Bulletin 76 – May 2023

Whoever says forgiveness also says sin. According to some, a sense of sin is at the root of guilt and shame with which the Church has kept people under wraps for centuries. What do you make of that statement?

That has certainly been the case too often. Usually we assume that we sin first and then receive the conditions for forgiveness: “If you repent, I will forgive you.” As a result, we end up in a world of emotional blackmail. That mentality is terrible. It turns God into a petulant tyrant. It makes faith a convenient tool for shaming people and controlling them.

And yet you see the doctrine of original sin as a source of joy in your book The Joy of Being Wrong. Why?

To understand that, you have to think forgiveness and sin in the right order. The essential Christian understanding is that forgiveness precedes repentance. You see that, for example, in the parable of the prodigal son. I prefer to call it the parable of the self-effacing father. When his youngest son reappears, clearly driven by opportunistic considerations, the father runs towards him in a most undignified manner. When the elder son turns up, he comes out to him like a servant, and begs his son to come in. At no point does he behave in a patriarchal manner. He does not disgrace his younger son. He sets no conditions for forgiving him. He does not magnify his possible feelings of shame. His other son, who remained at home, wants to do so. But shame would prevent the youngest son from acknowledging sincerely where he falls short. And then he does not get anywhere. The proper definition of sin is: that which can be forgiven. When we no longer have to be ashamed of one another, we can receive forgiveness and take responsibility for our actions, genuinely. Then we can grow. The teaching on original sin can be reformulated as the teaching on our capacity to be forgiven. It is, put another way, the teaching about our capacity to grow in who we are from the beginning and what we are called to. Thus, the capacity to be forgiven constitutes our access to the fullness of creation, to an existence that is much richer. The joyful news is that we have that capacity in common with each other. One human being has no more original sin than another (laughs).

So the awareness of sin is liberating, if understood properly?

If sin is what you can be forgiven for, an awareness of sinfulness is actually a relief. It is not frightening. You are not at the mercy of sin. In contrast, there are fixed laws and dynamics to which you may be subject, such as mental illness. You then have to learn to deal with that. At worst, straitjackets and cages await. In contrast, the notion of sin suggests a flexibility in our process of becoming. We can always become more human. Saying “I am a sinner” should not be seen as a form of self-flagellation; rather it is the sign of being relaxed enough about being forgiven that I don’t need to justify myself. True forgiveness is not an accusation. When people are accused, they try to justify themselves. The danger is that they then shift the blame to others to defend themselves.

To understand the notion of sin as an accusation would be wrong?

That is a perversion, indeed. The Gospel leaves no doubt about that. A right understanding of sinfulness prevents you from judging others. On the contrary, you discover that you are like others in that respect. Designating someone as the bad guy who is radically different from you and a group of like-minded people, on the other hand, maintains an oppressive, even violent social structure of fear and shame.

We are constantly in danger of getting stuck in violent structures. What role does Jesus of Nazareth play in our liberation from those?

Let me explain that with an analogy. Imagine what it’s like sometimes in high schools. A group unites against a misfit, a certain Fernando. I tell his story, by the way, in the book series Jesus the Forgiving Victim. Several students make Fernando feel that he does not belong, for whatever obtuse reason. In their eyes, perhaps he wears the wrong clothes, or he is not rich enough and so on. Some no doubt breathe a sigh of relief that they themselves are not the group’s piss-poor. Indeed, precisely because they fear that, they actively make fun of Fernando, while others relate to him with mostly indifference. No one wants to be on the spot of shame and embarrassment. And the best way to avoid that is to make sure that someone like Fernando occupies that spot in their place. To make a long story short: Fernando leaves school, but returns after six months. Imagine that he suddenly does wear the supposedly right clothes and turns out to be rich and powerful. Once again, the frightened will seek security, but this time by gaining favor with Fernando. They conveniently blame their past misbehavior toward him on the bad influence of one supposedly real bully (or a negligible group of bullies). By doing so, they are already reducing the risk of falling into the place of shame themselves. In their place, someone has to pay who represents evil. So they play the violent game they have always played: the group unites against one (small group) who is considered radically different. 

