological and social structure that tended toward attachment, mimesis, chaos and violence. What he was discussing in his time is what Girardians call “disordered mimesis”: envy, jealousy, greed, lust, pugnacity, and violence. The Good News of the Biblical tradition is that not all mimesis is disordered. We can and must imitate God in God’s creativity. We are called to love as Jesus loves. We can and must imitate God in God’s agapic and charitable love. If we truly want joy and fulfillment, we must, as Ignatius Loyola discovered, in our freedom, accept and surrender to the real desires that God mysteriously infuses into our hearts. As George Ganns notes in a footnote to the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius, these authentic desires always tend toward charity and justice.
Now, why the extended analysis of desire, sin and redemption? Because it makes a critical difference in the way we act in the world. If we accept the substitutionary theory of redemption, in which Jesus is paying for our original sin to appease an angry God, then we will mimetically copy this image of an angry God. We will join in the chorus celebrating the murder of a prisoner on death row. We will unify with others over against our enemies and hurl angry accusations at them. We will make outlandish accusations at our political opponents, demonizing them, calling them depraved and hoping for their humiliation. We see all of this in our contemporary America. From time to time, we are seized by spasms of psychic and actual violence. We see others as infidels to be excluded, rather than as human brothers and sisters to be embraced. We will bond with our fellow scapegoaters (and I mean our—I sin as well), ignoring our own sins, focusing on the sins of others, and treating them mercilessly.
In our primitive understanding of original sin and redemption, we will fail in our great calling to imitate Jesus the Christ, who felt the creativity of the Father when he told the angry mob not to throw a stone at the adulterous person unless they were without sin. We will not discern as Christ discerned when he felt great love for, and made himself the friend of, sinners and outcasts. A non-evolutionary understanding of original sin and redemption interferes with that most important relationship a Christian has—our personal relationship with Jesus the Christ. Once we understand that original sin and all forms of sin flow from disordered imitation, we then understand why we must spend time with Jesus everyday. We must sit with Jesus as we pray over the Biblical text so that we might imitate him. The pulls and tugs that try to draw us away from Christ do so through disordered mimesis, what has been called concupiscence. As we feel driven to lust, to copy insubstantial desires, to envy and hate the one we envy, we feel a countervailing drawing (not a drivenness, but a gentle draw) to just be with Jesus. We feel the gentle invitation to use our imagination and enter into a scene from the Gospel. We watch Jesus and see how he reacts to others and how others react to him. We ask for the grace to feel the great freedom in the heart of Christ and ask him for the consoling grace to internalize that freedom and act on it ourselves. We walk with Jesus through our developing lives. We evolve. We grow in grace, stumble at times, ask for and accept forgiveness, try again, grow some more and accept Christ as the Lord of our personal history and of all evolving history.
Not only is it important for us personally to understand that the doctrine of original sin has evolved, it is important for us politically. An understanding of original sin as just the spiritual (biological?) stain that we inherit from Adam and Eve and that separates us from God leads to a particular politics. A substitutionary understanding of redemption does so as well. As I mentioned before, it leads to violent attitudes because we imitate the violent angry God who demands the death of his son.
The non-evolving, literal interpretation of Adam and Eve’s sin as original sin, coupled with a penal substitutionary theory of redemption, sees Christendom as the realm of God’s faithful and everything outside of Christendom as not being saved by the cleansing waters of Christian baptism. As such, it fails to see the gifts of all great religions. An understanding of original sin as the theological code phrase for disordered mimesis and an understanding of the redeemer as the one who empowers us to act on our most authentic, most human desires empowers Christians to see the wisdom of the great traditions as they liberate their adherents from disordered mimesis. Every great religious tradition—Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Jainism—has rituals, literature, and reflective activities which liberate their adherents from slavery to disordered mimesis. If the non-evolving interpretation of original sin and the substitutionary theory of redemption were true, then the Dalai Lama and Rabbi Heschel never would have been able to practice and teach about social justice as they have done. Moreover, the social scientific methods which led to Rene Girard’s breakthrough would never have taken place. If a literal understanding of the Biblical tradition is the only source of truth, then the helpful methods of psycho-therapy never would have developed.
