1

Challenges and Contributions of René

Girard on Reformed Atonement Theology
Jean Francesco A. L. Gomes

Perhaps there is no more significant judgment being posed by current scholarship than a
theory of atonement that tries to make sense of the cross in terms that might legitimize violence.1
Scholars worry that the image of sacrifice validates violence and victim mentality.2 Alert to such
questions, René Girard may be acknowledged as the theorist who thoroughly analyzed the concept
of sacrifice and violence in our time.3 In this paper, I investigate if Girard’s scapegoating theory
challenges the Reformed theological tradition.4 I also examine if Girard’s theory contributes to
enhancing the theological understanding of the same tradition. To answer those questions, I argue
first that Girard’s atonement theory is at odds with the Reformed confessional view for various
reasons. Nevertheless, I hold that Girard’s perspective enriches that tradition with significant
exegetical, ethical, and missiological insights.
1
Feminist theologians have been at the forefront of the critique of sacrifice. They
believe that the whole notion of sacrifice is misguided and dangerous to marginal people,
especially women and children. See Joanne Carlson Brown and Rebecca Parker, “For God So
Loved the World?” in Christianity, Patriarchy, and Abuse: A Feminist Critique, ed. J. C.
Brown and C. R. Bohn (New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1989), 9-27; J. C. Brown, “Divine
Child Abuse?” Daughters of Sarah 18 (Summer 1992): 24-28. For a response to her, see
Margo G. Houts, “Atonement and Abuse: An Alternate View,” Daughters of Sarah 18
(Summer 1992): 29–32.
2
Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads (New York: Crossroad,
1995); Raymund Schwager, Must there be Scapegoats? Violence and Redemption in the Bible
(San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989); Anthony W. Barlett, Cross Purposes: The Violent
Grammar of Christian Atonement (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2001), 2-10.
3
For a more nuanced view of his work, see René Girard, The Scapegoat (Baltimore:
John Hopkins University Press, 1984); Job: the Victim of His People (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 1987); The Girard Reader, edited by James G. Williams (New York:
Crossroad, 1996); I See Satan Fall Like a Lightning (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001). See
also an introduction to his thoughts in Gerard Loughlin, “René Girard: Introduction,” in The
Postmodern God: A Theological Reader, ed. Graham Ward (Oxford: Backwell, 1997); and in
Adam J. Johnson, “René Girard,” in T&T Clark Companion to Atonement, ed. Adam J.
Johnson (New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), 505–8.
4
This study is focused on the Reformed tenets expressed in the Heidelberg Catechism,
in Our Faith: Ecumenical Creeds, Reformed Confessions, and Other Resources (Grand
Rapids, MI: Faith Alive Christian Resources, 2013), 69-117 (HC).
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I will first assess Girard’s ideas on the atonement and discuss how they challenge some
core values of Reformed atonement theology, such as satisfaction for sin, substitutionary sacrifice,
and the justice and wrath of God. Then, I will suggest Girard has at least three contributions that
might help us enhance our view of the atonement, namely, his anthropological exegesis of the
Gospels, the missiological implications of his theory, and his ethics of peace. The purpose of this
paper is to show that Reformed theologians can learn from Girard’s approach in many ways while
maintaining the same conclusions.

Girard’s Challenges to Reformed Atonement Theology

To grasp Girard’s atonement theory, we first need to understand his views on the meaning
of violence and its origin. Then, having established the anthropological backdrop of his argument,
we can move forward and investigate how his interpretation of the Scriptures affects his theory,
mainly how Girard sees the solution to the problem of violence in the cross of Christ.

Girard’s Atonement Theory

The Origin and Meaning of Violence

It is worth mentioning from the beginning that Girard’s contributions come from an
anthropologist and not from a professional theologian.5 This distinction is vital because when we
ask, “What is the chief identifying characteristic of human beings?” Instead of an answer dealing
with soul and body, we should presume that Girard will afford us his phenomenological studies on
human society through an anthropological lens. In doing so, Girard’s groundbreaking thesis is that
the most distinctive mark of human beings is mimetic desire.6 What does he mean by mimetic
desire? Assuming an evolutionary paradigm, Girard argues that human desire is inherently
mimetic,7 for we want what our neighbor possesses and we desire what our neighbor desires. This

5
Girard admits, “Until now the order of discovery for me has been mimetic desire,
archaic religion and culture, and finally the Christian text. It should be possible, especially for
a Christian scholar, to reverse this order and analyze myth and culture from the standpoint of
the Gospels.” Girard, Reader, 264.
6
For an introduction to the basics of Girard’s theory, see Girard, I See Satan Fall, ix-
xxiv; and Girard, Reader, 9-29. Girard mentions that “the anthropological revelation is not
prejudicial to the theological revelation or in competition with it. It is inseparable from it.
This union of the two is demanded by the dogma of the Incarnation, the mystery of the double
nature of Jesus Christ, divine and human.” Anthropology is significant, Girard believes,
because “the mimetic reading permits a better realization of this union. The anthropological
widening of the Incarnation in no way eclipses theology; it shows its relevance by putting the
abstract idea of original sin into more concrete form.” Girard, I See Satan Fall, 190.
7
Girard does not comment on the existence of mimetic desire before the Fall, but only
implies that it is innate in the human being. Accordingly, instead of tracing the origin of
mimetic desire from the sin of Adam and Eve, Girard points as its origin the conflict between
Cain and Abel. See Girard, I See Satan Fall, 83. Hans Boersma argues that “Girard fails to
acknowledge that we often desire certain objects because of their inherent value rather than
simply because other models desire them.” He continues, “A theology of creation that affirms
its inherent goodness will insist that desire can function in wholesome ways and stems not
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mimetic cycle then leads us to see our neighbors as models of desire.

