The Hunger Games Part 5: The Desire to Love
My hatred of the Capitol has not lessened my hatred of my competitors in the least.
Katniss Everdeen, The Hunger Games, 238
But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
Jesus, Matthew 5:44
I value the loving self-sacrifice that we find in the first book of The Hunger Games series. There are two beautiful moments in the book that I think are worth exploring. The first moment comes at the reaping. All of District 12 has assembled to see who will be their tributes in the Hunger Games. Primrose Everdeen (Katniss’s sister) was randomly chosen as a tribute in the Hunger Games. After Primrose’s name was called, Katniss ran to the stage to take her sister’s place as a tribute. Katniss sacrificed her life so that her sister could live. It’s a touching moment of sacrificial love that moves the whole crowd (24).
Peeta provides the second example of self-sacrifice. When Katniss was just 11 years old, her father died in a mine accident. After her father’s death, she became the provider for her family. Her mother and sister were at risk of starving to death unless Katniss could provide food for them. Katniss did her best, but one evening she headed home without any food. She passed by some houses and looked in their trash bins for rotted vegetables or bones, “something no one but [her] family was desperate enough to eat” (29). Unfortunately, the bins were empty, but she soon passed by the baker’s house, where she could smell the aroma of fresh bread. She looked desperately for food in the baker’s trash bins, but nothing was there. The baker’s wife ran outside, scolded Katniss, and threatened to call the “Peacekeepers” (the police). Katniss felt hopeless and thought, “let me die right here” (30). But Peeta intentionally burned two loaves of bread so he could give them to Katniss. He took a beating from his mother for burning the bread, who then yelled at him, “Feed it to the pig, you stupid creature. Why not? No one decent will buy burned bread!” As Peeta walked to the pig, he looked in Katniss’s direction and threw the bread toward her. “Why would he have done it?” Katniss wondered. “He didn’t even know me. Still, just throwing me bread was an enormous kindness that would have surely resulted in a beating if discovered. I couldn’t explain his actions” (32-33). We discover later in the book that Peeta “had a crush on [Katniss] ever since [he] could remember” and that he had the affectionate feelings for Katniss before she even knew he was alive (130).
Katniss and Peeta provide us with wonderful acts of love and self-sacrifice that took tremendous amounts of courage. I admire these fictional characters for that, but I don’t want to confuse their self-sacrifice with the self-sacrifice of Jesus. Katniss and Peeta sacrifice themselves for people they already felt affection for and loved. Indeed, that's a wonderful thing, but Jesus took sacrificial love a step further. He told his followers that they should treat their enemies in ways of love and self-sacrifice, too. He told them,
You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:44)
The Hunger Games is a brilliant book and I look forward to exploring the other two books in the series. This fictional account of Panem has a lot to teach us about the dynamics of human violence. But it doesn’t provide the solution to the problem of violence, which is a universal love that includes even our enemies.
Today is Good Friday. I often wonder why the day that Jesus died at the hands of the Roman and religious authorities is called “Good.” I’m convinced it’s because that on Good Friday Jesus revealed the only way to subvert the satanic mechanism of violence. (See part 4 of this series for more on that.) One way that Rome kept the “peace” was through the violent crucifixion of anyone who was deemed a threat to Rome. Jesus stood up to Roman violence by offering another way of life. He called it the Kingdom of God. It’s a way of life that leads to nonviolence, love, and forgiveness. Why would Rome see this as a threat? Because it challenged their violent ways of keeping peace. So they crucified him. This is where Christians talk about atonement. There is an angry, wrathful divinity that demands blood here, but it's not God - it's humans. Instead of praying for vengeance, which would only perpetuate the satanic mechanis, Jesus, the One who represents God, prayed words of forgiveness. As he hung from the cross, Jesus forgave those who killed him. “Father,” he said, “forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
In a few days we will celebrate Easter and the resurrection. After his death, Jesus came back to his followers. The importance of the resurrection is that Jesus offers peace to those who betrayed him. This is how God works. God’s peace does not come in uniting in violence against another. The Hunger Games reveals that’s how humans often create peace. Jesus reveals that God is not out to get anyone; that God doesn’t need victims to make peace. On the cross and in the resurrection, Jesus defeated the satanic mechanism by offering us a new way of creating community that’s not based on the violent death of another, but based on a community and a peace that comes through sacrificial love and forgiveness that embraces even, no, especially, those we call our enemies.
