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God, Order, and Chaos
Rene Girard and the Apocalypse
Series: Paternoster Biblical Monographs
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
316 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 x 0.63 in
- Paperback
- 9781606086049
- Published: April 2009
$42.00 / £37.00
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The ideas of Rene Girard are having a profound effect on Christian theology. This book offers a critical introduction to his thought and then uses it to interpret the Book of Revelation. The result is a reading of extraordinary relevance for the contemporary world. Readers of the Apocalypse are often disturbed by the images of destruction in the book and are unsure why these are unleashed after the exaltation of Jesus. This study examines past approaches to these texts and uses Girard's theories to revive some old ideas and propose some new ones. Seen in this light the Apocalypse becomes the story of the ultimate vindication of the victim, a source of hope, and a resource that can be used both to encourage resistance to the destructive forces within culture, and to help the church and the poor to engage constructively with the issues of our day.
Stephen Finamore has been a lawyer, led a community development project in inner London, spent three years supporting rural development in the Andes, and served ten years as pastor of a local church. He holds a degree in law from the London School of Economics and an MA and DPhil in theology from Oxford, and is Principal of Bristol Baptist College. He is married to Rebecca and their two daughters are Debbie and Jenny.
"Steve Finamore offers us biblical exegesis toughed with the glow of imagination and passion. With thorough scholarship he enables us to enter the world of images in a difficult text, and to hear a word, which both disturbs our assumptions and brings hope for the victims and the marginalized in society. In a highly readable way, this excellent book weaves together a theology of salvation, biblical study and an original contribution of Girardian research; above all it achieves the aim of making us face the truths of violence and chaos in our world. It deserves to be read widely, and I believe it will be."
-Paul S. Fiddes is Professor of Systematic Theology, University of Oxford
"If the Apocalypse was a book for its times to enable what the Spirit was saying to late first century people, Finamore's reading of the Apocalypse, through the lens of Girard's theory, is an equivalent wake up call for a world addicted to violence and coercion in the pursuit of human flourishing and a plea to consider the 'better way' of the victim, the story of whose death, supposedly expedient for the wellbeing of the people, is recorded in the New Testament Gospels."
-Christopher Rowland is Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford
"In the Wake of heated debates surrounding the understanding of violence in various models of the atonement, Stephen Finamore offers an insightful analysis of the violent and chaotic plague sequences of the Book of Revelation. Through careful engagement with the biblical text, and creative engagement with the work of Rene Girard the enthroned 'lamb that was slaughtered' emerges as the decisive witness to the non-violent kingdom of God breaking into human history and offering an alternative to the cycles of violence which otherwise dominate human culture."
-Simon Woodman is Lecturer in the School of Religious and Theological Studies, Cardiff University, and Tutor in Biblical Studies at South Wales Baptist College, Cardiff