rhetoric of evil christian identity

7/28/2019 Rhetoric of Evil Christian Identity

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The Rhetoric of Evil and the Definition of ChristianIdentity

JOHANNES ZACHHUBER

Introduction: The rhetoric and the reality of evil

It must be admitted that there is something confusing, even irritating about the rhetoric

of evil. In addressing it one aims, it seems, at a second-order discourse: one speaks or

writes about the way oneself or other people speak or write about evil. It could

therefore appear as if the extra distance the author puts between himself and evil offers

him some protection or insulation against its dangerous effects. He is not, after all,

dealing directly with evil; he does not have to identify let alone combat it, nor does he

risk getting polluted by it in his turn. His task merely is to analyse the devices and

strategies employed in various rhetorical operations conducted with regard to real or

perceived evil. In fact, the question of whether the evil under consideration is real or

merely perceived as such could appear indifferent to a task such as the one that he has

set for himself in this paper.

Yet this distance soon turns out to be unreliable and treacherous. For in many ways the

rhetoric of evil isthe reality of evil. Not in the sense that evil would not exist without the

demagoguery of some wicked rhetorician who invented it in order to stigmatise his

opponents. While the latter practice is not uncommon, it cannot explain the rhetoric of

evil as such, for the simple reason that the exposure of such evilpractice would in itself

be forced rhetorically to evoke evil. Evil exists in its rhetorical representation in the

sense that only the fact that it is spoken about, called and identified asevil makes it what

it is. Only the imperative thou shalt not kill turns the ending of a life into a crime and

likewise, as Paul recognised, only the prohibition of coveting brings it about assin (Rom

7, 7). This does not mean, of course, as the apostle himself unambiguously asserts, that


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the command itself is sinful, but it hints that the binary pair of good and evil

presupposes the context of ever-ambiguous morality, which only exists in and through

rhetorically shaped discourse.

The rhetoric of evil, then, can never be a mere arbiter, neutrally observing what is

happening; rather, it is inevitably drawn into the binary of good and evil, it isone or the

other, or, more often than not, one and the other in equal measure. Calling a crime a

noble deed is not merely factually wrong, it is itself evil; in fact, even failing to call a

crime a crime can, in many cases, be considered evil. At the same time, to the extent

that no contribution to an ongoing communication can be isolated from its context, key

to an assessment of the rhetoric of evil cannot simply be whether a given statement is, in

this sense, true or false. If, for example, the public exposure of a fraud leads to mob

violence with many indiscriminate victims, it would be simplistic to justify that exposure

on account of its factual truth.

If thus the detachment of the rhetoric of evil from real evil turns out to be at least

unstable, the same seems to be the case for the relationship between the second order

discourse on the rhetoric of evil and that rhetoric itself. No attempt to deal with, or

discourse about, the rhetoric of evil, is ever conducted from the safe spot of an observer.

Speaking or writingabout the rhetoric of evil, we inevitably participate in it. The very

reconstruction of a particular discourse as an instance of the rhetoric of evil is itself

morally tinged as it seeks to identify the presence of evil in one place or another. It thus

falls squarely within the ambiguities identified above and must be aware thatat best

it produces good and evil in equal measure.

These considerations could easily appear as a kind of hyper-scrupulous over-

problematising of an interpretative task. Yet extreme care is required because the

particular example of the rhetoric of evil that is to be the subject of this paper occurs in

a place that is intended to overcome the very logic on which it is based. It is a rhetoric of


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evil that should not exist and while it may have been unavoidable from the very

beginning it cannot but be deeply problematic wherever it occurs.

Why should it not exist? A full answer to this question cannot be given in the present

place as it would require a separate investigation. So much, however, seems clear: the

absolute promise the gospel makes, the enunciation of the coming of the Kingdom (Mk

1,14-5), the overcoming of evil oras it is called elsewhere in the NTthe

recapitulation () of all things in Christ (Eph 1,10) cannot be fulfilled

from within the binary logic of good and evil. The rhetoric of evil in its purest, most

perfect form is contained in Gods law, but even in this form it does not, as Paul never

tires to point out, lead to salvation (Rom 3, 21-21; 7, 4-6, Gal. 3, 19-22). Since the

rhetoric of evil cannot break out of the cycle of evil and violence, the reconciliation of

humankind with God needs to follow a logic transcending this dichotomy, the logic of

forgiveness and love. Dietrich Bonhoeffer has traced this problem back to its origin in

Genesis 3: it is as a consequence of their first disobedience that Adam and Eve know the

distinction of good and evil, and it is therefore the first task of Christian ethics [] to

invalidate this knowledge.1

If this is true, however, if the presence of a rhetoric of evil within Christianity is deeply

problematic, then this must have immediate and direct consequences for an exercise like

the present one as well. For in its own way it cannot but contribute in its turn to

precisely the same rhetoric within Christian theology. Whatever the results of the

analysis attempted here, the discussion itself will summon evil and thus inevitably be

part of the twilight of a morally ambiguous world. Where it does not spare the empirical

church with sharp criticism, it must be understood, at the same time, that the alternative

against which this empirical institution is ultimately measured is not a better institution

(though institutional improvement must always be sought), but the communio

sanctorum which in and through itself really isthe sign of Gods love in this world.

1 D. Bonhoeffer, Ethik, ed. I. Tdt et al., DBW 6, Mnchen 1998, 301.


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1. The theological rhetoric of evil and the problem of ecclesial

identity

The presence of the rhetoric of evil in the Church, then, is both evident and deeply

problematic. Christian theologians, from Paul to Karl Barth and from Augustine to

Martin Luther are known for their propensity to identify their theological and ecclesial

opponents with evil or even diabolical powers. At the same time, this very fact has

fuelled criticism and even rejection of the Church like few other of her shortcomings. It

has been a staple of liberal and post-Christian readings of Church History to point to

those examples of aggressive and sometimes violent rhetoric as evidence for the frequent

failure of the Church to live up to her mission.

No response can be given to those critics without theological reflection on the character

of those instances as well as their function and significance for the broader

communication within the Christian Church. Does the rhetoric of evil have a place in

the Church merely by accident? Can it be sufficiently explained as the momentary

failure of men (usually men!) to distinguish, in the heat of controversy, between the

clarity required by theological exposition in response to their opponents and the charity

demanded by the founder of Christianity even for ones enemies? Or does its relevance

go further? Does it extend to the heart of ecclesial identity? And if so, what would be an

appropriate ecclesiological response?

My paper will tackle these questions in two main steps. I shall start from an analysis of a

classical example for the ecclesial evocation of evil in the fourth century (1.1.) and

proceed with its theoretical interpretation drawing on insights developed by Ren

Girard (1.2.) and a consideration of the role of theology as part of this rhetoric (1.3.). In

the final section of the first part I shall formulate the resulting challenge for ecclesiology

(1.4.). The second part of the paper will be taken up with a consideration of two

important solutions that have been proposed to the problem, both of which I shall


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argue are ultimately unsatisfactory. In a final section (2.3.) I shall therefore seek to

outline a more promising theological response.

1 . 1 . A t h a n a s i u s , N i c a e a a n d t h e e x c l u s i o n o f A r i u sThe text I choose as my starting point is Athanasius Letter to Serapion Concerning theDeath of Arius.2 It may be objected that this is an extreme example on which to base

ones argument, but I hope to demonstrate that precisely by means of its rather drastic

content the letter provides helpful guidance to a fuller understanding of the rhetoric of

evil within the Christian Church.