The desire to love in the way that Jesus loved is the hope for the future of our world.
The Hunger Games Blog - Table of Contents
The Hunger Games Part 1: The Hope for a Better World
The Hunger Games Part 2: The Desire for a Better World
The Hunger Games Part 3: The Desire for Peace
The Hunger Games Part 4: The Desire to Subvert Evil
The Hunger Games Part 5: The Desire to Love
The Hunger Games Part 6: The Fear of Death and the Hope for Life: Katniss and Perpetua
Playing for Keeps with theologian James Alison
Theologian James Alison joined the Playing for Keeps radio show on May 4, 2012 to explore how The Hunger Games and chapter 7 of the Old Testament book of Joshua have something very important in common: a lottery in which the winners get to die for the sake of the community. Many people joined Adam and Bob in the discussion with James to explore how lotteries are used as violent tools for peace.
Click on the arrow below to listen to the conversation.
World Peace, the Super Bowl, and a Supermodel's Super Drama
“World Peace” at a football game. Did you find that ironic? I mean, we just watched 30 minutes of hard hitting Super Bowl action. It’s not peaceful. It’s violent. And we loved it! Seriously. Why did Madonna (or whomever it was) have to go and spoil my football fun by making me think about world peace.
It’s pretty easy to argue that football is not a peaceful sport. Of course, few sports can be deemed “peaceful.” If you ask someone what the definition of peace is, they are likely to respond, “The absence of conflict.” If that definition is anywhere near the mark, then football is very un-peaceful. It thrives on conflict, rivalry, and high impact collisions. You may argue that football isn’t violent because players willingly sacrifice their bodies. That, of course, is true, but NFL players sustain traumatic injuries that cause the average life expectancy of a player to be – depending on position – 53 to 59.
Indeed, football players are willing to subject themselves to a violent game. And that’s part of the problem. Football players and football fans are unanimous in this sacrifice. As the anthropologist René Girard has taught us, this is how it must be, for the most effective sacrifice is a unanimous sacrifice, where even victims willingly participate in their own demise.
So thanks for destroying the sacrificial unanimity, Madonna. Your message of “World Peace” ruined my Super Bowl experience.
On a related issue, have you heard about the Gisele Bundchen scandal? Bundchen is a supermodel who began dating Tom Brady, the quarterback for the New England Patriots, in December of 2006. Before their relationship, Brady and the Patriots were 3-0 at the Super Bowl; they were poised to become the dominant football dynasty for years to come. But then, as The Business Insider.com states, “Gisele happened. And now look at them: zilch in five years.” Bill Simmons, a Boston sports reporter, claims that in Boston “There's an ‘Us Against Them’ mentality that's just part of the DNA. You grow up there, you live a full life there, you die there. That's how it's supposed to play out. There's been a local undercurrent for the past few years that Brady thinks he's too good for Boston (because he moved to New York, then California), that he cares too much about being a celebrity, that Gisele made him soft, that he's not really ‘one of us.’”
It’s been called “The Gisele Bundchen Curse” in Boston, but the animosity directed against her isn’t isolated to Boston. As I watched the Today Show this morning, they had a segment on Bundchen from the Patriot’s Super Bowl loss in 2008. They showed a clip of Bundchen at that game, sitting in a private booth, “sipping red wine and looking uninterested.” I wondered, why would the Today Show emphasize “red wine”? Well, as one website claims, the red wine was a “Nice way for Gisele to mock American football fans who actually drink beer (not red wine) for the game.”
The accusation that she looked uninterested in the 2008 game is especially interesting, considering her reaction after Sunday’s Super Bowl. When a Giants fan taunted her, saying, “Eli [Manning, the Giants quarterback] rules your husband!” a video camera caught her responding, “My husband cannot f****** throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time.” Since the video’s release, Bundchen has been accused of betraying her husband’s teammates and throwing them under the bus. Maybe she was too interested in this Super Bowl.
