James Alison Theology

Search results for: “girard”

  • Girard Turned Everything Upside Down

    In this very short video, James describes René Girard’s impact on him.

  • René Girard et la vertu théologale de l’Espérance

    Introduction L’un des commentaires fréquemment entendus au sujet du dernier livre de René Achever Clausewitz est qu’il se montre très apocalyptique dans l’évaluation de notre avenir et des tendances de fond qui sont à l’œuvre ; et qu’il y a bien peu de place pour l’espérance dans sa vision des choses. Ce que je vais essayer de faire…

  • Contextualising Rene Girard

    In this episode of John G I Clarke’s Aletheia Dialogues with Witness Bearers, James explains Girard’s thinking on Mimetic Rivalry and Scapegoating given the context of sustained retaliation against whistleblowers and other speakers of truth to power.

  • Repenser la sacramentalité après René Girard : désir, signe et intelligibilité de la crise 

    Présentation donnée lors de la réunion 2022 du Colloque sur la Violence et la Religion (COV&R), tenue à la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, du 29 juin au 2 juillet 2022

  • Re-thinking Sacramentality After René Girard: Desire, Sign and the Intelligibility of Crisis

    Presentation given at the 2022 meeting of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion, held in the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana from 29 June to 2 July 2022. As is well known, René Girard did not write about either the sacraments or ecclesiology. He was much more interested in tracing the ways in which Jewish and Christian texts…

  • Quelques notes pour une lecture girardienne du Livre de l’Apocalypse

    La pensée théologique est une réflexion lente… C’est beaucoup plus comme chercher intuitivement son chemin dans une nouvelle relation que faire toute la lumière sur une nouvelle définition. Et c’est là que, pour moi, la perspicacité de René Girard est si utile, tant en matière de méthode que de contenu. Je vais essayer de montrer…

  • Gay, Grace & René Girard: Inverse podcast

    James Alison is interviewed by Jarod McKenna based in Perth, Australia, for the Inverse podcast.

  • Some notes for a Girardian reading of the Book of Revelation

    Theological thinking is slow thinking… It is much more like feeling your way into a new relationship than it is achieving clarity about a new definition. And it is here that I think René Girard’s insight is so helpful, both as to method and as to content.

  • Des notes pour une lecture girardienne du livre de l’Apocalypse

    Des notes pour une lecture girardienne du livre de l’Apocalypse (audio) Festival La philo éclaire la ville “Et si c’était la fin des temps ?”

  • Clericalism and the Violent Sacred: dipping a Girardian toe in troubled waters

    When Paul urges his listeners to become his imitators in offering himself up as sacrifice, just as Paul imitates Christ; or Peter tells his that they are living stones of the long-awaited New Temple: both take for granted that to be in Christ is a fundamentally priestly form of life.

  • Stretching Girard’s hypothesis: road marks for a long-term perspective

    What might those who follow the thought of René Girard have to offer to those currently excavating Çatalhöyük and Göbekli Tepe in Turkey?

  • Penser la foi chrétienne après René Girard

    Débat entre Bernard Perret et James Alison, le vendredi 25 mai 2018 à l’Espace Bernanos Paris 9ème à propos du livre de Bernard Perret “Penser la foi chrétienne après René Girard”, paru aux Editions Ad Solem. Pour la contribution de James Alison, faites défiler jusqu’à 38:42.

  • Redenzione e testimonianza gay. Per una rilettura girardiana della Bibbia e della violenza

    Transeuropa, 2014 (ISBN 9788898716203) In maniera sempre più evidente il pensiero di René Girard sta diventando uno dei punti di riferimento intellettuale più illuminanti per comprendere la nostra realtà odierna. Tra tutti i maggiori pensatori viventi Girard può dirsi il solo in grado di offrirci, attraverso la sua comprensione antropologica del Vangelo, un modo per…

  • James Alison on René Girard

    James Alison speaks to the America magazine on René Girard, the French historian, literary critic, philosopher of social science, and pioneer of anthropological philosophy.

  • Non siamo noi a inventare il sacri cio, è il sacri cio che ha inventato noi: per sbrogliare il pensiero di Girard

    Non siamo noi a inventare il sacri cio, è il sacri cio che ha inventato noi: Per sbrogliare il pensiero di Girard (Concilium, 4-2013, PDF) English

  • We didn’t invent sacrifice, sacrifice invented us: unpacking Girard’s insight

    A contribution to the International Theological Journal “Concilium” 2013(4) on the Ambivalence of Sacrifice. Also available in Italian. 1. The insight Over the last fifty years René Girard has developed a single anthropological insight, through rigorous engagement with a multitude of disciplines, into a long argument about the origin of culture. The single insight, sometimes called…

  • Exploring the new paradigm: Girard and the Christianity of the 21st century

    Exploring the new paradigm: Girard and the Christianity of the 21st century [PDF] The transcript of the session with Brian McLaren and James Alison recorded at the 2013 Colloquium on Violence and Religion held at the University of Northern Iowa, USA.

