Faith and Sight

Rene Girard

It’s pretty rare that you find a new way of thinking that changes your entire perspective on life. I bet this type of thing only happens a few times, at most, to the average person.

Well, ladies and gents: Rene Girard is it. He will rock your world. He’s smart, savvy, and academically well regarded. He is best known, I believe, for his theories of mimetic violence and the function of a scapegoat in society. He is an anthropologist. He is my intellectual hero.

I confess: I started reading him when my twins were 2 years old. I really needed some insight on the mimetic violence in my sweet children. Sibling rivalry is nothing new, but with them being twins, it was all the worse. Icing on the cake is that they are both bright, stubborn, outspoken children, and so I was desperate for a fix. She wants what he wants, which is what she wants, which makes him want it even more… round and round we go… and all of a sudden: kabloom! We’ve got a double meltdown of epic coveting on our hands, usually over some random object that neither of them really cared much about. What is the mechanism behind this insanity, I wondered? And, not very far behind that thought was the inevitable wish… can I control it?

Simultaneously I stumbled upon Rene Girard at this guy’s blog, and it peaked my interest. (Note to the reader: this link is not an endorsement. Some of his ideas are dangerous. I wish I were kidding. Don’t worry about my hurting his feelings, trust me he doesn’t care. He probably likes being called dangerous, thinking it has a certain panache. But to give credit where credit is due, his brain is – figuratively, of course – the size of a prize-winning watermelon.)

But anyhoo, I love a good recommendation, and so I ordered this book. Then I ordered this book. I secretly like the second book because it makes Freud look like a simpleton. But I couldn’t get enough. More Rene Girard! Must have more. He was making sense of my world. I will tell you more in future posts. But most importantly: he made Jesus make more sense to me. And that is priceless.

If you’re looking for a more complete introduction, my good friend is a fan of the Rene Girard Reader. If you like to get a sampling, that’s the book for you. But if you just want to dive straight in, grab my favorite: I See Satan Fall Like Lightning. It will tell you lots of fascinating things about the mechanisms of violence and maybe teach you a little bit about the allure of false peace.