New Tom Gates blog: Quakers and the End of Scapegoating

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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