  • About desire, victimhood and René Girard

    James Alison talks about desire, victimhood and René Girard to the Encounter programme of the Australian RN radiostation, 12 December 2012 (stream and download)

  • Girard y las grietas del sentido chatarra: el paciente aliento de un pensamiento apocalíptico

    Ponencia para el Coloquio Internacional sobre Teoría mimética y construcción social que tuvo lugar en la Universidad Iberoamericana en la Ciudad de México y en San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, entre el 28 y el 31 de agosto de 2012. Esta ponencia fue dictada el día 28 de agosto, y el reconocimiento con la cual comienzo…

  • Girard and the analogy of desire

    Presentation for the Symposium on René Girard and World Religions at G.T.U. Berkeley, 14-16 April 2011. Introduction If the devil is in the details, then God is in the prepositions, and I want today to look at one such preposition: the little word “for”. I think this to be the most difficult and delicate word to…

  • On being Catholic and gay, René Girard and penal substitution

    James Alison speaks to the Sunday Nights programme of the Australian radio station ABC Local. (stream and download)

  • What sorts of difference does René Girard make to how we read the Bible?

    Presentation for the 2009 Theology and Peace Conference, a gathering of lay people and clergy from many different denominations who are interested in furthering the impact of Girard’s thought through their preaching, teaching and pastoral practice, Chicago, 26 May 2009 I’d like to take us into this question by way of John 5. So imagine…

  • Contemplation in a world of violence: insights from René Girard and Thomas Merton

    A talk prepared for a day retreat with Sebastian Moore on Contemplation in a world of violence: Girard, Merton, Tolle, organised by the Thomas Merton Society, held at Downside Abbey, Bath 3 November 2001. Appeared in the On Being Liked. I take it that contemplation is a certain sort of seeing. I take it from Girard that…

  • Girard’s breakthrough

    A series of coincidences in early 1985 led me to René Girard’s Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World. As I staggered through its third part I found myself being read like an open book, feeling like the woman at the well of Samaria, as she returned to her compatriots to say: “Come and meet…

  • Homilies (Year A)

    n 2020, James started Praying Eucharistically, a project exploring the ways of worshipping and Christian living in the Covid lockdown. For this project, he provides the appropriate liturgical texts for people celebrating at home and offers Gospel readings and homilies in video format for Sundays and the main festivities of the liturgical year.

  • Opening Up Spaces for Catholicity in the Wake of the Synods

    The lightly edited transcript of a talk given by James Alison at the 5th biennial meeting of the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics (GNRC) held in Madrid on 22-25 August 2025. Thank you very much indeed. And it’s indeed lovely to be here and to see so many old friends from all around the world…

  • Forging Ploughshares

    In the first part of the Forging Ploughshares podcast, James discusses Girardian thinking, shame, sexual crises in the Church, and touches on many other matters like non-violence, political and moral alliances and more. The podcast is available on different platforms. In the second part of the Forging Ploughshares podcast, James discusses the church’s role in…

  • Eucharist, Sacrifice and Meaning

    Some Girardian considerations for the Christianity of the future Thank you very much indeed for inviting me to share in this gathering to discuss the meaning of the Eucharist[], taking into consideration both the thought of Pierre Gardeil, whose book[] and whose family bring us together, and that of René Girard, with whom M. Gardeil had…

  • Catholicity, Sacrifice, and Shame: Subverting Polarization in Our Contemporary Ecclesial and Political Cultures

    How do we, who know that God’s glory showed itself among us by being lifted up in shame, find the grace to live with our shame uncovered such that we are not inclined to shame others?

  • Why do we scapegoat?

    James Alison says scapegoating is one of our oldest social behaviours. But casting someone out to maintain group cohesion has its obvious drawbacks — particularly for the person taking the fall! As a gay Catholic priest, Dr Alison was drawn to the work of French polymath René Girard, who proposed that scapegoating is not the…

  • Humility: a loser’s virtue, the route to reality, or both?

    Humility will make of gratefully perceived sameness the source of endlessly peaceful diversity.  Because our bodies are genuinely different – by place and date of birth and many other specificities, but our pattern of desire is the same.