What does mimetic desire have to do with violence? When our desire to be like a model is
strong enough, we will want to have what the model has or be what the model is. Taking this to
the extreme, we become rivals of our models. This rivalry soon leads to competition, evolves to
conflict, and eventually to violence. Therefore, Girard accepts as true that human mimetic rivalry
lies at the heart of violence.8
Girard traces the pattern of imitation, competition, and resulting violence “from Romulus
and Remus at the founding of Rome to Cain and Abel, and from Jacob and Esau to tribal myth.”9
Due to an accumulation of all sorts of violence, the entire community is threatened. Societies,
then, need to find some way to survive and to secure a measure of peace, and they do it, according
to Girard, through the scapegoat mechanism.10 By coining this concept, Girard suggests that
“suddenly the opposition of everyone else is replaced by the opposition of all against one.”11 Just
as mutual conflict reaches the brink of crisis, we avoid crisis by ganging up on certain individuals,
blaming all the problems on them, and killing them or driving them out of the community.12

The Bible and Violence

Girard’s understanding of the atonement is also unique because of his anthropological
reading of Scripture, particularly his view that the Bible unmasks mimetic violence. Girard sees
that both myths and the biblical narrative recount the same kind of mimetic crisis which is solved
by the same type of sacred violence. However, because of the innovative way in which the Bible
interprets violent rituals, it should not be seen as a mythical narrative, but as the truth that
demythologizes any endorsement for the use of violence in history.13
Why is the Bible so unique to Girard? The Bible affirms the innocence of scapegoats.
Girard explains, “It is the difference between a world where arbitrary violence triumphs without
being recognized and a world where this same violence is identified, denounced, and finally
forgiven.”14 The story of Joseph condemns the general tendency of myths to justify collective
violence;15 the Psalms, instead of accepting violence, give voice to those who are victims of it;16
Job is the character who not only resists the totalitarian contagion of violence but promotes the
view that God is the deity of the victims, not of the persecutors.17 Accordingly, Girard discards

first of all imitation but from the positive value of the created order.” Hans Boersma,
Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 150.
8
Girard, The Scapegoat, 130; Girard, I See Satan Fall, 19-31; Girard, Reader, 9-19.
9
William Placher, “Christ Takes Our Place: Rethinking Atonement,” Interpretation,
53, 1 (1999): 7.
10
René Girard, Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1977), 2-18;
See also Girard, I See Satan Fall, 19-31.
11
René Girard, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1987), 24.
12
Placher, “Christ Takes Our Place,” 8.
13
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 105, 109, 112-13, 125, 132, 136.
14
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 114.
15
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 113.
16
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 116.
17
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 117.
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that God has any involvement with violence, but rather that Satan is behind the idea that good
violence is the answer to bad violence.18 For Girard, the biblical God is one who reproves human
beings for their violence and has compassion for their victims.19

Christ and Violence

If God rejects any system of validation of violence, how do we explain the meaning of
Christ’s cross? Girard believes that the gospel accounts of Jesus’ death need to be interpreted in
terms of the scapegoat mechanism enacted in certain primitive cultures. Nonetheless, Girard
argues that the Gospels expose this mechanism, for the death of Christ reached the particular goal
of canceling and liberating humans definitively from the scapegoat mechanism orchestrated by
Satan since the beginning of human history.20 Putting it another way, the scapegoat mechanism
presented in the Gospels serves as a witness “to the God who reveals himself to be the arch-
scapegoat in order to liberate humankind.”21
Although Girard’s biblical hermeneutics has limitations and is not always clear,22 he sees
in the Old Testament a prophetic denunciation against the mechanism of sacred violence, but only
as a rudimentary prefiguration, not as one complete or perfect. The Gospels, however, represent in
totality the problem and its solution in the person of Jesus Christ.23 Girard argues that Jesus died
on the cross to save us from the lies narrated by the mythical religions and from the violent
servitude system Satan tried to legitimize. Positively, the cross enables the truth to triumph,
restores all the victims of the single victim mechanism, and grants Christianity the right of
organizing the world.24
How did Christ obtain this victory? Girard considers that Christ does not achieve this
victory through violence, but rather by renouncing it altogether. Jesus’ death serves to liberate
humans from the need for violence as a solution to human rivalry.25 Christ’s victory has nothing to
do with the military triumph of Rome; instead of inflicting violence on others, Christ submits to
it.26 Girard says: “God himself accepts the role of the victim of the crowd so that he can save us
all. This God who becomes a victim is not another mythic god but the one God, infinitely good, of
the Old Testament.”27 Salvation comes through a nonsacrificial and nonviolent event because the
God of Jesus Christ is not a violent God who practices retributive justice, but one whose demand
is for peace rather than sacrifice.