What does all of this have to do with “World Peace”? The problem is with our definition of peace. When we define peace in negative terms, as the absence of conflict, we will have problems. Conflict is inevitable – as long as there are humans we will have conflict. If we want conflict to be absent from our lives, then we have to expel those that we blame for starting conflicts. So, I want to banish Madonna because she brought up “World Peace” during a football game and Patriots fans want to expel Bundchen because she single handedly brought the downfall of their beloved franchise.
Peace, at least a feeling of peace, often comes at the expense of others. And when peace comes at the expense of others, we will have never have peace.
We will be closer to peace, both in our world and in our personal lives, when we think of peace as a way of life. Peace is hard work. It’s a way of life that seeks justice, healing, love, and reconciliation in a world where our relationships are inevitably infected with conflicts.
So, we need to ask ourselves a question – Do we really want “World Peace”? If we do want peace, the advice of the Trappist monk Thomas Merton is worth heeding:
Instead of loving what you think is peace, love other [humans] and love God above all. And instead of hating the people you think are war mongers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed – but hate these things in yourself, not in another. (Passion for Peace, 38. Italics in original.)
UC Davis Protests and Police: Why Violence Never Works
One of the ugly truths of human existence is that violence works.
As a proponent of nonviolence, it is hard for me to make that statement, but please hear me out. The anthropologist René Girard claims that we gain temporary peace through sacrifice, expulsion, and other acts of violence. In this sense, violence works to bring a sense of peace and calm, but that sense of peace and calm is simply that – an illusion that the problem has been solved. Although violence brings this sense of peace, it doesn’t have the capability of solving underlying problems. In fact, violence covers up the problems. Because those problems are not dealt with, they emerge once again. We remember the sense of peace that violence brought us before, and so we repeat the cycle.
To paraphrase the great non-violent activist Michael Nagler in his book The Search for a Nonviolent Future, violence may work, but violence never works. It might give us a temporary sense of peace, but it never solves our problems.
What does this have to do with the recent events at University of California, Davis?
The UC Davis campus police believe that violence works. They used pepper spray to coerce the students who were nonviolently protesting. That violence worked temporarily as a means to forcibly remove students, but it didn’t work, as two days after the incident student protesters once again occupied the quad, leaving the authorities wondering how they should now respond.
Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi believes that violence works, and employed that belief yesterday in the form of expulsion. She claimed about her decision to place campus Police Chief Annette Spicuzza on administrative leave that “As I have gathered more information about the events that took place on our Quad on Friday, it has become clear to me that this is a necessary step toward restoring trust on our campus.” The Los Angeles Times correctly reports that this act of expulsion is an attempt to restore peace. The authors of the article claim that “Katehi announced Monday that she had put campus Police Chief Annette Spicuzza on administrative leave, an effort to restore peace to the 32,000-student public university.”
UC Davis assistant professor Nathan Brown, along with some other faculty members, also believes violence in the form of expulsion works. Brown wrote an impassioned article on his blog calling for Katehi’s resignation. “I am writing to hold you responsible and to demand your immediate resignation…”
I want to be clear: What the UC Davis campus police did was an irresponsible act of violence that put nonviolent protesters in physical danger. But here’s the thing: All violence is irresponsible because it never works. It only covers up the underlying problems. Expelling a police chief by placing her on “administrative leave” may give a sense of peace, but that form of violence isn’t going to solve the bigger problem of our faith in violence. Demanding Katehi’s resignation might give a sense of peace as we think we are holding someone responsible, but that act of expulsion will only teach that expulsion is an effective way to solve problems, and thus, cover up the real problems.
Perhaps our hope lies with the students. I hope that all of this violence and talk of expulsion will not distract them for the real issues that they are protesting – universities throughout the country are raising tuition costs and cutting budgets. In the face of further violence, I hope they remain nonviolent in their protests, because violence will only cover up the issues they are protesting.
Because violence never works.
