Vaunting
The concern for victims has become a paradoxical competition of mimetic rivalries, of opponents continually trying to outbid one another.
The victims most interesting to us are always those who allow us to condemn our neighbors. And our neighbors do the same. They always think first about victims for whom they hold us responsible.
We do not all have the same experience as St. Peter and St. Paul, who discovered that they themselves were guilty of persecution and confessed their own guilt rather than that of their neighbors. It’s our neighbors who kindly remind us that we should be compassionate, and we render them the same service. . . .
From now on we have our antisacrificial rituals of victimization, and they unfold in an order as unchangeable as properly religious rituals. First of all we lament the victims we admit to making or allowing to be made. Then we lament the hypocrisy of our lamentation, and finally we lament Christianity, the indispensable scapegoat, for there is no ritual without a victim, and in our day Christianity is always it, the scapegoat of last resort. As part of this last stage of the ritual, we affirm, in a nobly suffering tone, that Christianity has done nothing to “resolve the problem of violence.” (René Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, 164)
I gotta have my orange juice. 
[…] for fleshly boasting. Rene Girard has insight into how this humility competition is its own form of fleshly vaunting, and how it undermines the […]
Keep in step with the Spirit | I gotta have my orange juice.
February 20, 2020 at 1:52 pm
[…] Vaunting […]
Girard | I gotta have my orange juice.
March 27, 2020 at 8:08 pm
[…] world seeks to obtain justification for its guilty conscience by scapegoating others, including and especially the church. Against this, the church faithfully witnesses that justification can only be found in the one true […]
In step with the truth of the gospel | I gotta have my orange juice.
May 24, 2020 at 3:21 pm
[…] and scapegoating. This Girardian energy seems on a hair trigger to swivel toward the church, which Girard observes is how the powers and principalities always work. It’s interesting to me to consider whether […]
Metábasis eis állo génos (9) | I gotta have my orange juice.
August 29, 2020 at 9:54 am
[…] yet turned its full energy directly on the church. Girard stresses that the church is always the scapegoat of last resort when the cycle reaches its zenith. This is because the church is the bearer of the gospel, which is […]
Metábasis eis állo génos (18) | I gotta have my orange juice.
November 1, 2020 at 4:08 pm
[…] describes the church as the “scapegoat of last resort.” This leads me to think that, in a way, the Christian is the peak of intersectionality: the […]
Metábasis eis állo génos (2-40) | I gotta have my orange juice.
October 2, 2021 at 9:03 am
[…] Jordan’s take seems compelling to me. What I find especially interesting is that he has Jeroboam resurrecting an old false religion, a sort of zombie religion. This provokes a few thoughts. First, this zombie religion is a new creation, an eclectic smorgasbord rather then a genuine return to an older way. It is an amalgam of high-place worship and firstborn-son priesthood with golden-calf worship and strange fire, as well as a variety of innovations. Second, this zombie religion is brought to life by coming into contact with true worship. If Jeroboam had not needed to draw people away from and to undermine the worship of the living God, he would not have had to invent a false religion. Satan is lazy; he only goes to work when he is at risk of losing ground. Third, this has direct applicability to modern false religions. In reality, they are boutique religions; none of them are old, because none of them have inherent life to perpetuate themselves. The more Christianity spreads, the more false religions draw life from an adversarial and parasitic relationship to Christianity. They must reconstitute themselves every few generations, partly because God judicially tears them down, and partly as a reactive response to the growth and maturation of Christianity. Girard observed, for example, that the more society’s scapegoating mechanisms are exposed, the more society repositions itself as a victim, creating a subtle new form of scapegoating. […]
Zombie religion | I gotta have my orange juice.
January 24, 2026 at 11:07 am