In the letter, Athanasius purports to give an account of the end of the Alexandrianpresbyter who was famously condemned by the Council of Nicaea in 325. Whether or

not his account is historically accurate in its essentials is difficult to ascertain;3 evident,

however, is its careful rhetorical construction. Athanasius writes at the behest of his

friend and collaborator, Bishop Serapion. Serapions enquiry had been prompted by

local disagreements about Arius ecclesial standing at the time of his death: was he in

communion with the Church or not? Prima facie, Athanasius letter is intended to settle

this dispute (he was not), but at the same time the Alexandrian patriarch seeks to make a

further point: the timing as well as the details of Arius death are a powerful testimony

against the latters cause. Athanasius is fully aware that with this he enters dangerous

territory and mentions his initial hesitation to divulge details of the heresiarchs death

lest any one should suppose that I was exulting in the death of that man.4 In spite of his

protestation, however, he is far from coy about his conviction that publicising the

particularly wonderful circumstances of Arius death will discourage those not yet fully

in support of the Nicene cause:

2 Greek text in: Athanasius WerkeII, ed. H.-G. Opitz, Berlin 1940, 178-80. ET in: NPNF II/4, 564-6. Cf. B.Stefaniw, Epistula ad Serapionem de morte Arii in: P. Gemeinhardt (ed.), Athanasius Handbuch, Tbingen 2011,208-10.

3 Hanson is sceptical (The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God. The Arian Controversy, 318-381 , London 1988,265 with a summary of various scholarly opinions in n. 116) whereas Williams (Arius. Heresy and Tradition,London 22001, 81) is willing to concede that his death was embarrasingly sudden. The episode is mentionedelsewhere by Athanasius: Epistula ad episcopos Aegypti et Libyae19,1-3. More embellished versions are offered bythe later Church historians Socrates (historica ecclesiasticaI 38) and Rufinus (historica ecclesiasticaI 13-4).

4 Athanasius, de morte Arii1,2,4-5. ET: NPNF, 565.


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For I conceive that when the wonderful circumstances connected with his deathbecome known, even those who before questioned it will no longer venture todoubt that the Arian heresy is hateful in the sight of God.5

So what are those circumstances? Attempts to rehabilitate Arius began almost

immediately after the Nicene synod, but they did not immediately succeed.6 This was

largely due to the consistent resistance of Alexandrias bishops, first Alexander, then

Athanasius though other factors played a role as well.7 In 336, however, Arius appeared

before a synod in Jerusalem, willing to embrace the Nicene formula, and was duly

readmitted by the attending bishops and the emperor. Athanasius himself had been

deposed and exiled the previous year and was therefore not part of the proceedings. In

his letter to Serapion he relates how Alexander, Bishop of Constantinople, was ordered

to receive Arius into the Church at Constantinople in spite of his own, strong suspicion

that Arius had signed the Nicene formula in bad faith. In this critical situation

Athanasius presents Alexander as offering the following supplication to God:

If Arius is brought to communion tomorrow, let me Thy servant depart, anddestroy not the pious with the impious; but if Thou wilt spare Thy Church (and I

know that Thou wilt spare), look upon the words of Eusebius and his fellows, andgive not thine inheritance to destruction and reproach, and take off Arius, lest if heenter into the Church, the heresy also may seem to enter with him, andhenceforward impiety be accounted for piety.8

Subsequent to this prayer, a wonderful and extraordinary circumstance took place: 9

Arius dies before the next morning and thus before his formal readmission into the

Church. Not only does he die timely, he dies under the most dishonourable

circumstances possible in a public toilet to which he had withdrawn urged by the

necessities of nature.10

Several features in this account are noteworthy here.

5 Athanasius, de morte Arii1,3. ET: NPNF, 565.6 T.G. Elliott, Constantine and the Arian Reaction after Nicaea, in:JEH43 (1992), 169-94; Hanson, op. cit., 172-

8; Williams, op. cit., 67-81.7 For Athanasius general activity during this period cf. T. Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius. Theology and Politics

in the Roman Empire, Cambridge, Mass. 1993, 19-33. Constantines role is ambiguous to say the least; seeWilliams, op. cit., 76-8.

8 Athanasius, de morte Arii3,2. ET: NPNF, 565.9 Athanasius, de morte Arii3,3,2. ET: NPNF, 565.10 Athanasius, de morte Arii3,3,4. ET: NPNF, 565.


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1. Arius disgraceful death symbolises the connection between his false teachingand his personal depravity. He is not merely a man who has been theologically

or doctrinally in error, he is an evil and wicked person whose death is thus in

keeping with his life.

2. This is made especially clear by Athanasius explicit reference to Acts 1,18:Arius, urged by the necessities of nature withdrew, and suddenly, in the

language of Scripture, falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst, and

immediately expired as he lay Arius is the new Judas; as the disciple betrayed

Jesus to his enemies, so the Alexandrian presbyter has betrayed Christ by

denying him his full divinity.

3. Athanasius leaves no doubt that it was God himself who miraculously workedArius death. Both its coincidence with the emperors attempt to readmit the

heretic, which it pre-empts, and more specifically its correspondence with

Alexanders prayer are cited as evidence for the divinely ordained character of

the event. Athanasius places special emphasis on the latter coincidence by

pointing out that the presbyter Macarius, whom he had named at the outset of

the letter as his witness for the entire episode, was present in the church with the

praying bishop.11

4. The central phrase in Alexanders prayer, and ultimately the climax of theepistle, is this: take off Arius, lest if he enter into the Church, the heresy also

may seem to enter with him. Here the need to get rid of Arius is justified by

keeping heresy outside the Church. The death of the heresiarch appears as the

only means of avoiding the pollution of the Communion of Saints with the evil of

false doctrine. The perceived concern about doctrinal deviancy is thus projected

onto an individual who, as such, has to be cast out to guarantee the

11 Athanasius, de morte Arii2,1,1.


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perseverance of the Church. The readmission of Arius is equated in Alexanders

prayer, with giving thine inheritance to destruction.12

5. Any analysis of this text would be incomplete without noting the connectionbetween Athanasius concern about Arius last hours and his insistence on the

unique significance of the Council of Nicaea and its Creed. The letter to

Serapion was written in 358 and thus forms part of the campaign Athanasius

conducted for this cause during the latter half of the 350s. One of his major

literary strategies was the identification of the theological need to affirm the

Nicene Creed with the ecclesiastical need to exclude Arius and his closest

companions from the communion of the Church. He had no compunction to

explain the specific wording of the Creed with the necessity to find a formulation

those people were unable or unwilling to sign.13 Those who, in the 350s, cite

theological difficulties with the strange language employed in the Creed are

told bluntly to recall its political purpose: Therefore if they [] make an excuse

that the terms are strange, let them consider the sense in which the Council so

wrote, and anathematize what the Council anathematized.14 Much as Arius

timely death, then, proves how God miraculously saved the Church by

preventing its pollution with evil, the Council itself and its Creed established the

unity of the Church by excluding, through anathemas, those who denied its

fundamental truth.

This last point is particularly interesting in light of the fact that the Nicene Creed is one

of those credal texts that combines an affirmation of truths to be believed by the Church

with anathemas of heretical teachings. Not all credal texts are constructed in this way;

the liturgical version known as the Nicene Creed todayand I refrain here from

12 Athanasius, de morte Arii3,2,4. ET: NPNF, 565.13 Athanasius, de decretis Nicaenae synodi 19-20.14 Athanasius, de decretis Nicaenae synodi21,1,1-3; ET: NPNF, 164.


