Saturday, November 30, 2013

221. Discipleship and Mission: the logic of imitation

I have recently been diving into the work of Rene Girard. Needless to say, it is like tumbling down a rabbit hole. It engages so many other fields and informs so much of the things that I invest my time in. Things like leadership, discipleship, movements, worship, mission, and community all stand in line to be re-envisioned through Girard's mimetic theory.

As I was researching mimetic desire and church planting, I came across this article about how imitation under girds  the logic of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.  Thought I would share.


In regard to this article, it is amazing to me how the logic of imitation in I Corinthians serves to undermine the notion that some "scholars" have proposed in regards to whether or not Paul encouraged his communities to overtly evangelize. I really do think this principle of imitation is a hermeneutical key for multiple topics we tend to wrestle with. For example, I think an exploration into how the dynamics of imitation can illuminate our understanding of inspiration and the formation of the canon would be quite revealing.