18
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 124-32.
19
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 119.
20
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 138.
21
James Williams, “Interview with René Girard: Comments on Christianity,
Scapegoating, and Sacrifice,” Religion 27 (1997): 250.
22
Earlier in his 1979 essay on “Mimesis and Violence,” Girard acknowledges that in
some parts of the Bible God is pictured as responsible for violence. However, “The same
ambiguity or even contradiction remains in Christian theology but not in the text of the
Gospels, which replaces the violent God of the past with a nonviolent one whose demand is
for nonviolence rather than sacrifice.” Cf. Girard, Reader, 18.
23
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 130.
24
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 138-39.
25
Williams, “Interview with René Girard,” 251.
26
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 140.
27
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 130.
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Although Girard insists that nothing in the Gospels or writings of Paul permits us to think
of Christ as a punitive sacrifice,28 he argues that the letter to the Hebrews began the tragic wrong
turn of Christian theology, for it falls back into thinking that it was somehow a good thing that
Christ died and that the sacrifice of one victim really can redeem others. As a result, Girard thinks
that Christians have continued the society in which social unity is based on finding scapegoats.29
By taking this approach, Girard is in sharp contrast to the Anselmian tradition that preserves the
notion of God giving his Son as a sacrifice for sins to satisfy his justice.30 Girard believes that God
simply forgives without demanding satisfaction.31
Why was Christ’s death necessary? For Girard, the world is incapable of freeing itself
from the cycle of rivalry and violence. He points out that Jesus’ suffering on the cross is the price
he is “willing to pay in order to offer humanity this true representation of human origins that holds
it prisoner.”32 For Girard, the shameful suffering of Christ exposes the violent origins of our
culture. Relying on Paul’s image of Christ’s victory as a “public spectacle,” Girard explains, “The
powers are not put on display because they are defeated, but they are defeated because they are put
on display.”33 For that reason, the victory of Christ is the “fall of Satan.”
Girard does not explain in detail why Jesus as the God-Man is the only one able to stop the
scapegoat mechanism. He basically argues that humans are so deeply involved in cycles of
violence and myths of scapegoats that Jesus’ act of renunciation of violence on the cross could
come only from God. Girard declares, “To say that Jesus dies, not as a sacrifice, but in order that
there be no more sacrifices, is to recognize in him the Word of God.”34 Also, Girard seems to
imply that only God can subject himself to violence, overcome it, and enable a new nonviolent
way of life.35

Girard’s Atonement Features

Girard’s atonement view can be described as a variant of the moral-influence and Christus

28
Girard, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, 182, 210. Later on in his
life, Girard changed his mind and become more open to notions of sacrifice. He says, “I now
accept calling this ‘sacrifice’ in a special sense. Because one person did it, God the Father
pardons all, in effect. I had avoided the word ‘scapegoat’ for Jesus, but now I agree with
Raymund Schwager that he is scapegoat for all – except now in reverse fashion, for
theologically considered the initiative comes from God rather than simply from the human
beings in their scapegoat mechanism.” Girard, Reader, 280. Despite this positive
development, Girard only acknowledges Jesus’ death as a self-sacrificial act, rejecting any
punitive or propitiatory view of the cross demanded by God’s justice or wrath.
29
Girard, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, 181, 225.
30
Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross, 148.
31
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 150.
32
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 143.
33
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 143.
34
Girard, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, 210.
35
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 130-31. Girard’s followers argue that Jesus’ death was
necessary because there was no other way to penetrate the hard hearts of those who rejected
his kingdom preaching. See Schwager, Must there be Scapegoats? 206.
 6

Victor theories.36 On the one hand, Girard’s theory fits well in the moral-influence model given its
revelatory character. He tends to see human sin as ignorance and thereby describes salvation as
knowledge of the truth and imitation of Christ’s nonviolent way of life.37 Nevertheless, Girard’s
atonement theory differs from Abelard as long as Girard focuses on the unmasking of violence
rather than the atonement as the disclosure of God’s love. Still, Girard diverges from liberals
because he holds the divinity of Christ and adopts a religious exclusivity stance. For Girard, only
Christianity escapes the mimetic violence of other world religions.38
On the other hand, the Girardian theory can also be framed in the Christus Victor model
because it underscores Christ’s death as a triumph over Satan and Christ’s resurrection as the final
component that exposes and overthrows the violent contagion in the world. However, Girard
modifies the Christus Victor model arguing for God’s nonviolent victory and seeing Satan as a
violent contagion process instead of “someone who really exists.”39
Unlike the other models above, Girard’s theory is virtually incompatible with the
satisfaction theory articulated by Anselm,40 espoused by Thomas Aquinas41 and widely accepted
in the Reformed tradition.42 For Girard, God does not need to be reconciled, but rather people
need to become aware of their mimetic violence and so be reconciled to God and to one another.43
In his words: “The suffering and death of the Son, the Word, are inevitable because of the inability
of the world to receive God or his Son, not because God’s justice demands violence or the Son
relishes the prospect of a horrible execution.” Girard continues, “There is nothing in the Gospels
to suggest that the death of Jesus is a sacrifice, whatever definition (expiation, substitution, etc.)
we may give for that sacrifice.”44

Girard’s Dead-Ends with the Reformed Tradition45

36
Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross, 134, 146, 147; Ted Peters,
“Atonement and the Final Scapegoat,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 19 (1992): 178.
37
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 126; Girard, The Scapegoat, 111.
38
Cf. Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross, 142.
39
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 45.
40
Anselm of Canterbury, The Major Works, ed. Brian Davies and G. R. Evans. Oxford
World’s Classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 260-356.
41
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican
Province. Rev. ed. 3 vols (New York: Benziger, 1948, reprint, 5 vols., Westminster, MD:
Christian Classics, [1981]), part III, QQ. 46-50.
42
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford
Lewis Battles. Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), II, xii-xvii.
43
Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross, 148.
44
Girard, Reader, 178.
45
For theological analysis and evaluation of Girard’s atonement theory, see Placher,
“Christ Takes Our Place,” 7-20; Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross, 133-51;
Richard Mouw, “Violence and the Atonement,” in Kenneth R. Chase and Alan Jacobs, Must
Christianity Be Violent? Reflections on History, Practice, and Theology (Grand Rapids, MI:
Brazos Press, 2003), 159-71; Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “The Atonement in Postmodernity: Guilt,
Goats and Gifts,” in The Glory of the Atonement: Biblical, Theological & Practical
Perspectives, ed. Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic,
2004), 367–404.
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In what topics does Girard’s view clash with the Reformed confessional standpoint? I
suggest that Girard’s view is at odds with Reformed atonement theory in at least three crucial
claims: 1) God’s justice demands that sin be punished; 2) God is terribly angry with sin; and 3)
Christ’s death is a propitiatory sacrifice to restore sinners. In contrast, Girard believes that Satan
alone, instead of God, is behind the idea of satisfaction for sin; denies the notion of a furious God
that needs to be placated, supposing that God can forgive sinners without satisfaction or payments
in return; and rejects any notion that depicts God as requiring sacrifice for sin, given that sacrifice
imagery validates violence and encourages scapegoating mentality.

