Bulletin 75 – February 2023

To complete a theoretician or author, to come to the end of their thought, it is necessary to isolate critical aspects which were not taken to term in their original expression. In Clausewitz Girard identified “the duel” as the crucial element which needed to be given full weight through mimetic analysis. Chantre, for his part, identifies two motifs in Girard which bend the tide of his insight to what seems a quite different season and shape. The trust of the dialogue between the two partners validates bringing these motifs into play as authentic possibilities. But, more than this, it is the material of the dialogue itself—one that revolves around biblical revelation, its function and content—which itself underpins Chantre’s bold move. The character of revelation is not to be repressed—as in all those classic storylines of seeds and growth in the gospels—and Chantre’s “completion” is, I think, a matter of that dynamic. His ability to finish up the first Achever (Girard’s last work) is a product of the revelatory engine at work in the very discussions between him and his mentor. It is very much a case of an irrepressible leaven working in the mix.

Chantre begins by presenting three consecutive “syntheses” in Girard’s work. There is archaic religion and its engine of sacrifice. There is messianic religion (prophetic and Christian), constituting a demystification of the archaic. And, finally, there is what he calls a “catholic” synthesis which is not denominational/identarian but “operative.” This third synthesis holds together the first two and offers a resolution, uniting two “untenable” universes. The cyclic return to vertical transcendence (external mediation) via traditional, sacrificial culture, is interrupted and yet completed by “the messianic, the universe of a linear temporality giving onto the end of time” (9). 

How does this strange, astonishing combination take place? To answer that question Chantre takes us on a brief tour of Girard’s most seminal writing.   

Girard’s first book, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, reveals the impact of internal mediation/deviated transcendence which is the character of the modern, and thus, as Chantre underlines, Girard began with the modern predicament. He then tracked back to a study of the archaic (Violence and the Sacred); after which he introduced biblical revelation which subverts the archaic (Things Hidden). Finally, in Achever Clausewitz, he returned to the modern condition, which is always a byproduct of the biblical subversion. The whole process adds up to more than the sum of the parts. Chantre calls it Girard’s “fascinating and complex central thesis . . .  it is in the disruption of ancient mechanisms for containing violence, in their essential exhaustion, that the true face of man and the true face of God conjointly appear” (xi). Girard was always engaged with the question of violent transcendence, a power giving birth to both rivalry and religion. The mutations of human transcendence are thus the continuing subject of his thought, and from the beginning the organic presence of the messianic was also always in play.

What is the inflection point at which the old order becomes something new? It is named in what I see as the first key motif in “finishing Girard.” Chantre introduces it rather abruptly as “intimate mediation… which is none other than grace, or the irruption, at the heart of crisis, of ‘authentic’ transcendence” (19). He comments tellingly that this thought was “evoked together” with Girard in Battling to the End (50). Thus, he was as much responsible for it as his partner, and Chantre was “completing” Girard even at that point. In fact, although Girard recognizes the thought, he absolutely does not develop it, as Chantre now offers. Part of the tenor of “intimate” is the way its interiority escapes the disturbances and stress of internal mediation, but it does not mean the interiority or intimacy of a separable spiritual or intellectual soul. Mediation is a supremely relational, interdividual phenomenon. For something to transform this it has to be by definition part of the anthropological process which gave us mediation in the first place. It is intimate mediation which establishes interiority (the heart), rather than vice versa. Is it not, therefore, the fathomless non-retaliation and non-rivalry of messianic mediation that produce the new space of intimacy free of internal mediation and deviated transcendence? 

Chantre’s second key motif reinforces the structural character of the messianic. Time is a core dimension of collective human existence and, as the title of the book indicates, its character has been changed dramatically. It “has grown short,” or, in other words, it is sensed to be up against its end. Chantre says that for Girard it is clear that, since the Resurrection, “a new time has opened up and is finally an object of thought” (49). To be an object of thought means that it serves itself to constitute thought and is no longer a simple brute phenomenon of passage or change. In evidence Chantre references the philosophical work of Giorgio Agamben, who celebrates the Pauline description of altered time (The Time That Remains). Time now means something different than before. Its fabric and texture are different, transforming the experience of being human into something new, something continuously pressed up against its own transformation. This then, is “messianic transcendence” rising “at the heart of world history” (xi), a “horizontal . . . transcendence that comes . . . in the wake of catastrophe” (22), something inscribed “at the heart of ‘essential violence’” (39). The internal, ever disruptive mutations of transcendence constitute themselves the internal ground of the messianic.

For Chantre this “other transcendence” has modified the structure of religion itself (21) and this is the tenor of holding together two radically different universes. Christianity represents this strange straddling of old and new transcendence, with the latter continuously displacing and reconstituting the old. It is entirely appropriate, therefore, that Chantre concludes his book with a commentary on Paul, that supreme articulator of a revolutionized religious cosmos. Paul, beloved of reformers, presents the New Testament’s clearest account of free-standing Christian meaning in the world, a meaning formed by direct relationship of “faith” rather than allegiance to a religious institution. Paul is ripe for a thorough Girardian reading, and Chantre moves in this direction. As he aptly summarizes, “…by being attached to Christ by faith…we participate in the re-creation of a new humanity of which he is the prototype: in Girardian terms, a humanity that would no longer be threatened by mimetic rivalries” (56, my italics).

