Can Dance
11-18-2006, 06:39 PM
This really makes me want to go out and read Parenting for a Peaceful World :giggle
Facing the Myth of Redemptive Violence By Walter Wink
The belief that violence "saves" is so successful because it doesn't
seem to be mythic in the least. Violence simply appears to be the
nature of things. It's what works. It seems inevitable, the last and,
often, the first resort in conflicts. If a god is what you turn to
when all else fails, violence certainly functions as a god. What
people overlook, then, is the religious character of violence. It
demands from its devotees an absolute obedience- unto-death.
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. When my children were small, we let them log an
unconscionable amount of television, and I became fascinated with the
mythic structure of cartoons. This was in the 1960s, when the "death
of God" theologians were being feted on talk shows, and secular
humanity's tolerance for religious myth and mystery were touted as
having been exhausted.
I began to examine the structure of cartoons, and found the same
pattern repeated endlessly: an indestructible hero is doggedly opposed
to an irreformable and equally indestructible villain. Nothing can
kill the hero, though for the first three quarters of the comic strip
or TV show he (rarely she) suffers grievously and appears hopelessly
doomed, until miraculously, the hero breaks free, vanquishes the
villain, and restores order until the next episode. Nothing finally
destroys the villain or prevents his or her reappearance, whether the
villain is soundly trounced, jailed, drowned, or shot into outer space.
Read the full article:
Facing the Myth of Redemptive Violence By Walter Wink (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/cpt/article_060823wink.shtml)
Edited to comply with the board copyright protection guidelines (http://www.gentlechristianmothers.com/mb/index.php?topic=37.0).
Facing the Myth of Redemptive Violence By Walter Wink
The belief that violence "saves" is so successful because it doesn't
seem to be mythic in the least. Violence simply appears to be the
nature of things. It's what works. It seems inevitable, the last and,
often, the first resort in conflicts. If a god is what you turn to
when all else fails, violence certainly functions as a god. What
people overlook, then, is the religious character of violence. It
demands from its devotees an absolute obedience- unto-death.
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. When my children were small, we let them log an
unconscionable amount of television, and I became fascinated with the
mythic structure of cartoons. This was in the 1960s, when the "death
of God" theologians were being feted on talk shows, and secular
humanity's tolerance for religious myth and mystery were touted as
having been exhausted.
I began to examine the structure of cartoons, and found the same
pattern repeated endlessly: an indestructible hero is doggedly opposed
to an irreformable and equally indestructible villain. Nothing can
kill the hero, though for the first three quarters of the comic strip
or TV show he (rarely she) suffers grievously and appears hopelessly
doomed, until miraculously, the hero breaks free, vanquishes the
villain, and restores order until the next episode. Nothing finally
destroys the villain or prevents his or her reappearance, whether the
villain is soundly trounced, jailed, drowned, or shot into outer space.
Read the full article:
Facing the Myth of Redemptive Violence By Walter Wink (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/cpt/article_060823wink.shtml)
Edited to comply with the board copyright protection guidelines (http://www.gentlechristianmothers.com/mb/index.php?topic=37.0).