A literal interpretation of Genesis 2-3 (the texts for the story of Adam and Eve) coupled with a substitutionary theory of redemption leads to an us versus them mentality. There are the saved and there are those who are not saved. The United States is “the Christian nation,” led at times by the saved, who must go it alone in order to conserve what is good in this world. Our acts of violence are different from others because we are the saved (now I am not denying that the Church has a just war tradition and that the US has engaged in just wars; I am just examining how an attitude about sin and redemption can even inform foreign policy).
Christian believers need not be threatened by evolution. As Rene Girard and others (including Teilhard) have demonstrated, evolution supports Christian doctrine and helps us understand it in a truly rational way. Specifically, evolutionary analysis within the social sciences has given us helpful understandings of original sin and redemption. It has given us tools for understanding how sin operates in our own personal and collective lives. It helps us understand why imitating Jesus counters the imitation of sinful structures in our world and reveals the path of freedom.
As I conclude this essay, I would like to draw attention to a recent essay written by President George W. Bush. He writes about our need to progress in our battle against the AIDS virus. Another word for progress is evolution. If even a conservative president can write about progress, then progress, though not inevitable, is extremely possible. To embrace the need for progress, we must have authentic understandings of redemption and original sin, understandings which flow from each person’s personal relationship with Jesus and which unite faith and reason. Rene Girard has given us a very rational and hopeful understanding of our social order, one informed by Christian faith.
In short, original sin and redemption are evolving doctrines, the real natures of which are totally in harmony with the scientific fact of evolution. Original sin, redemption and all Christian doctrines are in the process of evolving because they are living doctrines. They are living doctrines because their truths flow from the reality of our living Lord. We are not called to merely recite Christian doctrines. We are called to live them. Because our understandings of original sin and redemption are evolving, we can do just that. We can live them and give life to the world as we do so.
This particular understanding of original sin and redemption is problematic. It is very popular among Christians. It even found its way into C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Please recall that Aslan had to substitute himself for Edmund to “save” Edmund and that in doing so, he utilized the deeper magic that raised him from the dead and then overcame evil. Although this understanding is popular, it is very flawed. The Protestant theologian Dorothee Soelle has even called it a form of divine child abuse: an angry God demanding someone’s death for human sin whose anger is appeased by the torture and death of his own son. What kind of a God would be satisfied by that? The God of love wants no human being to suffer, especially not his own son.
A more loving and thus more Christian understanding of redemption would be as follows: Jesus empowers human beings to identify and act on their most authentic, most human desires and feelings. Our deepest desires are to be at peace with all of creation and, in the specific circumstances of our lives, to co-create with God through acts of charity. The resurrection of Jesus reveals that the divine power at work in and through Jesus has no limits: it can even transform the murder of an innocent into a life-giving event. Moreover, in his death and resurrection, Jesus enters into every aspect of humanity. In his suffering, Jesus is our companion in our suffering. In his resurrection, Jesus reveals our deepest reality: we are not beings defined by death. We are beings defined by and destined for eternal life. God does not demand the death of Jesus. Rather, God the Father allows Jesus to die, to reveal the depth of his compassion for us, and to set the stage for the historical, cultural, and personal transformation that is the resurrection.
Having offered a more humane and thus more divine understanding of redemption, I will now return to original sin. We are beings blessed with faith and reason. As a Catholic, I understand that there can never truly be any conflict between faith and reason. There may be temporary misunderstandings due to human fear and limitations, but in essence, since God is the author of faith and reason, faith and reason will support each other. We find this harmony in the writings of Rene Girard, James Alison and Gil Bailie. Girard, a literary scholar who noticed a certain pattern to desire in various writings, turned to cultural anthropology to further understand desire. He then developed an astounding theory concerning the development of culture and religion. What Girard uncovered about desire is that it is mimetic: it is unconsciously copied. There are countless examples of mimetic desire. In Violence Unveiled, Gil Bailie, one of Girard’s students, points out that we see the mimetic nature of desire in the nursery. Consider the following: one child sits in the middle of a nursery, inattentively holding a toy. He then leaves the toy and moves to a corner of the room. A second child enters the room and begins to play with the toy that the first child has abandoned. We all know what happens next: the first child suddenly wants what the second child has—the toy he had previously shown no interest in. He wants the toy simply because the other child has it. His desire for it is mimetic, imitative. The first child reaches for the toy. The second child pulls the toy away from the first child. A conflict ensues and if an adult does not intervene, the children will hit each other.