The Heidelberg Catechism

The language of the Heidelberg Catechism is pervaded by the notion of a righteous God
who requires the punishment of sinners. In question 10 the instructor asks, “Does God permit such
disobedience and rebellion to go unpunished? Then comes the answer, “Certainly not.” It
continues, “As a just judge, God will punish them both now and in eternity, having declared:
‘Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the
law.’”46 In the next question, the catechist asks, “But isn’t God also merciful?” Here it is the reply:
“God is certainly merciful, but also just. God’s justice demands that sin, committed against his
supreme majesty, be punished with the supreme penalty – eternal punishment of body and soul.”47
In the Reformed tradition, therefore, divine justice is not at variance with his mercy. Besides, both
the need for punishment of human sin and for divine wrath is justified because God’s law has been
broken. God is portrayed as a just judge who “requires that his justice be satisfied.”48
The Heidelberg Catechism also speaks about God’s reaction to sin in terms of terrible
anger: “God is terribly angry with the sin we are born with as well as the sins we personally
commit.”49 To satisfy God’s justice, sin must be paid in full, “either by ourselves or by another.”50
The student soon realizes that we cannot make this payment by ourselves but rather only increase
our debt every day, for “no mere creature can bear the weight of God’s eternal wrath against sin
and deliver others from it.”51
Then, in an Anselmian style, the catechism explores the necessity of an incarnate
mediator52 who is both human, for God’s justice demands that human nature must pay for sin,53
and God so that the mediator, by the power of his divinity, “might bear the weight of God’s wrath
in his humanity and earn for us and restore to us righteousness and life.”54 This true God and at the
same time righteous man is “our Lord Jesus Christ, who was given to us to completely deliver us
and makes us right with God.”55
The catechism also makes clear in question 37 that Jesus suffered on the cross not only the

46
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 4, Q. 10.
47
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 4, Q. 11.
48
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 5, Q. 12
49
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 4, Q. 10.
50
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 5, Q. 12.
51
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 5, Q. 14.
52
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 5, Q. 15.
53
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 6, Q. 16.
54
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 6, Q. 17.
55
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 6, Q. 18.
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pain imposed on him by humans but that “Christ sustained in body and soul the wrath of God
against the sin of the whole human race.”56 This truth is then connected to the language of
sacrifice employed by the catechism, “by his suffering as the only atoning sacrifice, he might
deliver us, body and soul, from eternal condemnation.”57 The catechism still is specific enough to
ask whether the crucifixion had any specific purpose as a sacrifice. The answer is, “Yes. By this I
am convinced that he shouldered the curse which lay on me, since death by crucifixion was cursed
by God.”58 I agree with Placher when he concludes that in the face of sin, love can take the form
of wrath. He says, “The pain that God endures on the cross is the price love pays for taking sin
seriously but refusing to stop loving. In the face of sin, love becomes a painful wrath, but in Christ
God takes that wrath on God’s own self.”59
The catechism again questions the need for Christ to have died. The reply states, “Because
God’s justice and truth require it: nothing else could pay for our sins except the death of the Son
of God.”60 The sacrificial language remains present in the benefits that the believer enjoys from
Christ’s work: “What further benefit do we receive from Christ’s sacrifice and death on the cross?
By Christ’s power our old selves are crucified, put to death, and buried with him, so that the evil
desires of the flesh may no longer rule us, but that instead we may offer ourselves as a sacrifice of
gratitude to him.”61
The Heidelberg Catechism also employs the sacrifice language in defining the sacraments.
Question 66 asks, “What are sacraments?” The reply is, “Sacraments are visible, holy signs and
seals. They were instituted by God so that by our use of them he might make us understand more
clearly the promise of the gospel, and seal that promise. And this is God’s gospel promise: to grant
us forgiveness of sins and eternal life by grace because of Christ’s one sacrifice accomplished on
the cross.”62 Holy baptism reminds and assures us that Christ’s one sacrifice on the cross “washes
away the dirt from the body, so certainly his blood and his Spirit wash away my soul’s impurity,
that is, all my sins.”63 The catechism reiterates that “to be washed with Christ’s blood means that
God, by grace, has forgiven our sins because of Christ’s blood poured out for us in his sacrifice on