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discussing the intricate problem of its relationship to the synod of 32515merely

enumerates credenda. It is thus easy to forget that the Creed Athanasius was so much

committed to was different in this regard:

But those who say, there was a once when he did not exist, and before beingbegotten he did not exist, and that he came into existence from non-existence, orwho allege that the Son of God is of another hupostasisor ousia, or is alterable orchangeable, these the Catholic and Apostolic Church condemns.16

The precise historical circumstances, as well as the interpretation of the Nicene Council

and its credal formula, must be left to one side here.17 Important is that the creed

defines orthodoxy by listing beliefs to be affirmed alongside rules of exclusion.

Interestingly, however, these two parts are not symmetrical: whereas the credendaare

given as doctrines, the anathemas refer to people (those who say [] the Church

anathematizes). These people, it is true, are marked out by their teaching (clearly,

Arius is in view), and yet it is difficult to believe that the change in rhetorical

construction is coincidence. The creed does not exhort Christians to accept certain

beliefs and to reject others, but to do the former and to reject (that is, to place under a

curse18) individuals who hold alternative views.

It is this decision that seems to resonate in Athanasius gleeful depiction of the death of

the heretic, which is only the beginning of a long chain of dismissive, hate-inspired

references to the Alexandrian presbyter who symbolically stands for whatever the

Church of a particular time felt in need to exclude. Its story has, partly, been written by

Maurice Wiles,19

but it is also instructive to consult the examples given by Rowan

Williams in the first chapter of his book on Arius, aptly titled images of a heresy.20 Even

in the 19th century, figures as different as John Henry Newman and Adolf von Harnack

15 Hanson, op. cit., 812-820 with further references.16 Hanson, op. cit., 163 (with amendments). Hanson follows the reconstructed Greek text in: G.L. Dossetti, Il simbolo

di Nicea et di Constantinopoli: Editione critica, Rome 1976, 226-41 (reprinted in: Hanson, op. cit., 876).17 An informed summary in Hanson, op. cit., 152-172; the scholarly controversy is revisited in J. Ulrich, Die Anfnge

der abendlndischen Rezeption des Niznums, Berlin/New York 1994, 6-25. The best discussion of key terms inthe creed is still G.C. Stead, Divine Substance, Oxford 1977, 223-266.

18 The anathemadenotes an item or a person that is singled out and offered to Deity. This could originally beperfectly neutral and only later became narrowed down to the meaning offered to be destroyed by God (cf. J.Behm, art. in: ThWNT I, 355-7.).

19 M. Wiles, Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries, Oxford 1996.20 Williams, op. cit., 1-25.


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considered it natural to see in the Alexandrian presbyter the type of what they found

most dangerous for the Church in their own time. While Newman perceived Arius as

the judaizing forerunner of historical critical exegesis and of the repudiation of mystery

and tradition, which for him have their ultimate cause in the carnal self-indulgent

religion practiced by the rejected nation in late antiquity,21 Harnack sees him,

ironically, as the arch-representative of Christianitys Hellenization during the first

centuries of its history.22

Williams observes that

[] the combination of Nicaeas liturgical and theological importance with thelong history of what I have called the demonizing of Arius is extraordinarilypowerful. Anyone setting out to reconstruct the life and opinions of Arius has toreckon with thisand also to be aware of the temptation to correct the balance ina simplistic way by making Arius a theological hero.23

This is an important reminder. Arius was certainly not the diabolical figure Athanasius

and the later Church made of him, but this does not make him a saint or a hero. In fact,

the targeting of Athanasius by his Arian opponentswhatever his personal actions had

contributed to its justificationfollowed precisely the same pattern of stigmatisation

and exclusion. For many decades of the fourth century, a large majority of Eastern

bishops pursued a strategy of achieving ecclesial unity by means of the exclusion of

Athanasius. Had they prevailed, the subsequent history of the Church would have been

very different in some ways, but this alternative Church surely would not have steered

clear of the rhetoric of evil any more than the emerging Catholic Church of real history

did.

If, however, the rhetoric of evil is pervasive regardless of the doctrinal position affirmed

and if, further, the enduring relevance of the individual cast out and cursed permits

(perhaps even demands) him to become the symbolic representation of a wide variety of

real or perceived deviations of the Church from her original mission, this would seem to

21 J.H. Newman, The Arians of the Fourth Century, London 31871=1908, 20.22 A. Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, vol. 2, Freiburg21888, 216-221.23 Williams, op. cit., 2.


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suggest that the significance of 4th century Nicenism consists not only in the production

of a positive credal affirmation, but also and at the same time in the construction of an

Other, a negative and sinister figure symbolically put under the divine curse so that

future ills of the Church could be projected onto him and thus perennially be excluded

from the body of the faithful. This symbolic importance is indicated when, during the 4th

century and right into modernity, Arius fate is aligned with that of Judas Iscariot and

his heresy, with Judaism, the latter undoubtedly being the most fundamental Other

whose exclusion and radical condemnation became the paradigm as well as the most

notorious example of Christian search for identity by means of exclusion.

1 . 2 . E c c l e s i a l id e n t i t y f o r m a t i o n i n G i r a r d i a n p e r s p e c t i v e : m i m e t i cc r i s e s a n d t h e r h e t o r i c o f th e s c a p e g o a tThe analysis of Athanasius anti-Arian rhetoric of evil, then, suggests that it had a

precise function in supporting, by means of exclusion, the ecclesial process of identity

formation during this period. In advancing this process, the rejection of ideas was

equated with, and bolstered by, the rejection of people, and the rhetorical construction

of the latter as heretics drew rather shamelessly on a fairly conventional reservoir of

forms of ethical and religious depravity. It is true that much (though by no means all) of

this was largely restricted to the literary sphere; even Athanasius for all his violent

rhetoric offers little more than posthumous character assassination, and it is well-

documented that many antiheretical treatises were composed against schools or groups

that had not in fact existed for centuries. Yet while it is legitimate to point to

discontinuities between the rhetoric of evil and physical violence, it would be difficult to

deny that theological definitions of orthodoxy are closely bound up with an ecclesial

interest in establishing institutional, collective identity, and that the latter is achieved at

least partly with the help of a potentially violent rhetoric of exclusion. How can this be

explained?


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I should propose that insights developed by Ren Girard are helpful here, though I

shall also argue that they are not in themselves sufficient for a full explanation.24 In his

book The Scapegoat, Girard offers an analysis of the mechanisms of violent exclusion

that hold societies together. He starts from a close reading of what he calls persecution

texts. These texts are written in such a way that the modern reader intuitively adopts a

hermeneutic of suspicion quite contrary to the conventional principles of historical or

literary criticism.25 No one ponders for a moment, for example, about the potential

historical truth of a medieval text ascribing an outbreak of the bubonic plague as the

consequence of a Jewish conspiracy to poison the communitys drinking water. Rather,

we immediately recognise this as an attempt to blame an innocent minority for a

fundamental threat to the affected community. For Girard, this observation raises three

questions: first, what is the kind of problem that prompts such a reaction? Second, why

would it appear that blaming a scapegoat could alleviate it? Third, why have we become

so suspicious about persecution texts? In effect, his responses to all three questions are

closely related.

From his analysis of persecution texts Girard concludes that the underlying crisis that

brings them about is social in character.26 More specifically, it is the threat of what

Durkheim had called anomy,27 societys falling apart, the eradication of social

distinction, of the very fabric that binds different people together. Yet Girard goes

beyond earlier theorists of social disintegration by identifying as its cause the very

mechanism that, according to him, is at the root of all social interaction. This root cause

24 Girards theory of mimetic desire and human agency has originally been developed in connection with literaryanalysis: Mensonge romantique et vrit romanesque, Paris 1961). For my argument here his more famous theoryof culture, religion, and sacrifice is less important (actually I believe it to be in important ways faulty) than his earlywork in combination with the penetrating analyses in his Le bouc missaire, Paris 1982. For details of this theory cf.:P. Livingston, Models of Desire. Ren Girard and the psychology of mimesis, Baltimore/London 1992; M.Deguy/J.-P. Dupuy (eds.), Ren Girard et le problme du mal, Paris 1982.