He offers a brief essay on Romans, the classic verses in chapter seven on the dysfunctions of desire responding at once to mimetic analysis. Chantre’s sharpest focus is on how the Law is fulfilled, not suppressed, in the messianic, corresponding to his argument of continual mutation of transcendence until it reaches its authentic goal. This fulfilment occurs through Christ by removing the “proximity” of God-as-idol which makes us enter into disastrous rivalry with the divine. Christ does this, pushing the Father “beyond all manifestation” so making God an “intimate mediator” who escapes external domination (65-67). But these are rather formal, even metaphysical descriptions. They miss the anthropological concreteness and urgency Chantre elsewhere alludes to, and indeed they discount Paul’s transformative anthropology of Christ in the world (Colossians/Ephesians). Messianic transcendence is the radicalization of humanity’s core constitutive relationship with its own violence, emptying it into its converse, into non-violence, into love. Chantre’s sketch, however, does presage the possibility of a much more thorough-going reading of Paul from this standpoint. His work indeed invites this question: what if faith in Christ is faithful relationship to the illimitable nonviolence of God manifest in the cross?

The dynamic insight of The Time Has Grown Short is Girard’s “central thesis” of the true face of humanity and the true face of God appearing in the disruption of ancient mechanisms. Chantre’s work is a remarkable tracing of both continuity and transformation in human transcendence, an opening of the Girardian world to its own Achever. His remarkable book points the way to still further progress along this road.

But I didn’t want our book to sound like it was the end of the world! This is why I had the idea of creating with him the concept of “intimate mediation,” to make it clear that the idea of imitatio Christi cannot be an “external mediation,” as he thought a little hastily in 1961, at the time of Deceit, Desire and the Novel. Some unpublished reflections in René’s archives, which must date from the 1970s, are totally in line with this and have proved to me that I was not mistaken in proposing to René that he think of a third form of mediation. All this will soon be known when my book is published.

I was able to further develop this idea in my fruitful dialogue with Sandy Goodhart in two colloquia that we have organized in 2012 and 2013, bringing Girard’s and Levinas’s thoughts into dialogue. But I remain more Girardian than Levinasian! For Levinas, anxious to differentiate himself from Christianity, rejects mediation as potentially idolatrous. However, I personally think, with Girard and Bergson, that we must not give in on the question of the model. Wolfgang Palaver allowed me to begin to clarify this point in the colloquium he organized in Berkeley in 2011 (“The Messianic Moment” in Mimetic Theory and World Religions, MSUP, pp. 87-110).

So my conclusions will be more specific soon, and I would be delighted if we could have an in-depth dialogue together then. Anthony’s review announces this work, and I am very happy about it.

I send my regards to all of you and I look forward to seeing you at the René Girard Centenary conference that COV&R, ARM, and the Catholic Institute are organizing in Paris next June!

The power of Skidmore’s explanatory framework is most visible in the analysis of the rebellious son in Deuteronomy 21:18-21. Initially the punishment seems completely out of proportion to the crime. Is the text really suggesting that stoning is an appropriate response by a parent to any act of disobedience by their child? Skidmore asks that we read the text in light of mimetic theory. Fundamentally, the rebellious son is a scapegoat. In spurning his parents’ instruction, he has not only disobeyed them, he has become a monstrous threat to the community. Most significant is the echo of Israel’s own rebellion, referenced in the Deuteronomy text (1:26-46). Writes Skidmore: “Just as the unfaithful wilderness generation died and failed to inherit the Land of Canaan, so the Rebellious Son dies before receiving his share of the Land.” Execution creates peace through the purgation of evil from the community. 

Skidmore argues that his review of the Pentateuch shows that human immolation is driven by excessive mimetic rivalry. Although the specifics vary, in most cases, the community is already in the throes of a mimetic crisis which threatens to destroy it. A search for a scapegoat ensues, underwritten by divine instruction to execute the malefactor. In the aftermath, peace and order are restored. In other cases, mimetic rivalry has not yet been generated; however, a challenge has emerged to the community’s identity as YHWH’s image-bearing children. Ritual immolation preemptively eliminates the threat before negative models have the opportunity to inspire imitation. In sum, Skidmore compellingly demonstrates the analytic power of René Girard’s theory when applied to capital crimes. Writing with exceptional clarity and highly nuanced attention to a full range of extant scholarship, Skidmore unifies disparate texts, thereby accounting for inconsistencies, conundrums, and tensions other scholars deem irresolvable. As readers ask, “How will he explain THIS one?” Capital Punishment in the Pentateuch becomes a page-turner. 

