Table Of ContentMimesis and Atonement
Violence, Desire, and the Sacred
Series Editors:
Scott Cowdell, Chris Fleming, and Joel Hodge
Volumes in the series:
Vol. 1. Girard’s Mimetic Theory Across the Disciplines
edited by Scott Cowdell, Chris Fleming, and Joel Hodge
Vol. 2. René Girard and Sacrifice in Life, Love, and Literature
edited by Scott Cowdell, Chris Fleming, and Joel Hodge
Vol. 3. Mimesis, Movies, and Media
edited by Scott Cowdell, Chris Fleming, and Joel Hodge
Vol. 4. René Girard and Raymund Schwager: Correspondence 1974-1991
edited by Scott Cowdell, Chris Fleming, Joel Hodge, and
Mathias Moosbrugger
translated by Chris Fleming and Sheelah Treflé Hidden
Vol. 5. Mimesis and Atonement: René Girard and the Doctrine of Salvation
edited by Michael Kirwan and Sheelah Treflé Hidden
Mimesis and Atonement
René Girard and the Doctrine of Salvation
Edited by
Michael Kirwan and Sheelah Treflé Hidden
Bloomsbury Academic
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First published 2017
© Michael Kirwan, Sheelah Treflé Hidden and Contributors, 2017
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kirwan, Michael, editor.
Title: Mimesis and atonement: Rene Girard and the doctrine of salvation /
edited by Michael Kirwan and Sheelah Treflé Hidden.
Description: New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. | Series: Violence,
desire, and the sacred | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016025389 (print) | LCCN 2016038775 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781501325427 (hardcover: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501325434 (ePub) |
ISBN 9781501325441 (ePDF)
Subjects: LCSH: Atonement. | Girard, Renâe, 1923-2015.
Classification: LCC BT265.3 .M56 2016 (print) | LCC BT265.3 (ebook) | DDC
232/.3–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016025389
ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-2542-7
ePDF: 978-1-5013-2544-1
ePub: 978-1-5013-2543-4
Series: Violence, Desire, and the Sacred
Cover design: Catherine Wood
Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
To René Girard
vi
Contents
Contributors viii
Preface xii
Foreword, Rowan Williams xiii
1 Traversing Hostility: The sine qua non of Any Christian Talk
about Atonement James Alison 1
2 Jewish Atonement and the Book of Jonah: From Sacrifice to
Non-Violence Vanessa J Avery 17
3 Orthodox Debates in the Twentieth Century on the Question
of Atonement Antoine Arjakovsky 33
4 Wright, Wrong and Wrath: Apocalypse in Paul and in
Girard Stephen Finamore 47
5 Paul and Girard Agonistes: Against Theological
Violence Anthony Bartlett 71
6 Salvation through Forgiveness or through the Cross?
Raymund Schwager’s Dramatic Solution to a False
Alternative Nikolaus Wandinger 95
7 ‘Strategies of Grace’: Mimesis as Conversion in Girard and
in Theology Michael Kirwan 115
8 Violence Unveiled: Understanding Christianity and Politics
in Northern Ireland after René Girard’s Rereading of
Atonement Duncan Morrow 135
9 Sacrifice and Atonement: Strengthening the Trinitarian Aspects
of Mimetic Theory Arpad Szakolczai 153
Index 183
Contributors
James Alison is a Catholic theologian, priest and author who earned his
doctorate in theology from the Jesuit Faculty in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. He
has studied, lived and worked in Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and the United
States as well as his native England. A systematic theologian by training, James
has developed Jesus the Forgiving Victim, a programme of induction into the
Christian Faith for adults, following on from the insight into desire associated
with René Girard’s thought. He is the author of Knowing Jesus (London: SPCK,
1992; Springfield: Templegate, 1993); Raising Abel (New York: Crossroad, 1996;
London: SPCK, 2010); The Joy of Being Wrong (Crossroad, 1998); Faith Beyond
Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (London: DLT, 2001 and Crossroad,
2001), On Being Liked (DLT, 2003 and Crossroad, 2004); Undergoing God (DLT
and Continuum, 2006); and Broken Hearts and New Creations: Intimations of
a Great Reversal (DLT and Continuum, 2010).
Antoine Arjakovsky is a French historian and co-director of the Centre
for Research ‘Société, Liberté, Paix’ at the Collège des Bernardins in Paris.
He has worked for the French Department of Foreign Affairs, as director of
the French University College in Moscow, as deputy director of the French
Institute in Ukraine and as an education attaché in Kiev. In 2004, he created
and directed the Institute for Ecumenical Studies in the Catholic University
of Ukraine, and remains a member of its Administrative Council and its
senior fellow. He has published several works dedicated to the history of
Christian Orthodox thought and has taught in universities in Europe and
North America, such as the Academy Mohylin Kiev, the Lomonossov State
University in Moscow, the Catholic University in Louvain, the Centre Sèvres
and Notre Dame University. He is the author of Russie-Ukraine, de la guerre
à la paix? (Paris: Parole et Silence, 2014) and The Way, Religious Thinkers of
the Russian Emigration in Paris and Their Journal, 1925–1940 (Notre Dame
University Press, 2013).
Contributors ix
Vanessa J Avery is visiting assistant professor of religious studies at Webster
University, and holds degrees from the University of Exeter, Yale Divinity
School, King’s College London and McGill University. The focus of her
research is the problem of violence and its antidotes, as found mainly in
the Hebrew scriptural and rabbinic traditions. She is a member of various
interfaith dialogue groups and runs organizational and school programmes on
religion, conflict and peace. Prior to her appointment at Webster, she taught
as Adjunct Faculty in Religion at Sacred Heart University, while operating as
an organizational consultant on issues pertaining to religious, cultural and
international diversity.
Anthony Bartlett attended a seminary of a Roman Catholic religious order,
studying philosophy and theology at Heythrop College in London, and the
Lateran University, Italy, from 1965 to 1974. He resigned from the Catholic
priesthood in 1984 and worked as director of a homeless shelter in London.
In 1994, he relocated with his wife and children to Syracuse, New York, where
he studied at Syracuse University, Deptartment of Religion, gaining his PhD
in 1999. He subsequently taught at Bexley Hall Episcopal Seminary, Rochester,
and G.T.S. New York. In 2007, he co-founded Theology & Peace, an organization
dedicated to the theological and pastoral development of Mimetic Theory,
serving as board member and contributing theologian till 2013. He is the
author of Virtually Christian, How Christ Changes Human Meaning and Makes
Creation New (0-Books, 2011) and a recently published sci-fi novel, Pascale’s
Wager: Homelands of Heaven (Hopetime Press, 2014).
Stephen Finamore trained for ministry and read theology in Oxford. His
doctoral work is on the Book of Revelation. His interests include biblical
studies, christian doctrine, mission studies, ecclesiology and apocalyptic, and
he has made a particular study of the work of René Girard. Before becoming
principal of Bristol Baptist College, Stephen Finamore was minister of a
church in north-west Bristol. In the past he has been a lawyer, led a community
development project in inner London and worked for a rural development
project in the Andes of northern Peru. Steve maintains links with Peru,
especially with the Evangelical Seminary in Lima. He was involved with the