The Gospel offers another possible scenario. In its light, Fernando returns as he has always been, but clearly without seeking revenge or providing moralistic criticism. On the contrary, he forgives his fellow students because he actually likes them. He knows that in reality they are quite nice and actually have a lot going for them. So the fearful no longer have to hunt for yet another victim to occupy the place of shame in their place. They no longer have to shift responsibility for their behavior onto someone else. They can learn to be together in a different, nonviolent way and discover that as a surprising aspect of themselves. Jesus works something similar, but on a general human level. He invites us to play a game governed not by fear and shame, but by mutual forgiveness.

Sometimes we say that others should be ashamed of themselves. You claim that Jesus occupies the place of shame voluntarily. Does God play the game of shame and disgrace as well?

Not at all! God is not a celestial Kim Jong-un who needs masses of militarized people to stroke his ego and who will cut your head off if you refuse to do so. Our world produces those kinds of leaders. When Jesus is crucified, he satisfies a human propensity for violence. He does not satisfy divine wrath or anything like that, which does not exist anyway. Jesus embodies the generosity of God, even when man shows his worst side.

Nevertheless, that generosity is destroyed by death?

No, Jesus even makes death a sign of that generosity. He does not allow himself to be blackmailed by a fear of violence and death. That allows him to occupy the place of shame without being controlled by it. He does not answer violence with violence, even unto death, which constitutes a love that prevents people from being victims of violence. The resurrection of the crucified Jesus is contained in his forgiving presence. That presence invites us to become partakers of a love that is in no way fascinated by suffering and death. It opens the way for a life that no longer depends on death.

What does that life look like?

It enables you, for example, to stand up for justice non-violently, without worrying about the possible negative consequences of that for your reputation, or even your life. A quote from the first letter of John formulates that condition well: “We have passed from death to life; we know it, because we love our brothers. Man without love is still in the realm of death” (1 Jn 3:14).

I cannot emphasize enough that our lives are more in need of deliverance from shame than from sin. Shame drives us much more strongly than the things for which we can take responsibility. Dealing with shame is much more important than dealing with sin. And that can only be done by someone who is affectionate to us, someone who is very close to us and respects our fears. You need someone who respects the delicate nature of where we are, and who does not bring us more shame. By occupying the place of shame, that person can hold us tenderly and allow us to let go of our shame. The place of shame is the place no one wants to occupy themselves. It is the place we avoid by conspiring with others against someone who is put there in our place. But when it is occupied by someone who is affectionate to us, we no longer have to play that game of collusion. Remember the story of Fernando, which we were talking about a moment ago. He loves and forgives his fellow students instead of taking revenge. As a result, the former bullies don’t have to shift their responsibility to someone they can shame. The father in the parable of the prodigal son, who is actually disgraced by his two sons, also acts like Fernando, and so does Jesus. Then an inclusive way of communicating with others who are disgraced becomes possible. From there, a new kind of community and a new kind of living together can grow.

Forgiving love breaks through the condition in which we are stuck because of shame. That is partly what is meant by resurrection. It means that the fear of losing things no longer dominates us. We may have to testify about an iniquity someone has suffered, and we will be at risk because of it. We won’t find that worthwhile if we are guided primarily by the fear of exclusion, violence and death. For the great and powerful will often win.

In today’s world of social media, some people supposedly stand up for justice, but it seems they use their actions to flaunt a good image.

Yes, in that case standing up for justice becomes a way to get revenge. Or to build a reputation. Virtue signaling, as it is called. If, on the other hand, you dwell in the generosity that is not defined by fear, you are willing to lose because you cannot actually lose. You are already held up in what is greater than any loss. When you have no fear of losing, you can do what love asks of you in any context. Then you feel no need to score in a cheap way, by virtue signaling or by revenge, or by appearing to be a winner. Then you can stand up for others, with the necessary risks, although of course you must not endanger your fellow human beings. And the more people do that, the more the frightening beast disappears that feeds on our fear and shame.

Do you have to know Jesus to live that kind of life?

The generosity that makes itself known in a special way in the life of Jesus is also at work elsewhere. Often we see that people know what that means without all the religious paraphernalia. Conversely, we find that the Jesus story is sometimes told and lived very poorly in supposedly Christian circles. I invariably look for the real thing, both inside and outside church walls, and try to find opportunities for imitation in that.