Of special salience to my reading of this book as a citizen of the United States is Skidmore’s concluding critique and discussion of how the biblical texts have been drawn on and are still cited to support state-sanctioned executions. By the end of February, there will have been eight executions in 2023, including the January 3 execution of Amber McLaughlin in my neighboring state of Missouri (See the national “calendar” for executions in the US maintained by the Death Penalty Information Center). Most concerning to me is legislation proposing to restore the death penalty in my state, Iowa. For the first time since its abolishment in 1963, there appear to be the necessary votes in the Iowa Legislature to reinstate the death penalty. The death penalty has never been under serious consideration for reinstatement in Iowa because of lobbying by mainline Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church; combined, these denominations represent a majority of church-going Iowans. However, evangelical Christians support the death penalty, not only in Iowa, but across the United states, as Skidmore points out in his discussion. 

Skidmore makes a notable intervention in pro-death penalty arguments by pointing out that when theologians refer today to concepts such as imago dei or lex talionis or allude to pollution and defilement of the community, they “anachronistically collapse the difference between the social world of the Pentateuch and our modern world.” Returning to the texts most commonly cited today by proponents of the death penalty and focusing on these proponents’ claims that the biblical text “is binding for all cultures and eras,” Skidmore demonstrates how the texts of the Pentateuch that call for ritual immolation to resolve threats to the community expressly state or show that the call is not universally binding. Most helpfully, in each case, Skidmore shows how mimetic theory illuminates and clarifies limitations on capital punishment set within the biblical texts themselves, further highlighting the anachronistic features of capital punishment. 

While Anderson explores the treatment of sacrifice in relation to the New Testament, including a discussion of Jesus as scapegoat, those hoping for a Girardian perspective will be disappointed. Anderson remains faithful to his stated intent of approaching atonement as biblically as possible, only very briefly mentioning Girard in a footnote (111). Regardless, this chapter is a clear and insightful exploration of the treatment of sacrifice in the New Testament, beginning with the Gospels and ending with the Pauline epistles. Anderson is particularly interested in Paul’s “use of various images as metaphors, the different arenas of life from which those images come, and how they functioned in those worlds” (121). Understanding those worlds is, for Anderson, one of the key challenges to reading Paul. 

Beginning with chapter 6 and continuing through chapter 8, Anderson turns his attention to theories of atonement. Arranged chronologically, he works his way up from the post-apostolic church to the twentieth century. Starting with some of the early church fathers, such as Irenaeus and Athanasius, Anderson follows the development of the Christian faith and its thinking concerning atonement. The theories, such as ransom and satisfaction, and thinkers, such as Anselm and Aquinas, that one might expect to be included are all here. Turning his attention to the twentieth century in Chapter 9, Anderson focuses on atonement through the lens of the incarnation. The chapter discusses Christology and its relation to the atonement with the aid of some of the well-known theologians of the twentieth century. The Christological thinking of D. M. Baillie, Barth, Torrance, and Moltmann form the basis of this chapter.

In the latter stages of the book, Anderson returns to “the Scriptures to follow their descriptive thread” (208). Chapter 11 follows this thread from Old to New Testament, taking God’s promise to Abraham as the starting point and finishing with Jesus’ death and resurrection. Here, Anderson weaves together the threads of sacrament, theology, history, and Scripture that run throughout this volume. The result is an intricate tapestry depicting exactly the title of the chapter: “What God Has Done in Jesus Christ.”

Anderson’s experience in preaching, teaching, and pastoral ministry is evident in this volume. He writes for a diverse audience: “for working pastors, church leaders of all sorts, laypeople, seminarians and recent seminary graduates, college religion majors, and anyone in the pew who wants to know more about their faith” (5). His parishioners are included, along with those whom he describes as “spiritual but not religious.” While writing for such a wide-ranging readership poses its own challenges, Anderson ably rises to meet them. Throughout, he appears to be mindful of his intended audience. Theological concepts and terminology are clearly explained to the reader but without being over-simplified for those who may already possess some knowledge of the topics at hand. In addition to the bibliography, Anderson includes a substantial reading list for anyone wishing to engage in further study. A Scripture index is also provided. While not in any way wishing to reduce Anderson’s intended audience solely to college students, I believe that this volume would be an excellent resource for those entering into theological or religious studies. Anderson discusses the theological development of atonement in a clear and instructive manner that current and prospective students may find useful. For the same reason, readers of this Bulletin who wish to engage with atonement theory may also be interested in Anderson’s work. 

Anderson’s aim is not so much to provide a new perspective on atonement as to “retrieve a very old one—on what was taking place on the cross and what that means for us today” (2). This “very old” perspective is one that primarily returns to the Scriptures, taking care to ensure that the biblical narrative is at its heart. By rejecting the more “philosophical” and “mythological” understandings of atonement that developed over the course of church history and in taking care to weave a continuous exegetical thread throughout this book, Anderson does, indeed, deliver on his promise.