I'll tell you what I think<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I have been fascinated, not by Palin's politics, but by the intensity of anger, vitriol and words that arise when she is discussed. Yes, I suppose her\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/14\/ill-tell-you-what-i-think\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I'll tell you what I think\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have been fascinated, not by Palin's politics, but by the intensity of anger, vitriol and words that arise when she is discussed. Yes, I suppose her\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/14\/ill-tell-you-what-i-think\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-01-14T19:06:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/files\/2011\/01\/Screen-shot-2011-01-14-at-7.05.59-AM1-300x273.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/14\/ill-tell-you-what-i-think\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/14\/ill-tell-you-what-i-think\/\",\"name\":\"I'll tell you what I think\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-01-14T19:06:58+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-01-14T19:06:58+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"I have been fascinated, not by Palin's politics, but by the intensity of anger, vitriol and words that arise when she is discussed. Yes, I suppose her\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/14\/ill-tell-you-what-i-think\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/14\/ill-tell-you-what-i-think\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/14\/ill-tell-you-what-i-think\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"I’ll tell you what I think\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than fifty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/author\/scotmcknight\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"I'll tell you what I think","description":"I have been fascinated, not by Palin's politics, but by the intensity of anger, vitriol and words that arise when she is discussed. Yes, I suppose her","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/14\/ill-tell-you-what-i-think\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"I'll tell you what I think","og_description":"I have been fascinated, not by Palin's politics, but by the intensity of anger, vitriol and words that arise when she is discussed. Yes, I suppose her","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/14\/ill-tell-you-what-i-think\/","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2011-01-14T19:06:58+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/files\/2011\/01\/Screen-shot-2011-01-14-at-7.05.59-AM1-300x273.jpg"}],"author":"Scot McKnight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Scot McKnight","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/14\/ill-tell-you-what-i-think\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/14\/ill-tell-you-what-i-think\/","name":"I'll tell you what I think","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-01-14T19:06:58+00:00","dateModified":"2011-01-14T19:06:58+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252"},"description":"I have been fascinated, not by Palin's politics, but by the intensity of anger, vitriol and words that arise when she is discussed. Yes, I suppose her","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/14\/ill-tell-you-what-i-think\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/14\/ill-tell-you-what-i-think\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/14\/ill-tell-you-what-i-think\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"I’ll tell you what I think"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252","name":"Scot McKnight","description":"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than fifty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/author\/scotmcknight\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":12874,"date":"2011-01-14T13:06:58","date_gmt":"2011-01-14T19:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/?p=12874"},"modified":"2011-01-14T13:06:58","modified_gmt":"2011-01-14T19:06:58","slug":"ill-tell-you-what-i-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/14\/ill-tell-you-what-i-think\/","title":{"rendered":"I’ll tell you what I think"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a>I have been fascinated, not by Palin\u2019s politics, but by the intensity of anger, vitriol and words that arise when she is discussed. Yes, I suppose her ordinariness and her lack of sophistication play roles in this \u2014 but I can\u2019t say that I think many of our political discussions even broach the level of sophistication. For instance, how often does a genuine economic theory come into the discussion when we have political discussions in the media? Rarely. (If that often.)<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think this anger is male chauvinism either, though I suspect that plays a role too.<\/p>\n

Sure, it has to do with her political stances, but that alone can\u2019t explain it. So I want to give a stab at this and then I\u2019m going to poke Christians in the eye with this one.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t about my politics. I\u2019m not a supporter of Palin at all. But I want us to think about our how she is being treated in light of our theology, in light of the cross, and in light of what I will suggest is going on.<\/p>\n

I appeal to Rene Girard and his theories of mimetic desire, mimetic rivalry and scapegoating. A brief on each one:<\/p>\n

Humans desire objects, and let\u2019s say it is control when it comes to politics. We could call it power. We direct our desires at all sorts of objects here, but let\u2019s bundle it all up in the word control.<\/p>\n

Humans personify their desired objects so that a person, in this case Palin, becomes the Model of the desired object. She represents People \u2014 lots of people. People who are votes and power and control.<\/p>\n

We learn to desire objects and models through imitation of those who have walked before us, so there\u2019s nothing new about desiring control through the objectification of another person. So inherent is this mimesis that it characteristic of all of us.<\/p>\n

But groups, over time, develop out of their unfulfilled desires a mimetic\/desire rivalry and this rivalry leads to violence of various sorts, and in politics it is expressed in rhetorical debates that characterize all free speech societies. It gets ugly.<\/p>\n

So now here is the issue: when many people desire the same thing, in this case control, then the rivalry often finds a victim \u2014 a scapegoat \u2014 on which they can toss and inflict their fears, anger and desires. The victim\/Palin becomes the common enemy (of the left). That model becomes the scapegoat mechanism onto which the enemy casts its anger, and in our case verbal violence. This scapegoat mechanism is relieved when the model is no longer a threat, which is what the media did to Palin in the previous election \u2014 Tina Fey\u2019s sketches were only putting onto the screen what the media was doing. Trying to rid her of influence is what her opponents are presently doing.<\/p>\n

So I explain this anger against Palin as mimetic rivalry turned into a scapegoat, an irrational way-beyond-the-object scapegoat.<\/p>\n

Now hear this: I don\u2019t care about your politics and you may well not care about mine, but we are called to follow Jesus. Christians ought to be embarrassed by their actions in turning Palin into a scapegoat. Our responsibility is to follow the One who died as the Victim, the scapegoated victim, and he taught us \u2014 at the minimum \u2014 to love our enemies and not to scapegoat them. Evangelical progressives, too, ought to be embarrassed.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"