A Descent into Sacred Violence

To do violence on a grand scale, one must first dehumanize the future victims and consecrate the future aggressors as noble warriors on a sacred mission that pits “us” against “them.” 

The downward spiral of dehumanization requires the creation of a mythology of a lost greatness and glory that can only be restored when the human scum and enemies of the people are purged from among “us;” offered up upon the altars of sacrifice to a grand and sacred cause sanctioned by the god of our Nationalist confession. 

To achieve mass delusions sufficient to move from the fringes to a place of power requires propaganda and ideology that exploits feelings of humiliation, alienation, ambition, victimhood, and bloodlust amongst the base, enlivening them to fervor and action. For the propaganda to be effective requires the destruction of truth, the re-writing of history, the polarization of “us” and “them,” and a demagogic ringleader who claims only he alone can lead the real and true “elect ones” into a future greatness. Consequently, all pursuits of truth and facts are castigated as fake and biased. Alternative facts replace actual facts. Truth-tellers, whistle-blowers, and systems of accountability are the first victims in the descent into sacred violence. 

The masses are desensitized through language, lies, metaphor, and celebrations of retaliation against those blamed for “our great demise.” Anyone who is not among “us:” the real believers; the real patriots; the real good and decent people; must be crushed by any and all means necessary. “They” are dirty, lazy, criminals, drug-dealers, godless, human scum, and enemies of the people. 

In their fascinating study of the “virtuous violence theory,” Alan Page Fiske and Tage Shakti Rai observe, “Most violence is morally motivated. People do not simply justify or excuse their violent actions after the fact; at the moment they act, people intend to cause harm or death to someone they feel should suffer or die.” Fiske and Rai go on to explain how people are morally motived to do violence in order to create a new future, protect some point of pride or honor, and redress a grievance. Violence is described as actions in which the perpetrator regards inflicting suffering, pain, fear, distress, injury, maiming, disfigurement, or death as the intrinsic, necessary, or desirable means to accomplish a desired result. “Insults, taunting, and cursing often precede [physical] violence, and are motivated by the same relational intentions” (p. 15). 

Walter Wink refers to this type of violence as “The Myth of Redemptive Violence.” Wink describes the Myth of Redemptive Violence as “the story of the victory of order over chaos by means of violence.” Wink observes this myth of redemptive violence enshrines the belief that violence saves, that war brings peace, that might makes right. “This Myth of Redemptive Violence is the real myth of the modern world. It, and not Judaism or Christianity or Islam, is the dominant religion in our society today.” 

It is a dark stain upon Christianity that we Christians have too often been advocates of virtuous, or redemptive, violence. Susannah Heschel records the shameful complicity of the German Christian Movement as a nationalist movement in full support of Adolf Hitler and Nazi ideology. Numerous German Protestant theologians during Hitler’s Third Reich redefined Jesus as an Aryan and Christianity as a religion at war with the Jews. In 1939, these world-acclaimed theologians established the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life. The Institute sponsored propaganda conferences, published books defaming Jews and Judaism, including a dejudaized version of the New Testament and a catechism proclaiming Jesus as the savior of the Aryans. Somehow the light of the world betrayed the humble Jew from Galilee and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in favor of a Führer promising to restore the greatness of the Fatherland. 

Unfortunately, this is hardly the only time large numbers of Christians have been on the wrong side of the Gospel and humanity. Christians advocating the “manifest destiny” of American greatness justified and advocated for the genocide of the Native American peoples. Religious wars in Europe lasted for generations, slaughtering thousands in the name of the Prince of Peace. 

Today, throughout the globe, the rising tide of Nationalism is being joined by hordes of Christians who turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the destruction of truth, the polarization of society, and the emergence of fascist totalitarianism while hiding behind some claim of upholding biblical values. The descent into sacred violence is always justified with moral arguments. Unfortunately, these moral arguments have been cut off from the Tree of Life and have become little more than a thin veneer covering up a lust for power. We have seen this movie before. Many times. It never ends well.