Scapegoats
The Gospel through the Eyes of Victims
- Biblical Studies & Commentaries
- Publisher: Fortress Press (Augsburg Fortress)
- Published: 2022
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Publisher's Description
Scapegoats are innocent victims who have experienced blame and violence at the hands of society. René Girard proposes that the Gospels present Jesus as a scapegoat whose innocent death exposes how humans have always created scapegoats. This revelation should have cured societal scapegoating, yet those who claim to live by the Gospels have missed that message. They continue to scapegoat and remain blind to the suffering of scapegoats in modern life. Christians today tend to read the New Testament as victors, not as victims. The teachings and actions of Jesus thus lose much of their subversive significance. The Gospels become one harmonized story about individual salvation rather than distinct representations of Jesus's revolutionary work on behalf of victims. Scapegoats revisits the Gospel narratives with the understanding that they tell scapegoats' stories, and that through those stories the kingdom of God is revealed. Bashaw goes beyond Girard's arguments to show that Jesus's whole public ministry (not only his death) combats the marginalization of victims. These scapegoat stories work together to illuminate an essential truth of the Gospels--that Jesus modeled a reality in which victims become survivors and the marginalized become central to the kingdom.
Endorsements (7)
“Employing the work of René Girard, Jennifer Bashaw explores Jesus’s ministry among and to the oppressed in his world as recorded in the canonical Gospels. In a series of what she calls ‘unveilings,’ Bashaw exposes contemporary Christians’ apathy toward—or, worse, complicity and participation in—scapegoating acts and attitudes of violence against the marginalized of our world. Empowering ‘victors to read the Bible through the eyes of victims,’ Bashaw calls us to a deeper understanding of the transforming and liberating message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Scapegoats is a powerful read and a compelling call to action.”
“In her timely work, Jennifer Bashaw does not simply rehash René Girard’s work on scapegoats to discuss interpretation of texts pertaining to Jesus alone. Bashaw expands this research by engaging theory in order to push contemporary Christians to practice solidarity with society’s current victims. Bashaw’s work rightly demands that Christians walk in the ways of Jesus when he engages women, people in poverty, and people who are considered ‘other.’ Scapegoats is definitely a must-read for both academics and ministerial practitioners.”
“In this challenging book, Jennifer Garcia Bashaw exercises an uncanny ability to invite her readers into the story of the Gospels—as if we were there, sometimes watching and sometimes participating in Jesus’s encounters with others. She is equally adept in her invitation to hear Jesus’s provocative message within our horizons in the West, not least when doing so is uncomfortable, even painful. Her reading of ‘the gospel through the eyes of victims’ urges us to cultivate communities of faith that overturn our tendencies toward scapegoating, instead embracing and championing those who live on society’s margins.”
“At a time when the gospel is being co-opted to support anti-gospel hatred of the marginalized and xenophobia toward the other, Scapegoats is a prophetic summons. With both historical and hermeneutical depth, Bashaw helps us see the magnitude of the problem and inspires us to make a much-needed difference in the church and in the world.”
“A must-read in churches and classrooms alike! Living through this moment in US history, it is all too easy for us to fall silent in the face of our seemingly unmendable polarization. Rather than giving in to the despair, Bashaw calls us forth to read and hear the Gospels afresh, from the perspectives of the scapegoats in these stories and those in US culture. With sincere love for the church, Bashaw reveals just how deep the infection of scapegoating in Christian history goes and offers us a way forward together, through honest recognition, repentance, and rectifying actions.”
“Bashaw’s book comes during a day and age in which scapegoating (still) runs rampant. She examines the scapegoating stories embedded in Scripture and Jesus’s attempts to liberate its victims. From the first woman to the last, the infirm and the unfortunate, the foreign and the unfit, she exposes the scapegoating mechanisms inherent in our contemporary societies and cultures. Bashaw leads readers on the path of transformation, encouraging all of us to ‘trade the needless cycle of fear, blame, and violence for the liberating cycle of confession, inclusion, and imitation of Christ,’ calling us to ‘follow Jesus toward a world without scapegoats, . . . toward our own transformation, toward a communal love for neighbor and stranger, toward radical participation in the divine reign of God.’ May we hear the call and allow the truths unveiled in Bashaw’s book to guide us in our quest for a scapegoat-free world—a world in which love of God and neighbor reigns and rules.”
“History has proven the devastating effects of reading the Bible irresponsibly. Whole streams of thought that began from misreading the Bible, unintentionally and otherwise, continue to flow through political currents that wreak havoc on our lives together, and even on the planet itself. Bashaw relies on the insightful work of René Girard to render a critical analysis of this historical problem and offer a timely encouragement for how to read responsibly.”
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