25 Girard, Le bouc missaire, op. cit., 10. Cf. also: Girard, Des choses caches depuis la fondation du monde, Paris1978, 172-4.

26Le bouc missaire, op. cit., 22.27 Cf. e.g. E. Durkheim, De la division du travail social, Paris 72007, 360-1.


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is, in Girards own phrase, mimetic desire.28 Since all human agency is caused by desire,

the fact that all desire is mimetic of somebody elses desire means that human agency is

fundamentally social in character. Yet the relationship between the desiring person and

the person whose desire is imitated (in Girards own phrase, the mediator of desire29) is

specifically and deeply ambiguous. On the one hand, there is admiration and the will to

be like the other person. It is this will that leads to mimetic desire in the first instance.

Yet insofar as the desired good is already in possession of the mediator, mimetic desire is

also the cause of competition, of envy, and ultimately of hatred. To obtain the desired

good the agent has to wrench it from the person who currently possesses it, and often

enough this practically means that the latter person has to be done away with. While

mimetic desire is therefore the ultimate explanation for the co-existence of human

beings in society, it is also, concurrently, the explanation of its lack of stability, its

vulnerability and ultimately its exposure to disintegration and even extinction. Those

social crises, therefore, are mimetic crises; they spiral out of control because the

negative imitation of threats, hostility, abuse and violence that marks their evolution

paradoxically both antagonises individuals and makes them indistinguishable.30 In this

sense, Girards mimetic crisis evokes Hobbes idea of the natural (!) state of bellum

omnium contra omnes;31 its spectre, Girard argues, is so terrifying precisely because it

eradicates all social distinction and differentiation and thus makes mimetic desire truly

unbearable.

In this situation of inexplicable yet darkly menacing mimetic crisis, there inevitably arises

an urge to find onecause for all the ills besetting society. The vague feeling of unease

and threat is thus transformed into the clear sense that it is all this or that persons (or

28 Cf. for the following: J. Zachhuber, Die patristische Ethik der und die Mimesislehre Ren Girards.Perspektiven der Aneignung einer theologisch-philosophischen Tradition, in: H.C. Brennecke/J. van Oort (eds.),Ethik im antiken Christentum, Leuven 2011, 77-113.

29 Girard, Mensonge romantique, op. cit., 16.30 Girard, Le bouc missaire, op. cit., 23.31 Th. Hobbes, de civeI 12.


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that groups) fault.32 This focus on a social scapegoat for the problems felt in the

mimetic crisis ultimately becomes universally shared; it has the corollary that only the

removal of that person (or group) can alleviate the current crisis. This then happens

(often though not always by means of murder) with the result that the crisis really is

overcome. The reason for this seeming success is not, of course, that the scapegoat was

the cause of the crisis, but that in the resolve and the subsequent act of casting out the

evil one from within their midst, the previously conflicting individual wills suddenly form

a unity, and it is this miraculous emergence of a unified will that is experienced as the

end of the mimetic crisis and the birth of a new sense of togetherness.33 The

scapegoating act thus has a seeming logic to it that is no less powerful because it is

deeply flawed. For this reason the event is subsequently remembered and re-enacted in

the hope of giving permanence to the fleeting moment of social unity.

Mimetic desire, then, explains the outbreak and the nature of social crises as well as the

success of the scapegoat mechanism in reversing their impact. Before addressing

Girards third questionwhy have we become hesitant to believe in persecution

texts?it may be worthwhile to consider how Girards theory can help us understand

what was going on in Athanasius account of Arius death. It seems to me that on a

number of counts this is rather obviously the case:

1. The fourth century for Christianity clearly was a time of mimetic crisis inGirards sense. All the elements are there: conflictive mimesis spiralling out of

control; mob violence; the loss of group identity and of social distinction

(Athanasius own chequered career is a prime example for the latter).

2. Athanasius attempt to impugn Arius combines in a way typical for persecutiontexts the quasi-mythical belief that a single individual or a small group of them

could bear the responsibility for an all-embracing social upheaval with the

32 Girard, Le bouc missaire, op. cit., 25-6.33 There is a clear resonance here with J.J. Rousseaus famous theory of the volont general: Du contrat social, Paris

1964, 183-4. Interestingly, in the same work Rousseau cites with approval the words of the Marquis dArgensonthat laccord de deux interts particuliers se forme par opposition celui dun tiers (op. cit., 193, note).


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quasi-scientific explanation that the poison of his theological errors are at the

root of the ills besetting the contemporary Church.

3. Athanasius draws a direct connection between the removal of the scapegoat,Arius, and the overcoming of internal division and strife in the Church. The

violent nature of the heretics death is emphasised even though this violence is

ascribed not to human agents, as in other persecution texts, but to direct divine

intervention.

In view of its ultimate success, Athanasius strategy would appear to have been well

devised. Arius exclusion from the Church came to symbolise her purification of

everything dangerous or harmful, her perseverance in the face of adversity and internal

opposition. The anti-Arian Creed of the Synod of Nicaea became the main text

associated with this achievement of the restored unity of Christendom. Yet the price is

high inclusion requires exclusion; peace requires warfare; love requires hatred.

This, in fact, is the first response to my initial question: Athanasius anti-Arian rhetoric

of evil is not just excessive; it is not a case of going over the top at a moment of heated

controversy. Rather, it is integral for his purpose, which was ultimately the purpose of

the Church herself. Athanasius pro-Nicene and his anti-Arian polemic coincide, and it

is this coincidence that made it so powerful; Niceaea is the foundation of ecclesial unity

precisely because it defines it through the exclusion of Arius.

This connection is illustrated by various iconic depictions of the Council of Nicaea, of

which I here give merely one famous example:


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Figure 1: Icon from the Mgalo Metoron Monastery in Greece. Theradiant realm of the Church is contrasted with the darkness around thecondemned Arius.

The Church as the place of light, unity, and concord is only made possible by its

contrast with the realm of darkness inhabited by the evil yet subdued Arius whose

menacing potential must be remembered if unity is to be preserved. The rhetoric of

evil is thus not limited to the moment of struggle; Arius wickedness has to be recalled

and kept in memory along with the saintliness of the Fathers if the evil of division and

dissent is to be kept outside the Church permanently.

1 . 3 . T h e r o l e o f t h e o l o g yComparing Athanasius rhetoric of evil and Girards theory of scapegoats reveals a

further insight albeit by partial contrast. What are the crimes of which scapegoats are

accused? Girard observes that they are always directed at objects against whose

violation society has stacked up the most severe sanctions: figures of authority, sexual

taboos and sacred items.34 There is no doubt that the antiheretical polemic of Christian

authors provides ample evidence for all three categories, yet if the case of Arius is

34 Girard, Le bouc missaire, op. cit., 25.


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especially typical, it provides evidence for a strategy which in crucial ways is a

modification of this normal practice. Clearly, the crime of which Arius is accused is

fundamentally his theology; it is his refusal to accept that the pre-existent Christ, the

Logos, is of the same being(homoousios) with the Father. As we have seen, Athanasius

argument ultimately depends on his claim that Arius doctrinal aberration is the cause of

the Churchs misery. If Girards theory is at all taken seriously, the question cannot be

avoided at this point what the role and the status of theological argument was (and is)

within the Christian practice of identity formation through scapegoating.