We see mimesis in pre-teen and teenage fashion. When I was in high school, one kid came to school with a polo shirt. Then a second kid did the same. Soon everyone, myself included, had to have polo shirts. A contemporary example would be the current fascination with silly bandz. My kids want them because everyone else has them. What a silly band actually does for a person I do not know, but kids want them and they want them because they are unconsciously copying their classmates. How dangerous mimesis amongst the young can be was demonstrated in the 80s and 90s when a few teenagers threatened to kill others because they mimetically desired their gym shoes.
As Girard explains, in the evolutionary process, before the founding of cultural institutions like chieftains, monarchies and judicial systems, hominids lived in a chaotic way. Their lives were ruled by mimesis. There was no language or cultural institution to resolve differences. We had evolved beyond the animal dominance-submission mechanism which maintains order in many mammalian systems (for non-human mammals, when a conflict arises, it is resolved in a forceful but basically non-violent way). How then did culture develop from this chaotic state? To answer this question, I propose the following story which is informed by Girard’s analysis: imagine one pre-linguistic hominid (a “nearly” human being, one of our immediate evolutionary ancestors). Let’s call him “Ug.” Ug has found something useful in a field. Let’s say that it is an animal tooth which he then starts to use as a tool. He walks around, fascinated by his find, until he happens to walk across the path of “Oog,” another pre-linguistic hominid. Because of the power of acquisitive mimesis, Oog immediately begins to imitate Ug. That is, he unconsciously imitates the gesture of holding the tooth, which means that he reaches out for the tooth that Ug is holding. Because Ug wants to continue using the tooth in his hands, when Oog reaches for it, Ug pulls it back toward himself. Oog then copies this gesture, like the child in the nursery. That is, he attempts to hold the tooth and pull it toward himself. Ug will not allow him to take the tooth from him so the two begin to wrestle. One eventually strikes the other. That act of hitting is then copied by the other and the two continue mimetically attacking each other like the three stooges mimetically slap each other.
This conflict continues and then spreads because the other pre-linguistic hominids who happen to be walking by begin to imitate the two fighting hominids. They are not interested in the tooth; they just unconsciously copy the fight the way young people walking by a snowball fight feel the urge to imitate and begin throwing snowballs themselves. We can also liken the antagonistic mimesis of this scene to a bar room brawl. One person insults another near him. The insulted man throws a punch. The two begin to fight. Suddenly someone on the other side of the bar, seeing the fight, inexplicably hits the man next to him. Soon the entire bar is chaos.
These contemporary examples prove the validity of Girard’s theory: if mimesis can generate conflict now, it certainly did so in the pre-historic past. However, the story does not end there. If evolution did not generate a mechanism for channeling the mimetic chaos into order, humanity would never have come into existence. The mechanism that channeled mimetic conflict into order was the first building block of culture, what eventually turned the pre-linguistic hominids into homo sapiens—what Rene Girard has called the “victimage mechanism.” The term victimage mechanism is a scientific term for scapegoating.
Let’s continue our story. Ug and Oog began to mimetically fight. The conflict spreads through mimesis. Now, in the midst of total chaos, one of the hominids is wounded and becomes extremely disgruntled about it. He or she then makes an extremely hysterical, grunting accusation at the one who has wounded him or her. It is so loud that it immediately grabs the attention of the other hominids. Because of their mimetic character, they copy the accusation toward the one who wounded the first grunting accuser. At this point, we now have 20 or so hominids violently screaming at one hominid. The rage spills over and all of their vehemence is vented on the one. Whether through stoning or beating, the crowd kills the accused. They now stand before the corpse of their victim, strangely awed by what they have just accomplished. They are simultaneously repelled by the consequence of their violent act and awed by what it has accomplished. They notice that there is no longer chaos. No one is pelting them with stones. There is a strange “peace” (though not a real peace). The act of collective murder has brought about a form of social solidarity, the first society. It is not a pretty truth, certainly not something to celebrate, but our primitive ancestors were awed by it because they had never experienced widespread social solidarity before. They had had some kind of solidarity with their mates and their offspring, but never had they been able to act in such unison. Because of all of the mimetic conflict that had preceded the unifying act, the unifying act stood out.
