Customer Reviews

Revelation, the Religions, and Violence

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There is a great need among Girardian circles to come to terms with the problem of violence in non-Christian religion, specially after the attacks of Sept. 11th. Leo Lefebure attmpts to do this, but largely fails. The goal of this book is to analyze perspectives on violence in a multi-religious context. Lefebure claims he grabs on Girard's mimetic theory to do so. However, Girard's thought roughly covers 5 or 10% of the book. The book also has some basic problems in structure. Too much theoretic material a included, thus the ideas become disconnected from each other. The book jumps from Girard to Nicholas of Cusa to Buddhism without a smooth transition. Lefebure has an ambitiuos view; prior to this book, no one had attempted to extend Girard's thought to explore mimesis, sacrifice and revelation in a multi-religious context. But, because of its ambition, the book looses its central focus. Don't get me wrong, the book has some valuable information. I just had some very high expectations and felt dissapointed after reading it. A 'beached whale' would be good metaphor to describe it.

There is a great need among Girardian circles to come to terms with the problem of violence in non-Christian religion, specially after the attacks of Sept. 11th. Leo Lefebure attmpts to do this, but largely fails. The goal of this book is to analyze perspectives on violence in a multi-religious context. Lefebure claims he grabs on Girard's mimetic theory to do so. However, Girard's thought roughly covers 5 or 10% of the book. The book also has some basic problems in structure. Too much theoretic material a included, thus the ideas become disconnected from each other. The book jumps from Girard to Nicholas of Cusa to Buddhism without a smooth transition. Lefebure has an ambitiuos view; prior to this book, no one had attempted to extend Girard's thought to explore mimesis, sacrifice and revelation in a multi-religious context. But, because of its ambition, the book looses its central focus. Don't get me wrong, the book has some valuable information. I just had some very high expectations and felt dissapointed after reading it. A 'beached whale' would be good metaphor to describe it.

I was very disappointed with the book. After the initial excitement of the promise to "extend" Girard's understanding of mimetic violence to a multireligious context, I soon realized the limitations of the author's understanding (or rather misunderstanding) of Girard's most important thesis-the uniqueness of the Gospels and the Triumph of the Cross. Girard's understanding is therefore gutted by the author's approach.