Why Christianity is Different from Other Religions | Girard’s Apologetic

For Girard, Christianity is radically different from all other religions in one crucial aspect: it takes the side of the innocent victim and, in doing so, exposes the violence and deceit of worldly order. We will explore how this intuition of innocence begins to take root in the Hebrew bible and blossoms into a resounding declaration in the Crucifixion. Girard presents us with an anthropology of the Cross: a translation of Christian phenomena into this-worldly, humanistic language. Girard’s success in placing this world in the foreground, however, forces the other world and even God himself to retreat into the background. In Girard’s unorthodox Christianity, God’s absence is just as loud and jarring as humanity’s presence.

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Full transcript: https://open.substack.com/pub/johnath...

TIMESTAMPS
00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:36 The Myth Vaccine
00:08:56 Cain and Abel
00:14:19 Joseph and His Brothers
00:18:30 The Incompleteness of the Hebrew Bible
00:21:31 Completing the Message
00:26:51 The Crucifixion
00:30:18 Christ's Innocence
00:33:50 Christ's Truth
00:37:31 Christ's Love
00:41:28 An Anthropology of the Cross
00:42:31 Girard's Interpretation of Satan
00:44:57 Girard's Interpretation of the Christian Revelation
00:45:47 Girard's Interpretation of the Anti-Christ
00:49:05 Girard's Interpretation of the Kingdom of God
00:50:08 Girard's Interpretation of the Apocalypse
00:51:08 A Christian Dictionary
00:54:10 Girard's Unorthodoxy: The Sacrificial Reading
00:56:45 Girard's Unorthodoxy: God's Absence
01:03:17 Girard's Unorthodoxy: Historical Christianity
01:05:39 Girard's Unorthodoxy: Apocalyptic Ambivalence