{"id":19979,"date":"2021-03-29T09:39:32","date_gmt":"2021-03-29T13:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19979"},"modified":"2021-03-29T10:27:36","modified_gmt":"2021-03-29T14:27:36","slug":"a-temporary-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19979","title":{"rendered":"A Temporary Solution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/evT6Dd2AfeM\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>The word \u201cscapegoating\u201d originated from an\ningenious ritual described in Leviticus 16. According to Jewish law, on the Day\nof Atonement, the high priest laid hands on an \u201cescaping\u201d goat, placing all the\nsins of the Jewish people from the previous year onto the animal. Then the goat\nwas beaten with reeds and thorns, driven out into the desert, and the people\nwent home rejoicing. Violence towards the innocent victim was apparently quite\neffective at temporarily relieving the group\u2019s guilt and shame. The same scapegoating\ndynamic was at play when European Christians burned supposed heretics at the\nstake, and when white Americans lynched Black Americans. In fact, the pattern\nis identical and totally non-rational.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whenever the \u201csinner\u201d is excluded, our\ncollective ego is delighted and feels relieved and safe. It works, but only for\na while, because it is merely an illusion. Repeatedly believing the lie, that <em>this time we have the true culprit<\/em>,\nwe become more catatonic, habitually ignorant, and culpable\u2014because, of course,\nscapegoating never really eliminates evil in the first place. As Russian\nphilosopher Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, \u201cIf only there were evil people\nsomewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to\nseparate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good\nand evil cuts through the heart of every human being.\u201d [1] As long as the evil\nis \u201cover there,\u201d we can change or expel someone else as the contaminating\nelement. We then feel purified and at peace. But it is not the peace of Christ,\nwhich \u201cthe world cannot give\u201d (see John 14:27).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jesus became the scapegoat to reveal the\nuniversal lie of scapegoating.<\/em>&nbsp;He\nbecame the sinned-against one to reveal the hidden nature of scapegoating<em>, <\/em>so that we would see how\nwrong even educated and well-meaning people can be. This is perfectly\nrepresented by Pilate and Caiaphas (state and religion), who both find their\nartificial reasons to condemn him (see John 16:8\u201311 and Romans 8:3).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In worshiping Jesus as the scapegoat, Christians\nshould have learned to stop scapegoating, but we didn\u2019t. We are still utterly\nwrong whenever we create arbitrary victims to avoid our own complicity in evil.\nIt seems it is the most effective diversionary tactic possible. History has\nshown us that authority itself is not a good guide. Yet for many people,\nauthority soothes their anxiety and relieves their own responsibility to form a\nmature conscience. We love to follow someone else and let them take the\nresponsibility. It is a universal story line in history and all cultures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the\nmistaken view of God as a Punisher-in-Chief that most Christians seem to hold,\nwe think our own violence is necessary and even good. But there is no such\nthing as&nbsp;<em>redemptive<\/em>&nbsp;violence.\nViolence doesn\u2019t&nbsp;<em>save;&nbsp;<\/em>it\nonly destroys all parties in both the short and long term. Jesus replaced the\nmyth of redemptive violence with the truth of <em>redemptive suffering<\/em>. He showed us on the cross\nhow to hold the pain and let it transform us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Scapegoat Mechanism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Human nature, when it is seeking power, wants either to play the victim or to create victims of others. In fact, the second follows from the first. Once we start feeling sorry for ourselves, we will soon find someone else to blame, accuse or attack\u2014and with impunity! It settles the dust quickly, and it takes away any immediate shame, guilt, or anxiety. In other words, it works\u2014at least for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When we read today\u2019s news, we realize the\npattern has not changed much in all of history. Hating, fearing, or diminishing\nsomeone else holds us together for some reason. Scapegoating, or the creating\nof necessary victims, is in our hard wiring. Philosopher Ren\u00e9 Girard\n(1923\u20132015) calls \u201cthe scapegoat mechanism\u201d the central pattern for the\ncreation and maintenance of cultures worldwide since the beginning. [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The sequence, without being too clever, goes\nsomething like this: we compare, we copy, we compete, we conflict, we conspire,\nwe condemn, and we crucify. If we do not recognize some variation of this\npattern within ourselves and put an end to it in the early stages, it is almost\ninevitable. That is why spiritual teachers of any depth will always teach\nsimplicity of lifestyle and freedom from the competitive power game, which is\nwhere it all begins. It is probably the only way out of the cycle of violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s hard for us religious people to hear, but\nthe most persistent violence in human history has been \u201csacralized\nviolence\u201d\u2014violence that we treated as sacred, but which was, in fact, not.\nHuman beings have found a most effective way to legitimate their instinct\ntoward fear and hatred. They imagine that they are fearing and hating on behalf\nof something holy and noble: God, religion, truth, morality, their children, or\nlove of country. It takes away all guilt, and one can even think of oneself as\nrepresenting the moral high ground or being responsible and prudent as a\nresult. It never occurs to most people that they are becoming what they fear\nand hate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This week we enter Holy Week, the days leading up to Jesus\u2019 passion, death, and resurrection. As long as we deal with the real meaning of evil and sin by some means other than forgiveness and healing, we will keep projecting, fearing, and attacking it over there (\u201cscapegoating\u2019\u2019), instead of \u201cgazing\u201d on it within ourselves and \u201cweeping\u201d over it. The longer we contemplate the cross, the more we recognize our own complicity <em>in<\/em> and profits made <em>from<\/em> the sin of others. Forgiveness demands three new simultaneous \u201cseeings\u201d: I must see God in the other; I must access God in myself; and I must experience God in a new way that is larger than an \u201cenforcer.\u201d That is a whole new world seen in three dimensions. The real \u201c3-D\u201d!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"310\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-20-500x310.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19982\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-20-500x310.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-20-300x186.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-20-768x476.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-20.png 1952w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The word \u201cscapegoating\u201d originated from an ingenious ritual described in Leviticus 16. According to Jewish law, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest laid hands on an \u201cescaping\u201d goat, placing all the sins of the Jewish people from the previous year onto the animal. Then the goat was beaten with reeds and thorns, driven [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19979"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19979"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19983,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19979\/revisions\/19983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}