Violence Unveiled

Humanity at the Crossroads

By: Gil Bailie

Narrated by: Randy Coleman-Riese

Length: 14 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

This is a Girardian-influenced, engagingly written classic on the nature of violence and the hope for overcoming it in our conflict-ridden world. It is also a literary work, an often miraculous interplay between cultural documents and historical periods.

Gil Bailie wrote Violence Unveiled in the mid-1990s after learning of René Girard’s mimetic theory of human cultural origins. The mimetic theory posits that human interspecies violence posed an existential threat to the continuation of any early human community until the evolution/discovery of a particular kind of directed social violence – scapegoating violence - which in times of social crisis brought peace and harmony to the community at the expense of what would later be understood as a sacred victim or god who becomes a focus of religious awe.

Bailie intertwines various accounts of this phenomenon from history, literature and (then ‘90s) current journalistic sources. The Christian gospel accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the theological reflection on its effects and meaning are understood as the revelatory "unveiling" of the truth of the victim as the source of communal peace.

However, with this new knowledge and its moral implications cultures influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition scapegoating violence has gradually lost its ability to bring people in crisis together. Without a change in the human heart, a conversion, this will eventually lead to apocalyptic forms of violence.

©1996 Crossroad Publishing (P)2020 Gil Bailie

Exceptional

This is a profoundly erudite reflection on the Gospel as understood through the work of Rene Girard. Highly recommended.

This changes everything!

I am so grateful to my dear friend Mack Stirling for recommending this!
Complete game changer! It will change the way you look at everything.

Girard Unveiled

Bailie presents what can be an intimidating theory in the context of contemporary and historical events for a lay audience. Very accessible while comprehensive. Great book recommendation Mack! Thanks!