The Myth of Redemptive Violence: Child Sacrifice, God, and Resurrection
Adam discusses the child sacrifice in Uganda. He claims that it is the result of the myth of redemptive violence. That myth claims violence is an efficient way of solving our problems and bringing prosperity to our lives. The BBC reports that in Uganda, which is modernizing very quickly, wealthy business people are having children sacrificed by witch doctors, believing that it will bring them economic prosperity. The only people challenging this myth are priests and pastors. They do this because they do not believe in the myth of redemptive violence; rather they believe in the truth of Jesus - that love and compassion are the ways to bring about true community. Salvation comes when we live into the resurrected live of Jesus that doesn't believe in violence, but forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation.
When Tragedy Prevails
Whenever the terrible equilibrium of tragedy prevails, all talk of right and wrong is futile. At that point in the conflict one can only say to the combatants: Make friends or pursue your own ruin.
Rene Girard, Violence and the Sacred, 51.
It’s hard to know what to say in the midst of tragedy. Last night, the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis. I find that tragic. Of course, I find the 1989 murder of Officer Mark MacPhail tragic as well. Tragedy prevails and it is hard for me to say anything without making accusations against someone involved in this case. I could easily accuse Davis, who, at best, was part of mob violence against a homeless man. At worst, he shot and killed Officer MacPhail. I could easily accuse Officer MacPhail’s family for seeking vengeance in the name of justice. I could easily accuse the American/Georgian judicial system, whose laws claim that mimetic violence is an effective way to bring order out of chaos. I could easily accuse the United States of continued racism that has coalesced into another lynching of an innocent black man.
Indeed, to say anything is to risk getting caught up the mimetic pull of accusation. We wonder, “Who is right and who is wrong?” I think Girard is right; that kind of talk is futile. It is sacrificial. It divides the world into “good guys” and “bad guys.” Of course, anyone making an accusation always thinks he or she is the “good guy.” And that make us feel so good. Making accusations allows us to feel superior, as we know who is good and who is bad. Unfortunately, accusations are always imitative. Whenever we make an accusation, we can be sure an accusation will be returned. And when we get caught up in a cycle of accusations “the terrible equilibrium of tragedy [will] prevail.”
I’m a Christian. As such, I take Jesus seriously when he says, “Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13). That means Christians are to be a source of life giving mercy, not death inflicting sacrifice. Sometimes people ask if an individual who has done horrible things deserves mercy. No. Nobody “deserves” mercy. Mercy is a free gift. If someone has to “earn” mercy, it is no longer mercy. So, because I am a Christian, I’m for life and against the death penalty. Still, I’m not willing to make accusations against others. It is futile and could become tragically counterproductive. For example, what would happen if people who are anti-death penalty and people who are pro-death penalty stand off against each other? I’ll tell you: Mutual tragedy would prevail. That’s why our emphasis needs to be for life, and not so much against the death penalty. That’s why we need to live into the way of mercy and forgiveness. That’s why we need to follow Girard’s advice and seek to “Make friends, or [we will] pursue [our] own ruin.”
(If you are interested in putting mercy and peace into practice, join Raven in creating a "Peace Circle." Peace Circles are a great way to practice peace with your community. To learn more, check out our "Be a Hero for Peace" website by clicking here.)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the Logic of Love, and My Inner Nerd
“It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one”
-Spock
I’ve been trained to ask a surprisingly complex question during the last few years: Where is God in this? The question is surprisingly complex because the answer is not always obvious.
Last week I went to visit my family in Portland, Oregon. When my brothers and I get together, we ususally watch a Star Trek or Star Wars movie. Yup. We’re nerds. And I love it.
On this visit I wanted to watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Although it is not their favorite Star Trek movie, my brothers politely obliged. Throughout the movie, they made playful, sarcastic comments Mystery Science Theater 3000 style about the Kobayashi Maru test, Ceti Eels (okay, those are gross), and Khan’s massive pecs, (I envy the pecs on that 60+ year old dude). This is the Sci-Fi nerdiness that I love.
But I also love The Wrath of Khan for its theology. I’m convinced that the director, Nicholas Meyer, knew what he was doing. So, as one of my brothers loaded the DVD, I asked the question nerdy theological question: “Where do you think God is in The Wrath of Khan?”
