Salvation Story
A Biblical Commentary on Human Violence and Godly Peace
David R. Froemming
Salvation Story
A Biblical Commentary on Human Violence and Godly Peace
Copyright © 2016 David R. Froemming. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
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paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-0277-1
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Biblical passages and commentary based on a reading of scripture using the mimetic theory of René Girard within the context of evolution.
Scripture quotations throughout are from New Revised Standard Version Bible. Copyright ©1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Preface
Having worked full-time in congregations as a Christian educator for fourteen years and as a pastor ten years, I have observed first-hand the potential for human conflict. Martin Luther’s Latin phrase homo en curvatus, “humans are curved inward,” is all too real, in light of human conflict rooted in the rivalry of in-groups, out-groups, and scapegoats. I have observed the polarization between fundamentalists and atheists. This polarization has produced more heat than light, more rivalry than dialogue, more fragmented thinking than understanding and wisdom. My position is that the bible and evolution need to be placed into conversation, not in opposition to one another, if we are going to be “saved” from our current phase in evolution where we are stuck in rivalry mode. Fundamentalism has managed to reduce the bible to morality at the expense of recreating the very religions of idolatry surrounding the Israelites and Christians. The “salvation story” reveals human violence and the human systems of “goodness” and morality that oppress others and conduct violence in the name of their religion. Meanwhile atheists influenced by such works as James Frazer’s The Golden Bough, Robert Graves’ The White Goddess and Joseph Campbell’s The Masks of God, have relegated the bible to the works of ancient mythology. They neglect attention to the detail of varied genres, biblical languages, and what René Girard and others have observed in the bible, namely that unlike mythology which conceals human violence, the biblical narrative exposes it and ultimately refuses to be part of human rivalry and violence. In fact, Christianity is not a religion but a movement that marks the end of religion as a system that condones and conceals human violence.
By returning the bible to its source and place in our human story, the story of evolution, I hope to give several illustrations that offer to you a renewed perspective of the salvation story that calls us to turn from destruction and live. I draw upon undergraduate and graduate work in religious studies encompassing the Judeo-Christian tradition as well as world religions, women’s studies, the biblical languages, and the contributions of those who believe in evolution. I find that René Girard’s work on mimetic theory, namely that we learn through imitation yet enter into rivalry with those who are too much like us, takes on great significance within the rise of patriarchal male-dominated culture; the development of the hunt, agriculture, economy, and warfare. Jean Pierre Dupuy observes that even as modern society sheds religion amid technological advances, mimetic violence continues to exist in secular systems of the marketplace, political infrastructures, racism, technology, science, and the military industrial complex. Therefore, a new conversation is needed that re-engages biblical texts for the value they hold in revealing and understanding human violence within our current evolutionary phase of patriarchal culture.
Even if we could erase the bible from human history, the human condition that it is addressing would persist and threaten the future of human life on earth. The rise of patriarchal culture in evolution marks a period of both great scientific and technological innovation and great destructiveness that now threatens to end human life on earth. The bible is both the product of patriarchal culture and the critique of patriarchal culture contained in written accounts of “the salvation story” in multiple oral and literary forms of language that hold the hope of resolving humanity’s paradox of power. The biblical tradition evolved amid the mythologies of ancient Mesopotamia yet itself is not merely another patriarchal mythology but a “salvation story” that when read in the context of evolution, decodes myth and religion as human systems that justify and conceal violence, oppression, and victimization. This “salvation story” has evolved and continues to evolve not as one more religion but rather as a rising consciousness transcending the powers of death and systems of cultural violence in order to produce faith in a living God and love for one’s neighbor. The bible is the product of evolution and needs to be read in the context of evolution, lest we continue to misinterpret and subvert it into religion and violence.
In his book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins sees the evolution of religion tied to memetic natural selection. Memes are human-made cultural ideas that evolve as they are communicated among people through language, symbols, and rituals. Dawkins finds it plausible that genes and memes are working in natural selection in evolution to create religion, often for the control and manipulation of people.1 However, noting the work of René Girard, I find that we must not merely look to the memes but also to the human process that is producing them. The human process is found in the Greek biblical word pronounced (mi-may-tace), for “imitator.” As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” As humans we learn through imitating the sights and sounds produced by other humans. This process of mimicking creates our social identity and is the very basis of our existence as social beings. It is my claim that the process of mimesis has run into a problem as humans evolved out of the goddess-centered religions into the current male-dominated phase of patriarchy. Namely, as humans shed their creation-centered identity in the symbol of the goddess who represented all of life, fertility, death, re-birth, and gained individual identity, it was done also at the expense of introducing the experience of social alienation. This caused humans to unconsciously use their mimetic skills to gain social approval, thus introducing rivalry and violence, particularly group violence upon those who are not socially approved and who become their scapegoats. Mythology (stories of gods and goddesses, often in conflict and battle) is the memes or ideas constructed to condone and conduct scapegoating for the sake of the social order based on religion. The “salvation story” evolved to expose religion, reject violence, and give us new identity in Jesus Christ and life beyond scapegoating and death.
My writing takes the form of a biblical commentary so that the reader may have easy access to texts and engage in reading the passage for one’s self. Second, texts provide the reader with illustrations of both the copying of violence from other cultures in scripture as well as the transformation of violent myths from other cultures into narratives that are peaceful, life giving, and even humorous. It is the use of mimetic theory in reading these texts which produces “a living Word”—a narrative for understanding our present culture and context. This is my attempt
