I don't know why moral human beings bother with the gospel of John. Ironically, those pronouncements in Jn. 16:2 can be persuasively historicized as acts of projection on the part of third-generation Jesus followers to put into relief their own status as martyrs and true believers over and against evil (which is to say, indifferent) Jews. Moreover, how does one impute "the church" to the gospel of John? No doubt Rohr is taking historical liberties--there was no church in 30 CE.
Girard has become a touchstone for the right--see Peter Thiel. But this scapegoat argument is a second-order theodicy on a gospel that is already, in itself, a theodicy: why did Jesus die (and not whoop ass)? why is it best that he died (and did not yet whoop ass)? Why do bad things happen to the most innocent people?
By the way, your point about Girard is an important one and I don't want to discount it. I remember reading a couple of years ago about Thiel's connection with him. And now we have Thiel's protege Vance occupying the second highest office in the land. I read about it some at the time but in looking again this morning, I found this more recent article, which is pretty dang amazing. As frustrating as the internet can be at times, it's so nice to have access to stuff like this. Whether one agrees with it or not, it's really provocative commentary. Just thought I'd share, as this is a board that seems to value esoteric thought like this.
René Girard’s Legacy This past summer, I was surprised to encounter a face I knew in two most unexpected places. The first was in a photo montage accompanying an article written by Josh Kovensky of...
salmagundi.skidmore.edu
A few quotes --
Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance both exemplify how the knowledge of scapegoating can be misused, even by those who claim to appreciate Girard’s philosophy.
Consider a real scenario involving J.D. Vance, who claims Girard’s work opened his eyes to his own tendency to scapegoat. In a 2020 essay titled “How I Joined the Resistance: On Mamaw and Becoming Catholic,” he wrote that Girard’s “theory of the scapegoat…made me reconsider my faith.” Girard taught him how we “shift blame and our own inadequacies onto a victim.” Recognizing these patterns in his own life, he vowed, “That all had to change. It was time to stop scapegoating.”
Yet four years later, during the presidential campaign, Vance helped spread false rumors about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. Alongside Donald Trump, he promoted the debunked narrative that these immigrants were stealing and eating pets. By amplifying these baseless claims, Vance engaged in classic scapegoating, targeting a vulnerable community as a source of societal problems.
Vance inverted the concern for victims to justify marginalizing immigrants, claiming to defend residents supposedly harmed by outsiders. This inversion demonstrates how easily Girard’s ideas can be misapplied to perpetuate the scapegoating they warn against. Vance knows from basic mimetic theory that certain “preferential signs” tend to attract and justify the actions of violent mobs—Girard’s “stereotypes of persecution,” which include social marginality, cultural differences, misfortune, and economic vulnerability.
The Haitian immigrants in Springfield fit these stereotypes to a T. They are socially marginal, arriving in a small Ohio town with few resources or connections. Their cultural differences—speaking Creole, maintaining traditions unfamiliar to the locals—set them apart in a community unused to such diversity. Their misfortune is evident: refugees fleeing political instability, arriving with little beyond the hope for a better life. And their economic vulnerability makes them easy targets for resentment, as they are perceived to compete for limited jobs or strain public resources.
Another stereotype of persecution Girard identifies is “behavioral deviance.” In this case, the Haitian immigrants were accused of bizarre acts like eating their neighbors’ pets—
an absurd but potent fabrication that reinforced their otherness and justified hostility against them.
Mobs intuitively gravitate toward such signs because these markers make it easier to project blame and vent violence. The Haitian immigrants become scapegoats, bearing the burden of a community’s unresolved tensions and fears.
Vance stated on the record, “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” This admission underscores his willingness to propagate falsehoods for political gain, directly engaging in the scapegoating mechanism Girard cautions against.
Rooted in either staggering hypocrisy or self-deception,
this approach allows Vance to cast his non-Haitian constituents as the “real” victims—along with their cats—while explaining away, to himself and others, the harm inflicted on the immigrant community—a perfect example of how the concern for victims can be inverted to justify one’s own scapegoating.