To begin with, however, it has to be admitted that Arius crime is frequently presented

in less theological terms, and in those contexts similarities with the categories Girard

identifies in persecution texts are more apparent. To the extent that Arius is seen in

parallel with Judas (and ultimately with the Jews), he isexplicitly or implicitly

accused of betraying Jesus himself. In this sense, his crime would indeed be directed

against the one object of worship whose violation would seem most horrendous to every

Christian.

Ultimately, however, even Athanasius knew that neither Arius nor any of the real or

supposed Arians of the fourth century could be accused of a straightforward rejection

or denial of Jesus. After all, they were in many ways normal or even exemplary members

of the Christian community, whom they had faithfully served as presbyters or bishops

for many years or even decades. To justify the charge of their opposition to Christ,

therefore, a more subtle argument was needed. As is well known, this argument

consisted in the implication that their denial of a particular theological formula,

precisely the one authored by the synod of 325, was tantamount to a rejection of the

very person of the saviour.

The utterly revolutionary nature of fourth-century Nicenism can be variously described,

but the specific way in which the emergent pro-Nicene orthodoxy combined the

exclusion of a scapegoat with the affirmation of a theologicalconfession would appear


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central by any measure. Much of the resistance to Athanasius pro-Nicene rhetoric can

be reconstructed as an unwillingness to accept his assertion that confessing Christ was

tantamount to rejecting Arians and that the latter was tantamount to accepting the

homoousion. Trinitarian theology, it would appear, was an open-ended discourse which

allowed for, even required, differentiated and nuanced articulation. It seemed intuitively

implausible that this discourse should be curtailed in the way Athanasius was

insinuating, by associating any position deviating from his own as automatically tainted

by association with Arius denial of Christ. Yet Athanasius prevailed, and with him the

notion of theology as a discourse that is owned not by the individual Christian thinker

but by the Church as a whole. If there is something unique about Christian theology, it

is surely this close integration of a rational reflection on religious faith with the definition

of communal identity. Its consequence for the history of Christianity is far-reaching, but

cannot be explored here: a rational, quasi-philosophical discourse takes on a uniquely

central role for a religions self-understanding; it therefore receives unprecedented

institutional cultivation and support, but at the same time, and for the same reason, is

guarded and policed with particular care and suspicion.

What does it mean more specifically for the anti-Arian rhetoric of exclusion that

theology is expected to provide for its rationale? It seems to me an ambiguous move. On

the one hand, the rational nature of the narrative would seem to enhance the

plausibility of the claim. The fallaciousness of the rejected viewpoint can be argued for

and is not merely asserted as in quasi-mythical persecution texts. It is for this reason that

the triumph of Nicene theology can be described as the victory of good theology over

bad theology, as a growth in theological insight and the collective removal of doctrinal

ambiguity.

However, at the same time and by the same token the choice of theology as the

battlefield for ecclesiastical definitions of identity carries its own risks. The power of any

scapegoating rhetoric appears to lie in its irrefutability. Unless one suspects persecution


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texts as fabrications, their narrative permits only the one conclusion that the scapegoat

is guilty of the crimes he is accused of. One cannot deviate from this insight while at the

same time remaining faithful to the logic of the narrative. Only by stepping outside it

that is, in effect, by straying beyond the boundaries of communal identitycan one

question its accuracy. Not so with a theological argument. To the extent that it owes its

plausibility to its rational force, a counter-claim can never be excluded. Thus far, the

theological underpinning of the rhetoric of exclusion decreases the stability of its effects.

The very logic that is intended to solidify institutional boundaries has the potential to

subvert them.

1 . 4 . T h e e c c l e s i a s t i c a l p a r a d o xIdeally the two elementsrhetorical exclusion of the heretic and the theological

rejection of his viewsmutually confirm and support each other: those questioning the

theological definition are reminded that any such move would threaten their status

within the ecclesiastical community (cf. Athanasius explicit hint that those who doubt

the Nicene formula will be considered fellows of the condemned Arius) while

theological argument rationalises the exclusion of the scapegoat. Yet in reality, or at

least in Christian reality, they do not or, at least, not consistently.

It is necessary at this point to come back to Girard one more time. His third question

still needs answering: why have we become so suspicious about persecution texts? In

many ways, he argues, it would be natural to believe them, not because they are

obviously truethey are notbut because of an instinctive sense that doubting them

undermines the foundation of our communal identity structure, of the bonds holding

our societies together. It is for this reason that this has perhaps been the best kept secret

in human history: Girard applies to it Mt. 13,35 (things hidden since the foundation of

the world35) to indicate at the same time, however, that precisely in and through the

coming of the Christ this secret has been revealed. Prepared in central texts of the Old

35 The title of one of his books: Les chose caches, op. cit.


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Testament, the uncovering of the scapegoat myth comes to full effect in the New

Testament and especially in the passion narrative. This, for Girard, is the revelation the

Bible contains; it is extremely powerful because it uncovers the violent mechanism

underlying all culture and prevents it thus from continuing fully to function.36

Yet if this is true, then the attempt to define Christian identity by means of this very

mechanism entails a contradiction in terms. It means using a logic, which under the

influence of the biblical revelation really cannot work properly any longer, in order to

sustain precisely the identity of the religious community that traces its historical origin

back to this revelation and confesses to owe its very existence to it. Moreover, this

contradiction is not merely one between ideal and reality. This, I think, is what many of

the Churchs critics have failed to notice. It is in her actual, historical being that the

Christian Church is subjected to a fundamental tension between the real need to draw

on the scapegoat mechanism to stabilise her institutional identity and the equally real

impossibility to do so within the parameters set for the Churchs work by the message of

the gospel. The latter makes us increasingly less likely to give credence to persecution

texts and thus the primary impulse driving the formation of the Church contributes,

ipso facto, to a weakening of ecclesiastical structures.

Given the close involvement of theology into both these tendenciesas a dogmatic and

a critical discourse, it is further likely that Christian theology itself participates in this

same contradiction. It would be the task of a separate paper to explore this more fully,

but it seems not implausible to stipulate that theology both needs the institutional

boundaries of the Church to function and constantly subverts and undermines those

very boundaries and that this tension is not unrelated to the ambiguous role, noted

above, theology plays in Christian identity formation through the antiheretical rhetoric

of evil.

36 Girard, Le bouc missaire, op. cit., ch. 9.


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2. Ecclesiological consequences

The Christian, antiheretical rhetoric of evil then is deeply tensional. It follows the

pattern of social formation through the exclusion of scapegoats, but undermines it at the

same time. On the one hand, the trajectory emphasised by Girard himself as originating

from biblical Scripture and extending into our own time contravenes the efficaciousness

of any scapegoating rhetoric as it systematically directs our gaze to victims and to

victimary mechanisms. On the other hand, the very decision to adopt an inherently

rational discourse, theology, as the means of justifying the culpability of the scapegoat

crucially modifies the mythical structure of persecution texts and destabilises their

social effects.

This tension inevitably has consequences for ecclesiology. As much as it seems

contradictory that the religion of universal love should depend for its institutional

formation on exclusion, so also the recognition of scapegoating right at the heart of the

Churchs struggle for unity is at odds with the Bibles role in unmasking all such human

practice. Insofar as the Church, not only in her teaching but in her practice, ought to

continue the work of Christ on earth, these observations touch ecclesiology at its heart.

The Church is fallible not only in its day-to-day operations, but depends for its very

institutional functioning crucially on means and mechanisms that are in principle and

fundamentally opposed to the message of the gospel. Yet this is not all. At the same time

it must be recognised that due to this same tension those means and mechanisms can

never be applied in the Church without provoking protest and opposition or at the leasta deep-seated awareness that there is a difference between the Kingdom that Jesus

proclaimed and the Church that arrived.

