First off I would like to thank you very much for helping me out. I
first read A New Kind of Christian a few years ago at the time that I
was just ending a two year stint with a well known missionary
organization.
I see now that this organization was very non-missional,
and so was I when I was with them. I believed God to be of a certain
character but I felt I had to believe things about him that didn't
match his character, which creates a paradox that can't be lived with
long. I felt like I was losing my faith and thanks to you, I did lose
MY faith. It was a house of cards anyways. Since then I feel like I
have been being rebuilt with, what seems like, more sturdy material. I
can't wait for the third of the the Trilogy of A New Kind of Christian
to come out. Hurry up.
Anyways, on to my question. I stumbled across an author/thinker named
Rene Girard. I don't doubt that you would have heard of him, although
I have never met any other Christians who know about him. His theory
about mimesis and the scapegoat phenomenon really makes sense to me.
One of the implications of the theology that comes from his thinking is
that Jesus went to the cross not by God's demand but by our demand. I
know you have written about that kind of theory of the cross in The
Story We Find Ourselves In. One of your theories in there really seems
to fit with Rene Girard's theories. So my question is, what do you
think of Rene Girard's theories? Do they make any huge changes to the
way we live out our faith as Christians?
Answer: Actually, I haven’t read Rene Girard – but it sounds interesting. There is a lot of rethinking going on about atonement. “The Last Word…” engages the subject indirectly, but my friends Joel Green and Mark Baker are writing more specifically on the subject from an Evangelical perspective. Get their “Recovering the Scandal of the Cross” and stay tuned for their forthcoming book. Also, Alan Mann has an important new book coming out on the atonement – but I’m not sure of the title yet.