James Alison Interview
I read an interview with theologian James Alison in The Christian Century - Violence undone
James Alison on Jesus as forgiving victim (Sept. 2006) - and thought I'd post part of it here. It's long, so I've just snipped out a few of the questions and their answers ...
*********************
Your first book was an examination of original sin—not, for most people, a topic connected with joy. But the title of the book is The Joy of Being Wrong. What joy is associated with original sin?
It's the joy of not having to get things right. The doctrine means that we are all in a mess, no one more or less than anyone else, and we can trust the One who is getting us out of the mess, who starts from where we are. If it were not for the doctrine of original sin, which follows from the resurrection—just as a parting glance at who we used to be follows from seeing ourselves as we are coming to be—we would be left with a religion requiring us to "get it right," and that is no joy at all .....
You've thought a good deal about the place of violence in social and religious life and have made use of the work of René Girard on the formative power of violence. Could you state briefly how Girard's work has been helpful to you as a theologian?
First, Girard has made alive the work of the cross—how Jesus gave himself up to a typical human lynching so as to undo the world of violence and sacrifice forever. Second, Girard, through his understanding of the mimetic nature of desire, has made it possible to glimpse the nonrivalrous nature of God, and thus to understand the life of grace as one entirely without "ifs and buts." Third, Girard has given me back the Bible as something I can read. His elucidations of scripture are utterly luminous and fecund. Finally, he has made available an understanding of all the major themes of theology—an understanding that is resolutely anthropological (without reducing everything to anthropology). That is, his theological themes always make sense at the level of human relations ....
Girard is famous for exposing the way a "scapegoating mechanism" works in culture and religion—something he thinks Christianity was the first to expose. Yet when Christians talk about Jesus' death they often use some form of scapegoat language: Jesus died for our sins, for example, or Jesus bore our sins. In other words, he really was a scapegoat—and this was a good thing. Can Christians escape invoking the scapegoat mechanism?
That Jesus died for our sins, or bore our sins, is the exact truth. And it is made comprehensible precisely because the one who was considered guilty was shown to be entirely innocent.
Our difficulty with the language is that it is much easier for us to imagine Jesus being offered to the Father as a sacrifice, or indeed the Father getting Jesus to offer himself as a sacrifice to the Father, than to imagine the exact reverse: Jesus being empowered by the Father to stand in the place of a typical sacrificial victim of ours—God sacrificing himself to us. The idea of someone doing something generous for us which undoes our complicity in lies and violence while itself being a completely nonviolent act takes a lot of getting used to. At its best, liturgy gives us the space to do this ....
One of your books is titled On Being Liked. What does it mean to say that God not only loves us, but likes us? Why do we need to hear that?
The word love, alas, is so abused. In my book I wanted to remind people that sometimes being told that we are loved really means: "My love for you is so strong that I wish I could suppress all the bits about you that don't measure up to my standards. In fact, if you become someone else, then I might actually like you and enjoy you as well." If someone views us in that way, though saying he or she loves us, we sense that that person is lying or pulling a fast one and is being controlling.
We pick up very quickly when we are being liked; we relax and are happy to be who we are in the eyes of the other. And curiously, as we relax, we find that we are much more than we thought we were, and become much more, starting from where we are, and with no sense of being bullied or made to fit into schemes which really have nothing to do with us.
I thought it worthwhile trying to tease this out, especially as a resource for gay Christians, who so often are told by other believers that "because we love you so much, you must become someone utterly different." As it happens, not a few straight people have told me that they could completely identify with what I was talking about ....
*******************
More about historian, literary critic, and philosopher, René Girard atWikipedia
An article on Girard at First Things - Girard Among the Girardians
An interview with Girard on Pope Benedict XVI at New Perspectives Quarterly
James Alison on Jesus as forgiving victim (Sept. 2006) - and thought I'd post part of it here. It's long, so I've just snipped out a few of the questions and their answers ...
*********************
Your first book was an examination of original sin—not, for most people, a topic connected with joy. But the title of the book is The Joy of Being Wrong. What joy is associated with original sin?