While the ecclesiological challenge may be uncontroversial, the response to it certainly

is not. In the remainder of this paper, I shall discuss two influential attempts to deal with

it but argue that both fail to rise to the challenge. Consequently, I shall conclude by

sketching an alternative answer.


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2 . 1 . T h e s u p e r s e s s io n i s t a n s w e r : f ro m t h e C h u r c h t o t h e K i n g d o mThe first of those is the attempt to resolve the tension by proposing a model of historical

supersession in which the earthly, institutionalised Church is transformed into a more

perfect realisation of the community of saints. These attempts are often traced back

rightly or wrongly37to Joachim of Flores in the 12th century who suggested that the

age of the Church was to be followed by a third age, the age of the spirit,38 but they

come to real prominence only since the 19th century. I leave to one side here the post-

Hegelian proposal envisaging the supersession of the Church by the modern nation

state39 to focus on Gianni Vattimos interpretation of secularisation as a positive heritage

of Christianitys abolition of transcendence.40

Vattimos theory, which he has developed with an explicit nod to Girard, starts from the

assumption that the intellectual trajectory from Nietzsche via Heidegger to

postmodernism is indicative of a weakening of thought (il pensiero debole). This

weakening, which philosophically shows itself in the demise of metaphysics, is ultimately

an expression of a Heideggerian Seinsgeschichteand as such expresses a real historical

development: strong notions associated with ontotheology, the rootedness of being in

one omnipotent, eternal being, lose their plausibility, and this loss is accompanied by the

dissolution of traditional structures of authority and of moral and political absolutes in

the social and cultural sphere.

Vattimo makes two further claims: first, that this very development while it leads to a

demise in organised religion (secularisation) is in reality the unfolding of the most

genuinely Christian impulse provided by the Incarnation (namely, denial or

transformation of the concept of transcendence); secondly, that it corresponds to

37 Cf. now: D. Newheiser, Conceiving transformation without triumphalism. Joachim of Fiore against GianniVattimo, in: Heythrop Journal52 (2011), 1-13.

38 Cf. Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future, Stroud 1999.39 R. Rothe, Theologische Ethik, vol. 2, Wittenberg 1845, p. 145 [ 453].40 G. Vattimo, Credere di credere, Milan 21996. Cf. B. Schroeder/S. Benso (eds.), Between Nihilism and Politics.

The Hermeneutics of Gianni Vattimo, Albany 2010.


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Girards narrative according to which Christian revelation unveils and thus undermines

the functioning of the scapegoating mechanism:

Ci a cui la riflessione su Girard [] mi ha aperto la via , in breve, una

concezione della secolarizzazione caratteristica della storia dellOccidentemoderno come fatto interno al cristianesimo, legato positivamente al senso delmessaggio di Ges; e una concezione della storia della modernit comeindebolimento e dissoluzione dell essere (della metafisica).41

In sum, then, the unravelling of traditional, dogmatic and institutionalised Christianity

in modern secularisation only allows the gospel message finally to come into its own

because the potential of the latter to weaken being and thus reduce the potential of

violence has been prevented from taking full effect by the adoption of metaphysics,

sacrificial logic (and I should add the laws of institutional self-preservation42) in

traditional Christianity.

Vattimos reflections have to be taken extremely seriously in the present context. For in

two ways, his intuition seems to offer independent confirmation of the results reached in

the present analysis. From an observers perspective, he may well be right in seeing the

specifically Western development from Catholic Christianity via rationalism to a post-

modern secularity as an outgrowth of the specific combination of rational theology and

the use of the scapegoat mechanism that has been argued is typical for traditional

Christian identity formation. In other words, the historical trajectory Vattimo proposes

would by no means appear unreasonable in the light of the unresolved tension at the

heart of ecclesiology.

It is less clear, however, why this development should usher in the promised Kingdom

now any more than has happened in the past? In his belief that historical progress

inevitably brings us closer to the realisation of the gospel message, Vattimo ironically is

not less nave than any apologist of the ecclesial system. While he is right in discerning

41 G. Vattimo, op. cit., 32-3.42 Vattimo makes relatively little of this, but it is evidently implied in his theological interpretation of secularisation.


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genuinely Christian motives in European secularisation, the alignment he constructs

between this process and the gospel message appears far from obvious.

In fact, there is little indication at the present moment that postmodernism might be at

the cusp of abolishing identity politics. If anything, the disappearance of traditional

markers of social, cultural, ethnic and religious identities in contemporary, postmodern

societies would seem to increase the demand for clearly formulated patterns and

answers that help clarify the burning question who am I? Responses to this question

that are on offer on the market of current identity formation make full use of both

inclusion and exclusion, and the increasingly aggressive tone dominating the internal

discourse of many major Christian denominations would certainly seem to indicate that

the latter of these is, if anything, on the rise. To blame fundamentalism for this

tendency would be facile; in fact the career of this term is in itself a powerful example of

contemporary rhetoric of exclusion practised by those who, in their own view, intend to

be perfectly inclusive.

So what is wrong with Vattimos theory? I think he underestimates the seriousness of

the ecclesiastical paradox: it is not merely the case that the unChristian character of

traditional ecclesial institutions is either a voluntary betrayal of Christas envisaged in

Dostoevskys Grand Inquisitoror an unconscious leftover from pre-Christian

philosophical or cultural systems; rather, ecclesial identity formation through the

exclusion of scapegoats happened because it follows a deeply enshrined tendency of

human societies. Recognising its incompatibility with the gospel is not sufficient for its

abolition; in fact, such a project may have the opposite effect as it can become

productive of its own scapegoating ideology, unchecked by institutional restraints.

2 . 2 . T h e r e a l i s t a l t e r n a t i v e : R e a f f i r m i n g C h r i s t i a n i d e n t i t y


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The most obvious alternative then is to accept the rhetoric of evil as a necessary part of

ecclesial identity formation unlikely to be abolished by any well-meaning reform. It

would then seem appropriate to bracket this aspect altogether and consider the

condemnation of heretics as inevitably implied by the Churchs confession of doctrinal

truth. The argument would be that the one question that matters is whether this truth

has been rightly ascertained by the Church at a given point in her history, and the

anathema would merely be the demarcation of the beyond that can under no

circumstances be reconciled with, or included under, the positive beliefs held by the

Church.

This is the position Karl Barth expounds and defends with vigour and rhetorical

brilliancy in 20 of his Church Dogmatics.43 He concedes the pain inevitably felt at the

thought of excluding anyone from the community of the Church; he expresses

sympathy with those liberals who therefore thought she could and should do without

the anathema, but he does not budge an inch. His fundamental argument is simple

enough: the Church cannot say Yes without saying No and if she thinks she can, this is

merely a sign that she is not completely sure about the Yes either:

Es kann nur gut sein, wenn man sich diese Sache berall da, wo man meint, zumBekenntnis schreiten zu sollen und zu knnen, sehr unerbittlich zum Prfsteinnimmt: Getraut man sich nicht (oder getraut man sich doch nicht ausdrcklich)damnamus zu sagen, dann mge man das credimus, confitemur, docemus furserste nur fein unterlassen und fernerhin Theologie studieren, wie man es zuvorgetan hatte. Die Sache ist dann gewiss nicht bekenntnisreif! Die Angst vor demdamnamusist dann nmlich das sichere Zeichen: man ist dessen gar nicht sicher,dass die zu bekennende Lehre wirklich schriftgem und Ausdruck der kirchlichen

Einheit ist [].44

The anathema, Barth urges, does not exclude anyone; it does not contradict the idea of

ecclesial unity and comprehensiveness. It merely designates the position, and the

individual who stands for it, as what in practice violates the Churchs unity; it points out

that, in holding the rejected position that individual can no longer claim to represent

with his teaching the doctrine of the Church. It furthermore always implies an invitation

43 K. Barth, Die kirchliche DogmatikI/2, Zrich 51960, 705-6.44 Barth, op. cit., 705.


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to the heretic to rejoin the community and become part of its unity, on the condition of

accepting its now valid definition.

