Turning Toward the Victim: The Bible, Sacred Violence, and the End of Scapegoating in Quaker Perspective

Part primer on Rene Girard's groundbreaking mimetic theory, part Bible study (through the lens of mimetic theory), and part dialogue with early and contemporary Quakers, Turning Toward the Victim demonstrates how these three perspectives can mutually inform one another in unexpected ways. Contemporary liberal Friends (Quakers) have largely drifted away from the Bible, due in part to its seeming sanction of divine violence. Girard, by contrast, sees the themes of sacred violence and its overcoming as central to the biblical witness, and so can provide the means by which Quakers and others might reengage with the Scriptures. Girard's claim that the biblical God has "nothing to do with violence" will resonate with Friends traditional commitment to nonviolence and peacemaking. Girard's insights into "the scapegoat mechanism" can also help us to understand the witness of early Friends, who functioned as "the scapegoat caste" in seventeenth century England. Using the traditional Quaker framework of "conviction, convincement, and conversion," Thomas Gates explores the relevance of these concepts for Friends and other Christians today.