56
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 15, Q. 37.
57
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 15, Q. 37.
58
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 15, Q. 39.
59
Placher, “Christ Takes Our Place,” 17. See also the fine article by Eric T. Yang and
Stephen T. Davis, “Atonement and the Wrath of God,” in Oliver D. Crisp and Fred Sanders,
Locating Atonement: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
2015), 154-167.
60
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 16, Q. 40. John Stott warns us against adopting any
picture of the atonement in which the Son is a victim who stands over against a Father who is
in turn “a pitiless ogre whose wrath has to be assuaged.” Stott says, “Both God and Christ
were subjects not objects, taking the initiative together to save sinners. Whatever happened on
the cross in terms of ‘God-forsakenness’ was voluntarily accepted by both in the same holy
love which made atonement necessary.” While the words “satisfaction” and “substitution”
must never “in any circumstances be given up,” Stott contends, we must also be very clear
that the biblical gospel of atonement is of “God satisfying himself by substituting himself for
us.” John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (IVP Press, 1986), pp. 150-51, 159-60.
61
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 16, Q. 43.
62
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 25, Q. 66.
63
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 26, Q. 69.
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the cross.”64 Similarly, the holy supper reminds and assures us that we share in Christ’s one
sacrifice on the cross, the nourishment and refreshment of our souls for all eternity.65
For the above reasons, it is clear that Girard’s atonement theory conflicts with Reformed
tradition at the heart of its definition of the gospel. In not taking into account God’s justice,
Girard’s biblical interpretation is compromised by his anthropological theory that all violence is
demonic by definition. If all violence is satanic, God cannot demand the punishment of his Son to
bring peace to the world. In Christ’s self-sacrificial act of renunciation of violence, then, God only
unmasks all sorts of violent cycles present in the world. Therefore, Girard’s ontological view of
violence turns out to be his hermeneutical key to criticizing all Christian theology that still
maintains or attempts to justify the punitive sacrificial language of Christ’s death – whether
coming from the Christian tradition or from Scripture.

Reformed Scholars and Violence66

Along with the classic tradition of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Calvin, recent
Reformed theologians see serious problems in defining violence as something always demonic or
inherently negative. Biblical scholars have shown that the divine-warrior theme is pervasive in
both the Old and New Testament.67 God is the warrior who fights on behalf of his people Israel
and also fights in judgment against Israel. The Old Testament period ends as Israel's prophets look
to the future and proclaim the advent of a powerful divine warrior. In the New Testament, the
Gospels and letters reflect Christ’s earthly ministry as the work of a conqueror. The church also
awaits the return of the divine warrior who will judge the spiritual and human enemies of God in
the Revelation of John.68 For these reasons, scholars argue that not all violence is necessarily to be
condemned, for the image of God the Warrior and the hope for an apocalyptic judgment have
often given hope to the oppressed.69
Ethicists also defend the traditional view of the church that violence is permissible only
within certain clearly defined moral limits.70 Richard Mouw suggests then that the violence
portrayed in the atonement fits within the moral limits that allow us to speak of proper use of
violence.71 In doing so, Mouw is countering the feminist claims that evangelical views about the

64
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 26, Q. 70.
65
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 28, Q. 75.
66
For Reformed views on justice and violence, see Nicholas Wolterstorff, Until
Justice and Peace Embrace: The Kuyper Lectures for 1981 Delivered at the Free University
of Amsterdam (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983); The same author has recently published
two books on justice, Journey Toward Justice: Personal Encounters in the Global South
(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013); Justice in Love (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
2011). See also the Christian Reformed Church in North America study on war and peace,
accessed on May 3: https://www.crcna.org/sites/default/files/2006_warandpeace.pdf.
67
Tremper Longman III and Daniel G. Reid, God Is Warrior. Studies in Old
Testament Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), 16-19.
68
Longman III and Reid, God Is Warrior, 17-8.
69
John J. Collins, “The Bible and the Legitimation of Violence,” Reflections 91, no. 1
(2004): 5.
70
Mouw, “Violence and the Atonement,” 163-64; Oliver O’Donovan, The Just War
Revisited (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 2-18.
71
Mouw, “Violence and the Atonement,” 165.
 10

atonement as such promote violence and abuse. For instance, Mouw argues in sending Jesus to the
cross, “God is engaging in a ‘last resort’ remedy for the ravages of human depravity; the
punishment is proportionate to the end being sought.” He continues, “God is not being carried
away by the kinds of illicit passions against which Calvin warns. There seems to be nothing here,
then, that would ‘promote’ the kind of gratuitous abusive behavior that is associated with, for
example, domestic violence.”72
Oliver O’Donovan remarks that God’s peace is the original ontological truth of creation.
As Christians, then, “We must deny the skeptical proposition that competition and what
metaphysicians call ‘difference’ are the fundamental realities of the universe.”73 O’Donovan also
highlights two propositions at stake in the Christian understanding of violence. Firstly, we must
affirm that God’s peace is the goal of history. “We must deny the supposed cultural value of war,
its heroic glorification as an advancement of civilization,” O’Donovan points out. For him, “War
serves the ends of history only as evil serves good, and the power to bring good out of evil belongs
to God alone.”74 Secondly, O’Donovan notes that God’s peace is a practical demand laid upon
Christians. In his view, “We must deny any ‘right’ to the pursuit of war, any claim on the part of a
people that it may sacrifice its neighbors in the cause of its survival or prosperity. For the Gospel
demands that we renounce goods that can only be won at the cost of our neighbors’ good.”75
Boersma also understands violence within the framework of creation, fall, redemption, and
consummation and thereby acknowledges that some degree of divine violence is an unavoidable
part of bringing the sinful world into an eschatological state of pure hospitality.76 He explains that
under historical conditions “it is impossible to extend acts of hospitality without at the same time
being involved in some kind of violence.” Boersma explains that in Jesus Christ, “God steps into a
world that is already beset by violence, injustice, and inhospitality.” He also remarks that even
though God aims for perfect justice and pure hospitality in this world, such a situation will be
realized only eschatologically, when heaven and earth will be reunited. In the meantime, Boersma
ends his argument, “incarnation and crucifixion mean getting involved and getting ‘messed up’ in
the quirks and quarks of a thoroughly inhospitable situation.”77