Barths argument raises an issue that has not so far been discussed even though it

applies to fourth-century debates as much as to anything that happened in the twentieth

century. Does it matter which position a credal confession affirms and which it rejects?

And if so, how do we know whether the decision affirmed by a particular synod was the

right one? Girards logic of identity formation through the exclusion of scapegoats is

blind for such a distinction, which is not to say that it is incompatible with it. It does,

arguably, nurture the suspicion that it matters little either way. This temptation can

easily be reinforced by the sceptical historian who notes the elements of chance and

coincidence involved in any doctrinal or credal settlement. It goes, perhaps, without

saying that for the theologian such a conclusion must ultimately be untenable, but

accepting such a premise does not solve the latter of the two questions: what is it that

makes one particular view evidently and unequivocally more appropriate than its

alternative or its alternatives? How can a specific doctrinal formula be judged a

confession of Christian truth and its acceptance, the condition of participation in the

ecclesiastical community?

It would be difficult to answer this question by reference to the quality of theological

argument, agreement with Scripture or tradition or a consensus of believers even

though an element of all three of these will in practice play a role when such decisions

are taken.

1. Theological debate, as I noted earlier, is in itself an open-ended intellectualendeavour which does not of itself lead to closure unless one side is in

categorical violation of its constitutive rules. Whether in a given situation the

defenders or orthodoxy or their opponents have the better arguments is usually

open to serious disagreement, but even if one takes a sanguine view of the

intellectual superiority of, say, Barth over his contemporary theological foes, one


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could certainly not deny their opposing arguments any intellectual merit. This,

however, would be enough to keep them in the game as far as theology is

concerned.

2. As for agreement with Scripture and tradition, this is regularly claimed on bothsides of the debate, and an impartial investigation of those claims leads to

equivocal results; in fact, defenders of orthodoxy have frequently pointed to the

novelty of doctrinal decisions as evidence for the Spirits continuing guidance of

the Church.

3. No doctrinal or credal decision would even be required if consensus on thematter existed at the time; ideally, the latter emerges from the confessional

process, but from Chalcedon to the Reformation evidence to the contrary

abounds.

What then justifies the kind of clarification Barth advocates? The answer, I think, can

only be that any confession of the Church must ultimately be judged by its compatibility

with Gods revelation in Jesus Christ. As the latter, however, is identical with his self-

revelation as the God of love, such a test means in practice that the theological

justification of a doctrinal or credal confession must be its agreement with (and its

emergence from) the non-violent practice that Jesus himself inaugurated. In other

words, the doctrinally correct position is the one that brings out most clearly the

implications of the biblical narrative in which the evil logic of violence and hatred is

overcome by love.

If read in this light, however, Barths argument offers yet another perspective on the

ecclesiological paradox. It rightly highlights the necessity to stand up for the principle

Jesus introduced into history and, given how strongly the latter militates against the

prevailing logic of violence and scapegoating, this act of confessing will inevitably be

confronted with opposition. Affirmation of evangelical revelation, then, requires


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confession, and confession necessarily implies a No as well as a Yes. In this sense,

doctrine, creeds and confessions are as much needed by the Church as her very

institutional shape.

This insight, however, must not make us oblivious of the fact that in this very act of

confessing the anti-Christian logic of the scapegoat comes to the fore like in few others.

Athanasius, as we have seen, overcame intellectual objections to his trinitarian theology

by tying his opponents to the heretic, Arius. Barth himself had no compunction either to

connect any individual theologian or any theological school disagreeing with elements of

this theology, from Emil Brunner to Rudolf Bultmann, from Catholic Thomists to

traditional Lutherans to Schleiermacherian liberals, with the German Christians. While

he is right that the individual Christian as well as the Church occasionally needs publicly

to confess their faith and that such a statement cannot be made without an explicit or

implicit rejection of something or of someone, he should have added that those very

moments, and especially the most precious ones among them, include both faithfulness

to Christ and betrayal of him.

Barths argument, put forward in 1939, did not, of course, happen outside its historical

context. His defence of the full credal confession, including the anathema, evidently

harks back to the Barmen Confession of 1934, of which he himself had been the

principal author. It is worth giving its first article in full here.

In view of the errors of the German Christians of the present Reich Church

government which are devastating the Church and also therefore breaking up theunity of the German Evangelical Church, we confess the following evangelicaltruths:I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.(John 14, 6). Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by thedoor, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. . . . I am thedoor; if anyone enters by me, he will be saved. (John 10, 1.9.)Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of Godwhich we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.We reject the false doctrine, as though the church could and would have toacknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word


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of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as Gods revelation. 45

The parallel with the 4th century Nicene Creed is evident:46 the delegates at the Barmen

Synod explicitly state what can, and what cannot, be considered Christian. They

univocally define what is, and what is not, compatible with the gospel message that is the

foundation of the Church. By emphasising the need to confess the singular importance

of Jesus Christ as the centre of the Christian faith, they exclude ipso factothe possibility

that any rival account of Christianity could be compatible with the truth of the Christian

revelation.

The declaration of the synod has been met with widespread respect and admiration. To

many it has appeared that what those churchmen did in 1934 was, for all its limitations

and imperfections, a necessary act of self-preservation of the Evangelical Church and a

valid confession of Evangelical principles against an evident yet at the time popular

attempt to falsify them. Yet more recently, Barmen and the Confessing Church have

also been criticised for their failure to confront more clearly the evil of the political

system at the time and, in particular, to identify solidarity with the Jewish victims of the

Nazi state as directly demanded and implied by the Christian faith.

There is no room here to explore in detail the many historical ambiguities surrounding

the Barmen Synod and its declaration, but I should argue that those are grounded in,

and illustrative of, the problem identified in Barths theologically articulated position in

Church Dogmatics. On the one hand, it is undeniable that Barmen stood up for what

was right. The delegates of the 1934 synod correctly identified the German Christians

glorification of Hitler and their theological interpretation of current developments in

Germany as being in fundamental opposition to the gospel with its absolute focus on

Jesus Christ. In this sense, the synod and its Theological Declaration symbolically stand

45 Theologische Erklrung zur gegenwrtigen Lage der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirche (Barmer TheologischeErklrung, in: A. Burgsmller/R. Weth (eds.), Die Barmer Theologische Erklrung, Neukirchen 1983, 34. ET:http://www.ekd.de/english/barmen_theological_declaration.html (accessed on 30 May 2012).

46 Cf. Barths own discussion op. cit., 703-4. Note the limitation of the parallel, however: Barmen does not cursepeople, it condemns teachings.


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for the Churchs willingness to reject any pretence that Nazi ideology could be

compatible with the Christian faith. Not to have done so, or indeed to have done so in

less unequivocal terms, would have been grievously wrong.