Would you ever step away from the Church?

All institutions are sacrificial. They sustain themselves by setting boundaries and thus organizing forms of exclusion. This does not mean that we should destroy institutions—which in itself is also sacrificial—because then you get other ones subject to the same logic. Those who create a supposedly pure group to distinguish themselves from a Church with scandals are already playing the game of shame again. And then sooner or later you fall back into forms of fear-mongering hypocrisy. The question is how to subvert the sacrificial excesses of an institution from within. The synodal process under the impetus of Pope Francis seeks to address that, among other things.

There is a dire need for forgiveness, even within the Church. What if you do not arrive at forgiveness?

Forgiveness can never be a demand, because then you get bogged down in a moralizing argument again. You don’t have to be ashamed if you can’t forgive (yet). Apart from that, we must not forget that by forgiving you are not so much doing the wrongdoers a favor, but primarily yourself. A process of forgiveness prevents your life from being controlled by the evil that is done to you. Sometimes we chew on evil, as if it feeds us. It then gives us an identity. Of course it is necessary to acknowledge someone as a survivor of sexual abuse, but for the person in question you may hope that such evil eventually becomes a detail in their biography. Forgiveness is a call to freedom: “Don’t let the people who don’t have your best interests at heart get you, don’t give them free rental space in your head.” Forgiveness is the opposite of a command that turns you into a doormat. A process of forgiveness frees you from the identity in which you were trapped. It invites you into the adventure of a life of greater joy. Think of the withdrawing father from the parable already mentioned. He rejoices over his reunited family and just wants to throw a party, without his one son being ashamed or his other being bitter.

An Easter feast?

Indeed! (laughs)

A part of the procedure is giving a turn to every visitor for commenting on the text that has been read or the passage being studied. This “ritual,” devised in the past by Michael Elias, and being already firmly in place when I joined the group, is very helpful in preventing the mimetic turmoil that so often arises in the arenas of free discussions.

Though the number of meetings each year (five) has remained constant in these years, we did have our worries about attendance. Neither the fear of implosion, nor the hope for expansion, proved to be justified. We are still going strong, with ups and downs, with people only visiting our group once or a couple of times and other people staying around. At the moment, our meetings usually are attended by some fifteen people. This is also the place to commemorate the two members who have frequently visited the COV&R conference: André Lascaris and Sonja Pos.

Once having become an official organization, our first chairman was Michael Elias, who had been a convener for some fifteen years by then. In this role he was later followed by Rob Gast. Other people who have been members of the “board” or organizing committee are Thérèse Onderdenwijngaard, Simon Simonse, and Els Launspach. At present we have Hans Weigand as our chairman, Hubert Darthenay as the treasurer, Jannet Delver as a board member, and I am the secretary, also taking care of the website. 

Here I also must mention Joost Dancet, who has been of great help in giving our own website a facelift, and who is also the writer of many articles on mimetic theory and poetry on the website Poezieleesgroup De Reyghere. 

In the past fourteen years we have organized a lot of events aside from our five-time-a-year gatherings. To begin with, in 2010 and 2012, also with the support of Imitatio, Thérèse Onderdenwijngaard twice organized a Summer School in mimetic theory at the ISVW (International School for Philosophy) in Leusden. Certainly, a number of Bulletin readers will have memories, either as a teacher or as a participant, of these summer events.

Another initiative we are proud to mention is the starting up of the Girard Lectures in the Netherlands, originally scheduled for once every two years. We now can look back on four lectures in total, given by Hans Achterhuis (2014), Willem Jan Otten (2016), Johan Graafland (2018) and Marcel Poorthuis (2020), some of them being quite well-known in cultural life in Holland. Also, we have organized a number of meetings with other study groups in Holland—one dealing with the work of Emmanuel Levinas, another with the work of Eugen Rosenstock-Hussey.

Then, between 2010 and the present day, we have organized two jubilee festivities for our 30^th and 40^th anniversary. I already mentioned that the true founding year was 1981, so yes, we are way older than COV&R 😉! At the jubilee in 2011 we presented the book Rond de Crisis, a collection of still valuable essays about mimetic theory in Dutch, edited by Michael Elias and André Lascaris and written by the members themselves. Together with Nico Keizer de book was presented in the Balie theater in Amsterdam.

