Stars, Hide Your Fires

I want to suggest that while the presenting issue is gay marriage, this is really about competition and conflict between people who, for all intents and purposes, have 99 percent of things in common. It is what Freud so perfectly expressed as the “narcissism of small differences.” But it really goes beyond that. The same problem existed between Jesus and the Pharisees. They too were very similar. The Pharisees were always trying to trap Jesus, to get him to fess up that his ability with the law was weak at best, and the Pharisees, being the keepers of righteousness, were duty bound to protect every jot and tittle. And so we see Wilson going at Bell with everything he has, “Is it sin?” “Are you saying the church for 2,000 years has got it wrong?” Bell refuses to bite, more on this later.

Up pops Rene Girard, the scholar on violence and the sacred (check out Girard’s lectures on scapegoating here). Girard argues that social conflict (or mimetic crisis) is solved, ordinarily, through sacrifice, the death of a victim. Humans have used religion as the way to justify this killing, by sacralizing the violence and then, after the sacrifice, divinizing the victim. It works, for a while, then you need a new one and the process continues. They did this to Jesus, but he was innocent and, as Girard argues, Jesus reveals the whole system as a bankrupt and tragic way to live. Jesus argues that we should solve our conflicts nonviolently and be reconciled to one another. Clearly, humans, including Christians have not figured this out.

I would argue, in a polite and righteous way, Wilson was sacrificing, using Girardian terms–scapegoating Bell to resolve what has become a social crisis for the evangelical community. We can’t have a gay marriage lover in the family, Bell fails in his biblical exegesis; he needs to be expunged.

Bell, with a phlegmatic demeanor, neither takes Wilson’s bait, nor accepts his expulsion. He turns to Wilson and says, “Andrew’s my brother, if we got out the bread and wine, we’d both take it…. Is there something that trumps the differences we have? I think that’s the question.” Bell brilliantly shifts the conversation back to whole point of the Christian message, “Be reconciled to one another.”

1. Alexandria, Va.
2. Knoxville, Tenn.
3. Miami, Fla.
4. Cambridge, Mass.
5. Orlando, Fla.
6. Ann Arbor, Mich.
7. Berkeley, Calif.
8. Cincinnati, Ohio
9. Columbia, S.C.
10. Pittsburgh, Penn.
11. St. Louis, Mo.
12. Salt Lake City, Utah
13. Seattle, Wash.
14. Vancouver, Wash.
15. Gainesville, Fla.
16. Atlanta, Ga.
17. Dayton, Ohio
18. Richmond, Va.
19. Clearwater, Fla.
20. Tallahassee, Fla.

My town’s on this list!