“It was Nietzsche, after all, who had scoffed at the merely sane among the philosophers and who predicted that these timid remnants of philosophy’s bygone age would soon be shoved aside by the throng of ecstatic Dionysiac revelers with no qualms about delivering a coup de grace to the philosophic tradition. Nietzsche’s influence in this …
Scandalizing Philosophy
“On the rare occasions when the New Testament deigns even to mention philosophy, it treats it as a garrulous Greek exercise that must not be allowed to distract the serious-minded from discovering the truth-telling power of the gospel . . . And now that ‘writing off’ philosophy has become philosophy’s most intellectually stimulating undertaking, perhaps …
Mythos or Logos
“As I have said, the author of the Fourth gospel speaks of the source of human evil and delusion as the ‘father of lies’ and the ‘murderer from the beginning.’ If this ‘father’ is a father from the beginning, and if what he fathers is lies, then the first lie must also have taken place …
Civilized Murder
[Speaking of those who want to kill Jesus in John 8] “But their murderousness is not simply moral perversion. it is fundamental. It is anthropological. It is structural. It is the ordering principle of culture, ‘hidden since the foundation of the world'” (Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled, p. 222).
The Death of Scandal in the Death of Jesus
“Ultimately, it was Jesus’ public execution and not his public ministry that consummated the biblical revelation, inspired the New Testament, launched the Christian movement, and eventually led to the anthropological crisis in which we now find ourselves. As the first Christians moved beyond the Jewish cultural orbit into the wider Greco-Roman world, they found people …
Deep Scandal
[Speaking of Matt. 18:1-9] “The first thing to notice is how the disciples’ lapse into mimetic rivalry evoked from Jesus a discourse on scandal and scandalizing. As I said, it seems at first a non sequitur. From the mimetic point of view, however, it is the perfect response. Jesus recognized his disciples anxiety about their …
True Character Is Measured By An Ability to Oppose a Lynch Mob
“The master thinkers of the Enlightenment inherited a Europe that had been buoyed up by the moral ethos of Christianity for so long that they thought they could scuttle the ark and wash ashore on the next tide. They were sure that reasonable people, with a wink from Voltaire and Rousseau, would walk away from …
Getting It Straight
“With the air of a Solomon, he gives instructions: ‘Keep the men well apart from each other for I want to question them.’ I suppose one could call this the birth of due process. The circumstances in which it is born remind one of a memorable remark Girard has made. We didn’t stop burning witches …
Not A Problem of Distance
“Mimetic desire is always kindled in those whose social situations most closely approximate that of the one whom they envy” (Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled, p. 187).
The Prophetic Mind
“What is to be noted is not just the the prophetic mind is lucid, but that the prophetic personality is sufficiently grounded in something other than the shifting sands of the social order to withstand the contagious power of social consensus. The clearest proof that Micaiah has managed to stay outside that vortex is that …