72
Mouw, “Violence and the Atonement,” 165.
73
O’Donovan, The Just War Revisited, 2.
74
O’Donovan, The Just War Revisited, 2.
75
O’Donovan, The Just War Revisited, 2-3.
76
Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross, 36-43. See also Miroslav Volf,
Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation
(Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1996), 223; Miroslav Volf, “Christianity and Violence,”
Reflections 91, no. 1 (2004): 16-22.
77
Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross, 36-37. Volf also argues, “Absolute
hospitality would in no way amount to absence of violence. To the contrary, it would
enthrone violence precisely under the guise of non-violence because it would leave the
violators unchanged and the consequences of violence unremedied. Hospitality can be
absolute only once the world has been made into a world of love in which each person would
be hospitable to all. In the world of injustice, deception, and violence, hospitality can be only
conditional—even if the will to hospitality and the offer of hospitality remain unconditional.”
Therefore, he also believes that the transformation of the world of violence into a world of
love cannot take place by means of absolute hospitality. “It takes radical change, and not just
 11

In short, the Girardian theory collapses the central aspects of the Reformed concept of the
atonement. This does not mean, however, that Girard’s ideas about mimetic desire, the uniqueness
of the Bible, or even Christ’s nonviolent life cannot contribute to enriching our perspective on
God's reconciliatory work. In the next section, I will analyze to what extent Girard’s contributions
can be appropriated by the Reformed tradition.

Girard’s Contributions to the Reformed Tradition

Girard’s anthropological exegesis of the Gospels, the missiological implications of his

theory, and his ethics of peace cannot be overlooked by Reformed thinkers. Although Girard
explicitly rejects any notion of satisfaction,78 he contributes to the Christus Victor and moral-
influence models of atonement theory. And because the Reformed view of the atonement also
encompasses the victory and exemplary models,79 Girard’s contributions to the Reformed position
are given precisely when he refines such models.80 The Heidelberg Catechism briefly prescribes
that the atonement must lead Christians to crucify their sinful nature with their desires and to live
their lives for God in manifest gratitude.81 To enhance our comprehension concerning the
implications of reconciliation, I will suggest in this section that Girard’s atonement theory offers
us useful insights on Christian witness, ethics, and engagement in social issues.

an act of indiscriminate acceptance, for the world to be made into a world of love,” Volf
contends. Volf, “Christianity and Violence,” 19-20.
78
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 150. “Medieval and modern theories of redemption all look
in the direction of God for the causes of the Crucifixion: God’s honor, God’s justice, even
God’s anger, must be satisfied. These theories don’t succeed because they don’t seriously
look in the direction where the answer must lie: sinful humanity, human relations, mimetic
contagion, which is the same thing as Satan.”
79
Calvin, for example, treats the atonement in multiple ways: 1. He combines the
Irenaeus view of recapitulation with Anselm’s satisfaction theory (Institutes, II. xvi. 3); 2.
Calvin also calls the cross Christ’s “triumphal chariot” where he has vanquished the Devil by
removing his power of accusation. Calvin also notes the importance of resurrection for
securing Christ’s victory over death and the powers of evil (Institutes, II. xvi. 13); Calvin had
a strong place for Christ setting an example for believers to follow. Christ’s costly suffering
does not exclude us from the cost of discipleship (Institutes, III. vii).
80
“There is no basis for the caricature that the Reformers focused exclusively on
sacrifice,” writes Michael Horton. He argues that “the dichotomy between Christus Victor and
the Anselmian view is unhelpful on both historical and theological-exegetical grounds.”
Horton suggests an integrated interpretation of Christ’s work that he called “Vicarious
Victor.” He says, “Like forensic justification, substitution is not the whole story, but without
it the other chapters are left blank.” Horton groups the cluster of commercial and legal terms
under the rubric Agnus Dei, while refers to the military accent of Scripture as Christus Victor.
Michael Horton, Justification. New Studies in Dogmatics, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan, 2018), 197-200.
81
Heidelberg Catechism, LD 16, Q. 43.
 12

Atonement and Christian Witness

As an anthropologist, Girard makes a relevant contribution linking his anthropology of the

cross to the missionary encounter of the Christian church with the mythological religions. Girard
explains that the preaching of the Gospel must produce conversion as a demystifying experience.82
For instance, when asked if he is favorable to converting non-Christians to Christianity, Girard
responds, “Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life,’ and he told his disciples to go into the
world and make converts. If we give that up, are we still Christian?” He continues, “The idea that
if we respect other religions more than our own and act only according to political correctness
peace will break out all over the world is fantasy and delusion.” For this reason, Girard argues that
“Christians should certainly enjoy the freedom to spread their faith as much as the other
religions.”83
Girard believes that knowing the saving significance of Christ’s death has the power to
change the world. He defends that the spread of the gospel must bring about the disappearance of
archaic religions, for “wherever Christianity spreads, the mythical systems decay and sacrificial
rites disappear.”84 How does this come to pass? For Girard, the revealing power of Christ’s death
and resurrection should lead every Christian to communicate his faith to others. He argues, “I
think the Christians who do not want to share their faith do not really believe.” Thus, Girard
recommends Christians not to give up Christ’s exclusive truth in light of the attacks of the
politically correct society. Girard says, “The fear of religious tyranny is an anachronism, a false
issue which puts political correctness ahead of the truth. I believe there is a truth, and the only way
of telling it is by connecting with people.”85
Christians must also stop dichotomizing their faith in the academic world. Asked about the
necessity of bracketing out one’s faith to do scholarly work or to be a thinker, he replies, “I don’t
think you can bracket out a faith which is responsible for the best in the modern world.” Girard
continues, “I don’t think you can bracket out any idea or ideal that you really hold – or that holds
you. If you bracket out something central to your life, you become a shadow of yourself and your
intelligence is not effective. There is no science without faith.” Girard believes that as our faith
grows, the more we empty ourselves of rivalry and self-aggrandizement and the more we feel
impelled to communicate to others, with others, the truth we have experienced. “This belongs to
the essence of Christianity,” he remarks, and the idea of silencing Christianity in the name of
Christian humility is a “Christian idea gone mad.”86
Questioned if Christian faith involves respecting and trying to see other religions from
their point of view, Girard comments, “That is true, but it doesn’t mean espousing the other’s
mythology.” He explains, “It means trying to understand other’s situation, why he believes that he
believes, and so forth. But I don’t think there is any good sense in which a Christian could bracket
out Christianity.” For that reason, “If you believe that Christianity is the truth, including societal

