Philadelphia-area Friend Tom Gates has started a blog. Tom’s a very grounded and thoughtful Friend and I’m glad to know we’ll be seeing more of his writings. From his intro:
Contemporary liberal Friends (Quakers), in common with other liberal denominations, have largely drifted away from the Bible, due in part to its seeming sanction of divine violence. Girard, by contrast, sees the overcoming of “sacred violence” as the central theme of 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. His insights into “the scapegoat mechanism” can also help us to understand the witness of early Friends, who functioned as “the scapegoat caste” in 17th century England.
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