The crowd takes notice of the benefits of this act—social solidarity and the end to chaotic mimesis. From time to time, social order would break down again and the crowd would once again assemble to repeat the founding social act. The first form of religious sacrifice, human sacrifice, was born. Now, what evidence do we have to support this thesis? Well, first of all, we have plenty of evidence in our own society. Consider what happens at prisons where the death penalty is carried out: crowds of people gather to hurl accusations at the convicted and to cheer as he is murdered by the state. Consider what Hitler did to the Jewish community: he falsely accused them, united much of Germany against them, and murdered many of them. Consider international relations: one nation claims a piece of territory, another mimetically copies the act. Each nation forms social solidarity against the other then there is a mimetic escalation of the conflict. Finally, there is violence.
Second, we have evidence from archaeology and religious studies: the Canaanites and the Phoenicians performed human sacrifice. We have uncovered mass graves in northern Africa where the Phoenicians lived. We have evidence from the Bible: the prophets constantly remind the Hebrew people not to imitate the child sacrifices of the Canaanites. Abraham thinks he hears God telling him to kill his son and then at the last moment, God tells him to substitute a ram. The story of Abraham is prophetic for it reminds us of the existence of the victimage mechanism but it shows that the true God does not want it. Human beings had formed human society using mimesis and scapegoating, but God speaks to Abraham to reveal a new form of social order. The Hebrew people were the first people of the Near East to reject human sacrifice. Eventually, the prophets begin to condemn the religious formalism of the Temple animal sacrifices. As a Christian, I see the definitive form of Hebrew prophecy in the acts of Jesus who condemns animal sacrifices in the Temple and reveals a new sacramental understanding of human ritual. He also reveals the total path out of scapegoating—love of enemy.
Now, all of this analysis was to call attention to an evolving understanding of original sin and redemption. Given Girard’s analysis, we can better understand what “original” sin is. It is the sin of the origin: disordered mimesis leading to collective violence. Consider how the ten commandments operate: worship only the true God, not the gods of the nations who glorify collective violence. Worship only the God who creates peacefully, by his word. Do not kill. Do not commit adultery, which is the result of losing track of the authentic desire for your own spouse and copying the insubstantial desire of another. Do not steal which is the result of wanting something that another has. Pay special attention to the last two commandments: do not covet. Do not want what another has in such a way that you become obsessed by that desire. The obsession, what Buddhists know leads to suffering, is the product of disordered copying.
The whole doctrine of original sin is not found in the Bible. It evolved out of St. Augustine’s reflecting on his experience and the stories of the Bible. You will not find the words “original sin” in the Biblical text, but it is quite a liberating doctrine. Augustine knew that there was something about our psychological and social structure that tended toward attachment, mimesis, chaos and violence. What he was discussing in his time is what Girardians call “disordered mimesis”: envy, jealousy, greed, lust, pugnacity, and violence. The Good News of the Biblical tradition is that not all mimesis is disordered. We can and must imitate God in God’s creativity. We are called to love as Jesus loves. We can and must imitate God in God’s agapic and charitable love. If we truly want joy and fulfillment, we must, as Ignatius Loyola discovered, in our freedom, accept and surrender to the real desires that God mysteriously infuses into our hearts. As George Ganns notes in a footnote to the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius, these authentic desires always tend toward charity and justice.
Now, why the extended analysis of desire, sin and redemption? Because it makes a critical difference in the way we act in the world. If we accept the substitutionary theory of redemption, in which Jesus is paying for our original sin to appease an angry God, then we will mimetically copy this image of an angry God. We will join in the chorus celebrating the murder of a prisoner on death row. We will unify with others over against our enemies and hurl angry accusations at them. We will make outlandish accusations at our political opponents, demonizing them, calling them depraved and hoping for their humiliation. We see all of this in our contemporary America. From time to time, we are seized by spasms of psychic and actual violence. We see others as infidels to be excluded, rather than as human brothers and sisters to be embraced. We will bond with our fellow scapegoaters (and I mean our—I sin as well), ignoring our own sins, focusing on the sins of others, and treating them mercilessly.