82
Girard, Reader, 284.
83
Girard, Reader, 286.
84
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 154.
85
Girard, Reader, 287.
86
Girard, Reader, 287.
 13

truth, you are not going to reach truth by bracketing it out.”87

Girard helps us recognize that to preach the gospel is then to question the idols of culture,
the mimetic cycles that imprison people, and address these issues from Christ’s death and
resurrection. By assuming the cross and being declared innocent, God in Christ stands against all
idols and religious lies in the world. Through the cross and resurrection, Jesus unmasks all our
idolatries and invites us to worship him as the incarnate God who has displayed and carried the
troubles of the world upon himself.

Atonement and Christian Ethics

Girard also reminds us that doctrinal statements have significant ethical implications. His
nonviolent version of the atonement implies that Christians should embrace a nonviolent style of
life. Girard believes that the church has the mission of witnessing how it is possible to transform
the world into a society of mutual forgiveness. All those who have tried to follow the way of
Christ living as nonviolently as possible, Girard suggests, have understood the atonement
message.88 Although in my analysis radically pacifist visions have serious limitations,89 Girard’s
thesis invites us to reexamine the Calvinist violent presence in society. Girard’s ideas serve at least
as a reminder to the uncritical use of violence that takes place sometimes in the Reformed
tradition. Mouw grapples with this problem insightfully:

The Calvinist pattern here stands in stark contrast to both the Mennonite and Catholic
examples that I mentioned earlier. Calvinists are not inclined to see the helplessness
element of Christ’s atoning work as a thing to be imitated. The once-for-all theme in the
Reformed understanding of the atonement—which I am suggesting has a kind of ethical-
inimitability corollary—suggests that even if there was an element of the kind of violence
on the Cross that, if it were to show up in human relationships, would be deemed highly
abusive, there is no reason to think that Calvinists would be quick to pick up on that
imitative possibility. When Calvinists have been abusive, I suggest, they have taken

87
Girard, Reader, 287-88.
88
Girard, Reader, 273.
89
Boersma argues that Girard’s approach has structural similarities to Derrida’s
thought. “Girard has a radically nonviolent understanding of Jesus’ actions and in particular
of God’s involvement with Jesus on the cross. But it is a hospitality without boundaries or
punishment. That means it is a hospitality without recourse for victims against violence.”
Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross, 150-51. Mouw also argues that “we do not
have to – we ought not to – imitate Jesus’ approach to dying. His suffering is in significant
ways inimitable, because he bore the wrath of our cursed existence precisely in order that we
do not have to suffer under that wrath. And this is important to emphasize with reference to
the kinds of examples raised by those who worry that the Bible’s depiction of the atoning
work of Christ might encourage, say, women to think they must patiently endure spousal
abuse. In such cases, the most basic consideration for a woman in that kind of situation is to
know that Christ has suffered the abandonment and abuse on her behalf, and that she does not
need to endure those experiences in order to please God.” Mouw, “Violence and Atonement,”
170. For other critiques of radical pacifism, see Volf, “Christianity and Violence,” 19-20; and
O’Donovan, Just War Revisited, 10-11.
 14

whatever theological cues that have motivated them from some other area of Reformed
thought, and not from their understanding of the atonement proper.90

Mouw recognizes that Calvinists have often not been “very nice people.” He writes, “They
have been intolerant, sometimes to the point of abusive and violent actions toward people with
whom they have disagreed.” Mouw mentions the episode of Calvinism in its cruel treatment of the
Anabaptists and also acknowledges abusive practices in family contexts. For instance, Mouw
remarks that Calvinist husbands and fathers have often been unspeakably cruel to their wives and
daughters in North America.91
Girard’s model reminds us that violence is a pressing problem in today’s society and that
at times the orthodox theology of the atonement is abstract and does not take this problem into
account.92 His criticism helps us to realize that the atonement has clear implications for how we
understand and practice the love for neighbor, the ethics of forgiveness, and the pursuit for a
peaceful life. Mouw acknowledges the value of Girard’s critique,

Those of us who believe in the efficacy of Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice are certainly
not compelled to endorse all that is associated with the “primitive” practices that Girard
describes. But we can see those rituals as pointing in some profound way to the one true
Sacrifice that occurred at Calvary. The problem of human violence can only be solved by
having our violence “taken up” into the life of the triune God, to be transformed there into
something good that is then given back to us as a gift… Having suffered the wounds that
are inflicted by this kind of [bad] power, the resurrected Christ makes available to us a
new kind of power, the power of reconciling love.93

