November 4

René Girard and Nadia Anjuman

Author

David Barnhart
November 04, 2025

Pinhole photo from beneath the Sloss Furnace water tower. The camera was made from a cookie tin. 2009. Own photo.

Today marks the death, in 2015, of René Girard, philosopher and theologian whose critical and anthropological writing on violence has influenced modern Christian theology. His book Violence and the Sacred shaped the way I think about the crucifixion of Christ and the various expressions of violence in North American Christianity. 

Today also marks the murder, in 2005, of Afghan poet Nadia Anjuman by her husband. She was educated under the brutal Taliban tyranny from 1996 to 2001 in a “Sewing School.” This was a scheme to hide women’s education from the Taliban by holding classes ostensibly for sewing, but which included lectures and readings. After the Taliban was ousted, she continued her education, but her published writing and fame, which drew attention to women’s oppression, drew condemnation from her husband’s family and he killed her during an argument. 

Reflection: 

Nadia Anjuman’s poem, “A Voiceless Cry,” translated to English by Zuzanna Olszewska and Belgheis Alavi: 

The sound of green footsteps is the rain
They're coming in from the road, now
Thirsty souls and dusty skirts brought from the desert
Their breath burning, mirage-mingled
Mouths dry and caked with dust
They're coming in from the road, now
Tormented-bodied, girls brought up on pain
Joy departed from their faces
Hearts old and lined with cracks
No smile appears on the bleak oceans of their lips
Not a tear springs from the dry riverbeds of their eyes
O God!
Might I not know if their voiceless cries reach the clouds,
the vaulted heavens?
The sound of green footsteps is the rain.

René Girard wrote: 

“To escape responsibility for violence we imagine it is enough to pledge never to be the first to do violence. But no one ever sees himself as casting the first stone. Even the most violent persons believe that they are always reacting to a violence committed in the first instance by someone else.”

and

“Christ is the only man to overcome the barrier erected by Satan. He dies in order to avoid participating in the system of scapegoats, which is to say the satanic principle. After his resurrection, a bridge that did not exist before is established between God and the world; Christ gets a foothold in the world through his own death, and destroys Satan's ramparts. His death therefore converts satanic disorder into order and opens up a new path on which human beings may now travel. In other words, God resumes his place in the world, not because he has violated the autonomy of man and of Satan, but because Christ has resisted, triumphed over Satan's obstacle.”

Prayer: God-in-Christ, put to death the scapegoating systems that rule our world, the vilification of the Other, and the economic orders built on sustaining poverty and oppression. Give voice to those who have been unjustly killed to maintain these Satanic orders. Amen.