They referred to the Genesis Device – which could bring life to a lifeless planet. Creation and resurrection are indeed Godlike qualities. But the Genesis Device has a darkside that made us hesitate to say that this is where we find God in the movie. The Genesis Device can be used to destroy and manipulate planetary life.
So, where is God in the movie? First, because the word means different things to different people, I need to tell you what I mean by “God.” I mean Jesus. I mean the God who self-sacrifices for the needs of the many. And what did Jesus bring that we need? In part, he brought a transformation in our understanding of sacrifice.
As René Girard points out in his development of mimetic theory, human culture was built on the logic of violent sacrifice. Girard has a long explanation of this hominization process that you can read about in books like Violence and the Sacred and Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, but it’s fairly intuitive. The logic of sacrifice works basically like this: If conflicts and rivalries arise among people, the mimetic (nonconscious) solution is to unite against a common enemy. This unfortunate person becomes our sacrificial victim, aka, our scapegoat. Even more unfortunate is that this scapegoating works to bring temporary peace to a community, but it never actually solves the problem. Soon, conflicts and rivalries arise again and sacrificial logic reasserts itself and a new scapegoat is needed to bring peace and unity.
Girard calls this archaic sacrifice. Don’t let the word archaic fool you: Girard asserts that we are still infected by archaic sacrifice. We still know that finding a common enemy is the easiest way to find unity. But the Judeo-Christian message challenges archaic sacrifice with another form of sacrifice. Instead of sacrificing another, we find the Judeo-Christian alternative of self-sacrifice. It is a form of sacrifice that has its own logic, but it is a logic that counters the logic of archaic sacrifice. For example, when two prostitutes ask Solomon to settle their rivalry over a child, the real mother sacrifices her desire for the child so the child may live. The prophet Isaiah writes about the Suffering Servant who sacrifices himself for the needs of the many. And, of course, there is Jesus, who for Christians concretely reveals the true character of God precisely in this self-sacrificial love. Jesus' logic of sacrificial love is summed up in John 15:13, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."
If you have seen the movies, you know that Spock is not a perfect Christ figure. But when he sacrifices himself in order to save his friends, he does something truly amazing and “Christlike.” Spock had choices. He could have used archaic logic to unite the crew in sacrificing someone else, but instead he used the Judeo-Christian logic of self-sacrifice. When I see Spock perform this sacrifice, I think of the prostitute and her child, the prophet Isaiah, and Jesus.
As the movie ends, Amazing Grace begins to play. Indeed, as the director, Meyer had to have known what he was doing. For ‘tis amazing grace that leads us to the self-sacrificing love of God.
And, to further my sci-fi/theological nerdiness, in Star Trek III Spock is resurrected back to life!
Self-sacrifice and resurrection. Judeo-Christian themes are all over Star Trek, and my inner sci-fi theological nerd is all kinds of giddy.
Beyond Power Struggles by Suzanne Ross
Raven Founder Suzanne Ross was a keynote presenter at the Theology and Peace conference held in Baltimore, MD, in June 2011. Her paper, Beyond Power Struggles: Teaching Without Rivalry, illustrates how the teaching of Maria Montessori supports child development while avoiding teacher/child rivalries.
Reading Stephen Sondheim with Sandor Goodhart
Sandor Goodhart, author of Reading Stephen Sondheim: A Collection of Critical Essays, is a Professor of English and Jewish Studies at Purdue University and Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Classical Studies. Professor Goodhart is a Raven Foundation Board Member and one of the founders of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion (COV&R). In this interview, Professor Goodhart examines the talent of Sondheim, his message and his audience.
The Disorder of Hip Hop: Mimetic Desire in the Hood
Author Debra Anstis is a part time lecturer of New Testament Greek at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. A longtime reader of the work of Girard, she is a member of the Australian Girard Seminar a well as COV&R. Her interest in mimetic theory primarily relates to biblical studies and theology, however, she believes its engagement with other fields makes it especially thought-provoking. In this essay, she examines mimetic rivalry in the world of hip hop.