Atonement and Social Issues

Girard also contributes to our understanding of the implications of the atonement to life in
society. He argues that “all discourses on exclusion, discrimination, racism will remain superficial
as long as they do not address the religious foundations of the problems that besiege our
society.”94 The use of the term scapegoat and mimetic desire to interpret conflicts in society,
Girard believes, is a sign that “Jewish and Christian revelation is becoming continually more
effective and so is far from being a dead letter in our society.”95
Girard is sharp in pointing out that many social dilemmas are due to idolatry. For example,
by pointing to mimetic desire as the root of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, he
argues that such issues “originate in the Neopaganism of our time, in the cult of the body, in the

90
Mouw, “Violence and Atonement,” 165-66.
91
For an empirical study of that topic commissioned years ago by the Christian
Reformed Church, see Report of the Committee to Study Physical, Emotional, and Sexual
Abuse, The Agenda for Synod 1992 of the Christian Reformed Church in North America
(Grand Rapids: CRC Publications, 1992), 313-58.
92
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 190; Girard, Reader, 288.
93
Mouw, “Violence and Atonement,” 170.
94
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 160.
95
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 160.
 15

Dionysic mystique of Nietzsche, the first of our great dieters.”96 Instead of being placed in Christ,
anorexic and bulimic behavior is rooted in a cult of self and in worshiping the opinion of others.
Girard writes, “Our modern bulimic is eating for herself, but she is vomiting for others, for all
these women who are watching each other’s waistlines. Her radical freedom is synonymous with
her enslavement to the opinion of others.” To understand desire then is to “understand that its self-
centeredness is undistinguishable from its other-centeredness.”97
Delivered by the one true God, Christians need to discern idols working behind the social
dilemmas of our culture. Girard explains,

As long as we are not provided with a goal worthy of our emptiness (God) we will copy
the emptiness of others and constantly regenerate the hell from which we are trying to
escape. The gods we give ourselves are self-generated in the sense that they depend
entirely on our mimetic desire… Our sins are inscribed in our flesh and we must expiate
them down to the last calorie, through a deprivation more severe [anorexia/bulimia] than
any religion has ever imposed upon its adepts… There is great irony in the fact that the
modern process of stamping out religion produces countless caricatures of it. We are often
told that our problems are due to our inability to shake off our religious tradition, but this is
not true. They are rooted in the debacle of that tradition, which is necessarily followed by
the reappearance in modern garb of more ancient and ferocious divinities rooted in the
mimetic process.98

Girard also points out that Satan can use concepts derived from Christianity against the
Christian faith itself. For example, commenting on political correctness, he praised the idea to the
degree that we “now have an awareness of victimization and victimary mechanisms. But now this
awareness supports attacks on Christianity and its texts, which are the very inspiration of our
modern concern for the victim.”99
The revelatory power of Christ’s victory should also prevent us from trusting in all sorts of
ideologies such as communism, capitalism, and feminism, and to adhere to the “spirit of the
times,”100 Girard notes. Commenting on communism, he says that “it will probably be replaced by
ideologies still more insidious which outflank the Gospel on the left, presenting themselves as
better than the Gospel, trying to show that the Gospels do not side with the victims, but demonize
them.” For Girard, the great danger arises when Christians abandon Christ’s truth and begin to
reason from the idolatrous perspective of culture. He continues, “Some of these people see
themselves as super-Christians, but they are heirs of the predecessors of Marx who thought they
could achieve a new humanism.”101
In sum, Christians should not try to explain social dilemmas imprisoned in the idolatrous
system of the world. Instead, they must realize that “the Passion accounts subvert the primordial

96
René Girard, Anorexia and Mimetic Desire (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State
University Press, 2013), 19.
97
Girard, Anorexia and Mimetic Desire, 16-7.
98
Girard, Anorexia and Mimetic Desire, 17-8.
99
Girard, Reader, 265.
100
For a critique of feminism, nihilism, and zeitgeist, see Girard, Reader, 175-80.
101
Girard, Reader, 275.
 16

source of human order.”102 Against Rudolf Bultmann, Girard states that true demystification has
nothing to do with automobiles and electricity but comes from our religious tradition. Granted,
“Let us not confuse true enlightenment with the idolatry of the here and now.” We must learn with
Girard that “true enlightenment can come only from the cross.”103

Final Considerations

I have explored some dead-ends between Girard’s scapegoating theory and the Reformed
theology of the atonement. I also acknowledged and suggested significant contributions Girard
offers to enhance our theological tradition.
In my analysis, Girard’s view challenges core values of Reformed atonement theology
such as satisfaction for sin, substitutionary sacrifice, and God’s attributes of justice and holy
wrath, without which our understanding of divine love is seriously limited. It seems to me,
however, that some Reformed theologians have not noticed the connection between Christ's
reconciling work and its missiological, ethical, and social implications as judiciously as Girard.
For this reason, I credit Girard’s approach as a supplement for us in that tradition.
The purpose of this paper is to show that Reformed theologians can learn from Girard’s
approach in many ways while maintaining with the same theological conclusions. To read Girard
is an intriguing adventure, for while he seems to be at the margin of the Christian tradition in his
redefinition of violence, sacrifice, and salvation, Girard invites us to take his ideas only as the
modest contribution of an anthropologist. As he declares, “Mine is a search for the anthropology
of the Cross, which turns out to rehabilitate orthodox theology.”104 Keeping this distinction in
mind, we may see his work as a complement to Reformed theology and not just as an obstacle.
Girard’s theory, if appropriated well, can contribute to Christian orthodoxy and for our disciple-
making mission in the world.

102
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 185.
103
Girard, I See Satan Fall, 186, 192.
104
Girard, Reader, 288.
 17

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