This same theater was the place of our jubilee ten years later. This time we opted for a film fragment festival entitled Violence and Desire in Film, which was also broadcasted as a live stream. In this program Joachim Duyndam discussed a number of film fragments with Arnon Grunberg, one of the best-known novelists and columnists in the Netherlands. Due to copyright permission, the recording of this program cannot be put online, but if you are interested, we can send you a private link.

The period of the coronavirus lockdowns forced us to use and further discover the possibilities of digital meetings. Initially, being confined at home during the lockdown, we met at a higher frequency than we used to, with our Belgian members Erik Buys and Joost Dancet joining in, as well as Simon Simonse from Nairobi. Also, we had a number of sessions in English on the work of and attended by Per Grande, Julia Robinson Moore, Mark Anspach, and Wolfgang Palaver. These sessions were appreciated very much by our members, and we hope to continue scheduling new international meetings in the future.

Then, last year, Hans Weigand, assisted by our French member Hubert Darthenay, created a new translation of Girard’s first book—I will give the title in Dutch—De romantische leugen en de romaneske waarheid. Already in 1986 Hans created a translation of this book, then also assisted by Hubert. At present I am working on a translation of Nidesh Lawtoo’s (New) Fascism: Contagion, Community, Myth for the same publisher, Uitgeverij Noordboek. This publisher is seriously interested in mimetic theory, so the possibility exists that more translations will follow in the future.

The 2023 COV&R conference in Paris now is really getting close. Daan Savert and Bart Leenman are two of our younger members, who will be visiting COV&R for the first time. Bart Leenman will offer a presentation on Giorgio Agamben, which already has had a try-out in one of our sessions. Thérèse Onderdenwijngaard will, together with Martha Reineke, participate in a session on Wolfgang Palaver’s Transforming the Sacred into Saintliness. Joachim Duyndam, Michael Elias, and I will offer a session on “Madness, Religion and Mimetic Theory.” As to psychosis, Michael Elias and I both are experiential experts and have recently written a book about our experiences: Michael Elias published an autobiographical novel Hanesteen (Alectorius) in 2020, and I published a more theoretical work De overtocht: Filosofische blik op een psychose (The Crossing: Philosophical View on a Psychosis) in 2021.

I will end by mentioning five members many COV&R conference visitors will know. First of all, there is Erik Buys, prolific writer of books, articles, and website pages, whose wonderful website Mimetic Margins now has migrated to Scapegoat Shadows. Then there is Simon Simonse, whose magnum opus Kings of Disaster has been presented several times in the past years. Furthermore, there is Els Launspach, who has done several projects on Shakespeare in the past years, one of them on a high school. Her work helps remind us that Girard was very much a student of literary texts. (Editor’s note: see her “Reading Shakespeare’s King Richard III against the Grain” on the member articles page.) 

If there were awards for Girardian achievements, Hubert Darthenay—apart from making good chances for the award for the best-dressed Girardian—would stand out as the one who has virtually visited all COV&R conferences. Apart from his help in translations and his role as a treasurer, Hubert’s contributions to discussions are always remarkable, be it only for his in-depth knowledge of nuances in the French language. 

And last but not least, I must mention Wiel Eggen, who has a tremendous erudition and was the first one to find out that Jean-Paul Sartre had written about René Girard. Being both anthropologist and theologian, Wiel’s interest lies in the field of philosophical history of the monotheistic religions—at present, with the war in Ukraine in the background, with a focus on the dialogue with the Orthodox Church. In the oncoming issue of Contagion, Wiel will present an article about his anthropological work in Central-African Republic in the early seventies.

A summary of almost fifteen years of activity will never be complete. As for our members, a larger list of regular visitors of our meetings can be found on our website.

Personally, I feel the sense of community has not profoundly changed since the days I joined the Dutch Girard Society. This sense of community is carried, not by religious uniformity, but a sense of truth. Though we have our mutual differences, we share the belief that in many ways mimetic theory is looking in the right direction. 

If you want to know more about the Dutch Girard Society, if you want a link of the film fragment festival or if you have a suggestion for offering a presentation for our group, please send a mail to [email protected]. And you always can take a look on our website: www.girard.nl.