At the same time and by the same token, however, Barmens response to the challenge

of its time was also inadequate. Its omission of any reference to the Nazis anti-Semitism

is not merely an instance of being less than perfect; it indicates a fundamental flaw

inherent in the chosen reply. To perceive this flaw more clearly, one may compare and

contrast Barmens explicit focus on the person of Christ with the fact that its main

success was to have strengthened the institutional preservation and cohesion of the

Church at a time of crisis. It can be argued that the latter purpose was mandated by the

situation; a strong ecclesial identity was needed for the Churchs resistance to the Nazi

project of societys universal integration into the totalitarian state. However, if it is the

case, as was said above, that the criterion of doctrinal truth is precisely its ability to

direct the communitys perception and activity towards the targets of scapegoating and

victimization in their own society, Barmens balance sheet looks decidedly more

sobering. The Confessing Church was not a church for others, and those among its

members whom we associate most strongly with the latter concept, such as Dietrich

Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemller, were largely isolated and their voices ignored. This,

ultimately, is the reason why Barmens silence on the Jews is significant: it stands for the

more general observation that the Theological Declaration, while emphasising the

centrality of Jesus Christ for the Christian faith, at the same time served to underwrite

an inward looking project of ecclesial restoration.

These considerations are not meant to denigrate, from a safe distance, the measures

taken by the Confessing Church. On the contrary, the example of the Church in the

Third Reich shows particularly clearly how the two sides of what I have called the

ecclesiastical paradox hang together. Yet much as Vattimo disregards the inevitability of

institutional stabilisation, Barth in 1939 overlooked the ever-precarious situation of the


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Church attempting to confess her Lord. His strategy may have helped preserve

churches and pulpits as places of evangelical proclamation, but it also provided a

pretext for an introverted, triumphalist ecclesial attitude, which in German

Protestantism long survived the demise of the Third Reich.

2 . 3 . T h e r h e t o r ic o f e v i l a n d t h e C o m m u n i o n o f S a i n t s : T o w a r d s ab e t t e r e c c l e s i o l o g yBoth the supersessionist and the realist response to the ecclesiastical dilemma fail

because they ignore its ultimately paradoxical nature. The exclusion of scapegoats is

both necessary and impossible within the Christian Church. The realist affirmation of

ecclesiastical identity is eventually undermined by its incompatibility with the gospel

message; thus far the supersessionist critics are right in perceiving anti-ecclesial and

secular movements in European modernity and post-modernity as driven at least in part

by a genuinely Christian impulse. Yet their willingness to embrace every most recent

ideology and their frequent blindness to new forms of violent scapegoating thriving

under post-ecclesial conditions prove the limitations of their own perspective.

It is clear then that any more promising reply has to start from the recognition that the

dilemma cannot easily be sidestepped or avoided. The Church of Jesus Christ exists

within an institutional form held together by principles that ultimately cannot be

reconciled with the radical message of its founder. As much, therefore, as the Church is

the sign of the coming Kingdom, which Jesus proclaimed, she also, in practice, prevents

the Kingdom from arriving. The Church is the place where the gospel is preached and

the place where the gospel is betrayed; both Jesus and Grand Inquisitor represent her

reality. There is no room here to develop in detail consequences following from this

insight. Instead, I shall conclude with a number of theses indicating a direction of travel

more than a clear and unequivocal destination for it.

1. The institutional church cannot, as such, be the Communion of Saints. Theecclesia militanscannot exist without using mechanisms of exclusion to stabilise


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its identity. It cannot entirely forsake the rhetoric of evil and replace it with a

discourse based on the principle of love. At the same time, however, the

Communion of Saints cannot exist in the world without such an institutional

structure, which is required to enable and guarantee the proclamation of the

gospel. The temptation to abolish the institution, or to condone its factual

abolition, is therefore treacherous and must be resisted as much as any tendency

to confound or identify the Churchs institutional preservation with its

evangelical mission.

2. The evangelical promise that evil is overcome in the proclamation of the gospelis a liberating force permitting those who believe in it openly to face their own

shortcomings and collaborate in the work of Gods Spirit. This insight must be

applied to the Church as a whole as much as to the individual believer. Her

willingness to confront scapegoating and victimization within, and to do so

radically, will be a test of her faith in the presence of a unifying power that works

on the basis of the opposite principle. The more the Church is able to use but

not enjoy her forms of organisation, the more credible and the more

authoritative will be her proclamation of the Word. Such an attitude, however,

would not only or even primarily work on external perception; it would

transform the Churchs very activity from one dominated by the concern for her

institutional self-preservation into one of active ministry for others.

3. The same freedom enables an inspection of the history of the Church that iswithout the apologetic need to cover up her failings and shortcomings but

equally without the desire to expose those who sought to follow Christ in

different times and places. The history of the Church is dominated by attempts

to glorify and to vilify, by identifying saints and heretics. While nothing is gained

by denying that some Christians provide better examples than others, the

complementary needs to idealise and to condemn indicate that the logic of


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identity formation is stronger in the Church than the principle of charity, which

permits, and demands, a loving gaze on the other that is compatible with a

recognition of the full extent of their sinfulness.

4. Theology finds its proper role within the Church where it is transformed from atool justifying the exclusion of heretics into a theory of Christian practice. The

truth of the creeds and confessions is tantamount to their ability to orient the

Churchs life, as well as the lives of individual believers, towards Christ and thus

towards the suffering other. Such transformation is not, however, achieved by

an attempt actively to abandon more traditional modes of theological thought

any more than an affirmation of secularisation overcomes the ecclesiastical

dilemma. Rather, those modes must be affirmed insofar as they can fulfil

theologys task but not for their own sake.

***

The rhetoric of evil within the Church should not exist and yet it does. This problem is

not solved by either liberal or reformist idealism or pragmatic, ecclesiastical realism.

In fact, such a characterisation already misses the real issue. The failure of liberal and

post-modern supersessionist models was not due to their excessive, idealistic faith in

the ability of the spirit of Christ to overcome evil with love, but to an exclusive trust in

historical, philosophical, and sociological analyses. In this way, the eschatological telos

of overcoming the institutionalised Church became a secular project to be realised by

modern, insightful Christians. Yet the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves: as we

have seen all historical evidence suggests that the result of such attempts is the mere

substitution of contemporary ideals (or should we say, idols) for the institutional

principles of the traditional Church. An idealist option therefore that really reckons

with the possibility that the coming of Christ enables a form of community not built on

the exclusion of scapegoats, will be realistic enough to understand that mere attempts

at replacing one institution or one type of organisation by another may modify but will


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not crucially transform the structure of our culture, including its religious dimension.

At the same time, a realist who is at all guided by evangelical insight cannot but be

aware that such a fundamental transformation is already underway. For if Girard is right

in perceiving mimetic violence at the very centre of human culture (and it is only in

passing that I note here the proximity of this view to traditionally Christian notions of

sin and concupiscence), then it is humanly impossible to face the full truth of this reality.

Consequently, the willingness and the ability to do this cannot but result from, and give

witness to, an alternative and more fundamental truth about humanity and about the

world, which must become visible as the background from which the radical unveiling

of the scapegoat mechanism only becomes feasible. In the context of ecclesiology this

would mean that precisely the willingness of the Church to be radically self-critical and

its ability to let go of its innate institutional tendency to self-preservation by means of

exclusion would testify to the reality of its belief in a sustaining source that is radically

different from those underwriting human institutions.47

The problem, then, is not a dichotomy between ecclesiological idealism and realism, but

the existence of a self-reliant activism on the one hand and a cynical denial of the

transformative power of the Christ event on the other. The way of the Church has to be

seen in opposition to both these options; it has to be radical in its trust that precisely by

its renunciation of the scapegoat mechanism it follows not the ingenuity of its own

inventiveness but the example set by Christ himself, while realising at the same time that

any such attempt is constantly threatened by the perseverance of the rhetoric of evil not

least within and on behalf of the Church.

rhetoric of evil christian identity

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