You're listening to the Allender Center podcast with Dr. Dan Allender.

This week, Dan invites us to consider how to emerge from scapegoating and the harm it causes.

By speaking the truth and blessing our enemies instead of continuing the violence,

we open ourselves to the healing goodness of God, who ultimately became a scapegoat on our behalf.

I was in good conversation with a friend, and we began to talk about my unique role.

And it was interesting to have somebody else reflect on how he sees me in various worlds.

And his phrase was, you know, inside of the school,

you're viewed as this arch, almost diabolic conservative. But outside sort of the walls of the

Seattle school, you said, you're viewed by many as this radical liberal.

And he said, and he actually used the word, you know, you end up being the object of

violence for both worlds.

And he was saying it with immense kindness and appreciation, like,

wow, that's great that you end up. And I said, all you're telling me is that I have the gift

to being scapegoated by multiple tribes. And he laughed and said, it's exactly true. So I know I tend to scapegoat certain

political orientations, certain religious orientations, certain forms of conservativism, certain forms

of liberalism. And yet, in doing that, my blaming, my projection, frankly, as I've tried to

underline, is much darker than that. It actually is almost a delight to hate, a delight

to hold another group or individual with a view that is so disparaging

and humiliating and denigrating that it gives me not just power, but it gives me relief

of so much internal chaos.

So what we're going to address today is the role of engaging,

being scapegoated, or, as I've tried to underline, we all are, to some degree,

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