Sacred Violence No More

“On the contrary, by arousing empathy for victims, the biblical tradition has destroyed the kind of peace and social consensus that conventional cultures were once able to achieve at the victim’s expense. In clogging the gears of the scapegoating machinery, the gospel revelation brings not peace but a sword. This is purely and simply because it interrupts the only kind of peace that ‘the world’ — the world of conventional culture — understands. The only kind of violence that can end violence effectively is sacred violence, and, over time, the gospel revelation gradually destroys the ability to sacralize violence” (Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled, p. 24).