So I have been trying to keep that image of the thick, old, scarred vine and the tiny branches in mind. I also know that the ups and downs of my moods and health are not worthy of the worry with which I endow them while in the midst of a down period or a time when the back hurts and the leg limps. Leonard Cohen captured the illusion when he sang, in Sisters of Mercy, " When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you've sinned. "

Girard goes on to write, "This is exactly what I have said and keep on saying: myths are based on a unanimous persecution. Judaism and Christianity destroy this unanimity in order to defend the victims unjustly condemned and to condemn the executioners unjustly legitimated. ... [Nietzsche] sees perfectly well that one is dealing with the same violence in both cases ("there is not a difference in regard to their martydom"), but he doesn't see or want to see the injustice of the violence. He doesn't see or want to admit that the unanimity always prevailing in the myths has to be based on mimetic contagion which possesses the participants and which they don't recognize, whereas the Gospels recognize and denounce violence contagion, as do the story of Joseph and the other great biblical texts."

Girard goes on to say that this refusal of Nietzsche to see the true implications of the Judaeo-Christian concern for victims drove him mad, ultimately, because he perceived what others had not - that both the myths and Judaeo-Christianity deal with the same basic violent contagion that has driven humankind forever -- but he did not perceive that the Judaeo-Christian interpretation exposed and revealed the mimetic contagion and the destruction then reassembling of culture through scapegoating.

I am barely explaining this but I admit to being surprised to hear Nietzsche given his due as in my mind I've always thought Nietzsche=Naziism. As indeed Girard explains:

"To elude his own discovery and to defend mythological violence, Nietzsche is obliged to justify human sacrifice, and he doesn't hesitate to do so, resorting to horrifying arguments. He raises the stakes even on the worst social Darwiism. He suggests that to avoid degenerating, societies must get rid of humans who are waste, who hinder and weigh them down:

"Greetings!
PreachingPeace.org is a website dedicated to proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For almost 2,000 years clergy have sought to bear witness to the revelation of God in Christ, sensing therein, something distinctive, something different, something good. At the beginning of the twenty first century, the world is need of this something different, something good. It is in need of Jesus.
The twentieth century has seen enormous advance in all manner of technology and science. The same is true of the science of theology. It is almost impossible to stand back from the trees to see the forest. The sheer mass of information, data, theses, hypotheses and theories in biblical studies, theology, church history, dogma, liturgy, philosophy as well as other important areas overwhelms us at times. It is often difficult to know which direction to turn or down which road to go. We have had the opportunity to travel broadly and widely and wish to share our insights with you. PreachingPeace.org is our ‘travel guidebook.’
We believe that it is a time for stock-taking, evaluating and sifting for Christian theology and the church. We also believe that the good gospel of God in Jesus Christ has been obscured and often times completely covered over, hidden away by the very Church given the task of sharing it.
Our writing has been informed by many different writers of many different places and times. All in all, we see certain threads being woven throughout the history of Christian thought and life and those threads when viewed together form a tapestry of thought. It is this tapestry or portrait of Jesus that we wish to share here. This site has been informed by the theory of mimetic scapegoating proposed by Rene Girard and worked out in an inter-disciplinary manner by members and friends of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion. Girard’s hypothesis is an anthropological one, so in this sense it is no threat to Christian theology, but it is an anthropological theory that has profound consequences for Christian theology.
Like you, we too are on a journey to discern the will of God for us in our world today. We are seeking to discern that will on both a macro and a micro level, on both an objective and a subjective plane. In short, we seek wholeness (shalom), the peace that is ours in the gospel of the God of Peace revealed in the Prince of Peace."