The contribution of this book to the field of reconciliation is both theoretical and practical, recognizing that good theory guides effective practice and practice is the ground for compelling theory. Using a Girardian hermeneutic as a starting point, a new conceptual Gestalt emerges in these essays, one not fully integrated in a formal way but showing a clear understanding of some of the challenges and possibilities for dealing with the deep divisions, enmity, hatred, and other effects of violence. By situating discourse about reconciliation within the context of Girardian thought, it becomes clear that--like Peter who vowed he would never deny Jesus but ended up doing it three times--any of us is susceptible to the siren call of angry resentment and retaliation. It is with a profound awareness of the power of violence that the emergence of mimetic discourse around reconciliation takes on particular urgency.

Why do humans sacralise the causes for which they fight? Who will decipher for us the enigma of 'sacred violence'? Paul Gifford shows that the culture theorist and fundamental anthropologist Rene Girard has in fact decoded the obscurely 'foundational' complicity between violence and the sacred, showing why it is everybody's problem and the Problem of Everybody. Rene Girard's mimetic theory, especially his neglected writings on biblical texts, can be read as an anthropological argument continuous with Darwin, shedding formidable new light to a vast array of dark and knotted things: from the functioning of the world's oldest temple to today's terrorist violence, from the Cross of Christ to the Good Friday Agreement. Such insights illuminate superbly ('from below') the ways of creation, revelation, redemption - which is to say, ultimately, the Christian enterprise and vocation of Reconciliation. Here is a novel and exciting resource for scanning the hidden 'sacrificial' logic that still secretly shapes cultural, social, and political life today. Girard puts us ahead of the game in the key dialogues required if we are to avoid autogenerated apocalypses of human violence in the world of tomorrow.