It's the joy of not having to get things right. The doctrine means that we are all in a mess, no one more or less than anyone else, and we can trust the One who is getting us out of the mess, who starts from where we are. If it were not for the doctrine of original sin, which follows from the resurrection—just as a parting glance at who we used to be follows from seeing ourselves as we are coming to be—we would be left with a religion requiring us to "get it right," and that is no joy at all .....
You've thought a good deal about the place of violence in social and religious life and have made use of the work of René Girard on the formative power of violence. Could you state briefly how Girard's work has been helpful to you as a theologian?
First, Girard has made alive the work of the cross—how Jesus gave himself up to a typical human lynching so as to undo the world of violence and sacrifice forever. Second, Girard, through his understanding of the mimetic nature of desire, has made it possible to glimpse the nonrivalrous nature of God, and thus to understand the life of grace as one entirely without "ifs and buts." Third, Girard has given me back the Bible as something I can read. His elucidations of scripture are utterly luminous and fecund. Finally, he has made available an understanding of all the major themes of theology—an understanding that is resolutely anthropological (without reducing everything to anthropology). That is, his theological themes always make sense at the level of human relations ....
Girard is famous for exposing the way a "scapegoating mechanism" works in culture and religion—something he thinks Christianity was the first to expose. Yet when Christians talk about Jesus' death they often use some form of scapegoat language: Jesus died for our sins, for example, or Jesus bore our sins. In other words, he really was a scapegoat—and this was a good thing. Can Christians escape invoking the scapegoat mechanism?
That Jesus died for our sins, or bore our sins, is the exact truth. And it is made comprehensible precisely because the one who was considered guilty was shown to be entirely innocent.
Our difficulty with the language is that it is much easier for us to imagine Jesus being offered to the Father as a sacrifice, or indeed the Father getting Jesus to offer himself as a sacrifice to the Father, than to imagine the exact reverse: Jesus being empowered by the Father to stand in the place of a typical sacrificial victim of ours—God sacrificing himself to us. The idea of someone doing something generous for us which undoes our complicity in lies and violence while itself being a completely nonviolent act takes a lot of getting used to. At its best, liturgy gives us the space to do this ....
One of your books is titled On Being Liked. What does it mean to say that God not only loves us, but likes us? Why do we need to hear that?
The word love, alas, is so abused. In my book I wanted to remind people that sometimes being told that we are loved really means: "My love for you is so strong that I wish I could suppress all the bits about you that don't measure up to my standards. In fact, if you become someone else, then I might actually like you and enjoy you as well." If someone views us in that way, though saying he or she loves us, we sense that that person is lying or pulling a fast one and is being controlling.
We pick up very quickly when we are being liked; we relax and are happy to be who we are in the eyes of the other. And curiously, as we relax, we find that we are much more than we thought we were, and become much more, starting from where we are, and with no sense of being bullied or made to fit into schemes which really have nothing to do with us.
I thought it worthwhile trying to tease this out, especially as a resource for gay Christians, who so often are told by other believers that "because we love you so much, you must become someone utterly different." As it happens, not a few straight people have told me that they could completely identify with what I was talking about ....
*******************
More about historian, literary critic, and philosopher, René Girard atWikipedia
An article on Girard at First Things - Girard Among the Girardians
An interview with Girard on Pope Benedict XVI at New Perspectives Quarterly
posted by crystal | 1:23 AM
4 Comments:
Interesting stuff, Crystal. I like how he takes on the seriousness of the sacrifice of the cross without making it a sick game of atonement.
Hi Liam. Fr. Alison is an interesting guy. He has a lot of articles posted at his site if you ever want to read more of his stuff.
It's the joy of not having to get things right
Interesting way to put it. That's why it's important to remember the importance of grace. Sometimes we Catholics don't emphasize grace enough. It isn't all about law-keeping, because in law-keeping someone can always point out how he does it so much better than everyone else.
Interesting what Girard said about a "mimetic world". I have similar fears about the effects of globalization:
We live in a mimetic world. A century ago, those great world expositions in Paris or London anticipated globalization by envisioning a world in which everyone was the friend of everyone else. Today, we are more realistic. We are aware that globalization doesn’t mean global friendship, but global competition and, therefore, conflict. That doesn’t mean we will all destroy each other, but it is no happy global village either.
Hi Jeff, I have to read more about Girard ... his theories are intereesting. When I think of the global village, I have the same worries.
Post a Comment
<< Home