In our primitive understanding of original sin and redemption, we will fail in our great calling to imitate Jesus the Christ, who felt the creativity of the Father when he told the angry mob not to throw a stone at the adulterous person unless they were without sin. We will not discern as Christ discerned when he felt great love for, and made himself the friend of, sinners and outcasts. A non-evolutionary understanding of original sin and redemption interferes with that most important relationship a Christian has—our personal relationship with Jesus the Christ. Once we understand that original sin and all forms of sin flow from disordered imitation, we then understand why we must spend time with Jesus everyday. We must sit with Jesus as we pray over the Biblical text so that we might imitate him. The pulls and tugs that try to draw us away from Christ do so through disordered mimesis, what has been called concupiscence. As we feel driven to lust, to copy insubstantial desires, to envy and hate the one we envy, we feel a countervailing drawing (not a drivenness, but a gentle draw) to just be with Jesus. We feel the gentle invitation to use our imagination and enter into a scene from the Gospel. We watch Jesus and see how he reacts to others and how others react to him. We ask for the grace to feel the great freedom in the heart of Christ and ask him for the consoling grace to internalize that freedom and act on it ourselves. We walk with Jesus through our developing lives. We evolve. We grow in grace, stumble at times, ask for and accept forgiveness, try again, grow some more and accept Christ as the Lord of our personal history and of all evolving history.
Not only is it important for us personally to understand that the doctrine of original sin has evolved, it is important for us politically. An understanding of original sin as just the spiritual (biological?) stain that we inherit from Adam and Eve and that separates us from God leads to a particular politics. A substitutionary understanding of redemption does so as well. As I mentioned before, it leads to violent attitudes because we imitate the violent angry God who demands the death of his son.
The non-evolving, literal interpretation of Adam and Eve’s sin as original sin, coupled with a penal substitutionary theory of redemption, sees Christendom as the realm of God’s faithful and everything outside of Christendom as not being saved by the cleansing waters of Christian baptism. As such, it fails to see the gifts of all great religions. An understanding of original sin as the theological code phrase for disordered mimesis and an understanding of the redeemer as the one who empowers us to act on our most authentic, most human desires empowers Christians to see the wisdom of the great traditions as they liberate their adherents from disordered mimesis. Every great religious tradition—Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Jainism—has rituals, literature, and reflective activities which liberate their adherents from slavery to disordered mimesis. If the non-evolving interpretation of original sin and the substitutionary theory of redemption were true, then the Dalai Lama and Rabbi Heschel never would have been able to practice and teach about social justice as they have done. Moreover, the social scientific methods which led to Rene Girard’s breakthrough would never have taken place. If a literal understanding of the Biblical tradition is the only source of truth, then the helpful methods of psycho-therapy never would have developed.
A literal interpretation of Genesis 2-3 (the texts for the story of Adam and Eve) coupled with a substitutionary theory of redemption leads to an us versus them mentality. There are the saved and there are those who are not saved. The United States is “the Christian nation,” led at times by the saved, who must go it alone in order to conserve what is good in this world. Our acts of violence are different from others because we are the saved (now I am not denying that the Church has a just war tradition and that the US has engaged in just wars; I am just examining how an attitude about sin and redemption can even inform foreign policy).
Christian believers need not be threatened by evolution. As Rene Girard and others (including Teilhard) have demonstrated, evolution supports Christian doctrine and helps us understand it in a truly rational way. Specifically, evolutionary analysis within the social sciences has given us helpful understandings of original sin and redemption. It has given us tools for understanding how sin operates in our own personal and collective lives. It helps us understand why imitating Jesus counters the imitation of sinful structures in our world and reveals the path of freedom.
As I conclude this essay, I would like to draw attention to a recent essay written by President George W. Bush. He writes about our need to progress in our battle against the AIDS virus. Another word for progress is evolution. If even a conservative president can write about progress, then progress, though not inevitable, is extremely possible. To embrace the need for progress, we must have authentic understandings of redemption and original sin, understandings which flow from each person’s personal relationship with Jesus and which unite faith and reason. Rene Girard has given us a very rational and hopeful understanding of our social order, one informed by Christian faith.
In short, original sin and redemption are evolving doctrines, the real natures of which are totally in harmony with the scientific fact of evolution. Original sin, redemption and all Christian doctrines are in the process of evolving because they are living doctrines. They are living doctrines because their truths flow from the reality of our living Lord. We are not called to merely recite Christian doctrines. We are called to live them. Because our understandings of original sin and redemption are evolving, we can do just that. We can live them and give life to the world as we do so.
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