Jesus the Forgiving Victim

In Jesus the Forgiving Victim, priest-theologian James Alison offers a journey into the Christian Faith suitable for individual readers and group sharing. While much catechetical material is either informative or lays down "what must be believed", the inductive method (insisted on by Pope Francis and used here) invites readers, or course participants, into the inside of a rich and penetrating mystery: God who does not demand sacrifice but offers a love far greater than any of us knows. One which empowers us to shift from a way of being together that creates victims to one received peacefully from the Risen Lord.

Alison uses the anthropological insights of René Girard to allow the most traditional doctrines to come alive as you explore a human story where death no longer has the final say and every "outsider" is welcomed home. Through the eyes of the Risen and Forgiving Victim, learn to see yourself, your neighbour, and the world in a startlingly new—and deeply liberating—light. While obviously Catholic in content and methodology, this work has been widely used ecumenically without causing scandal.

NOTE ON THE NEW EDITION: This is the new, consolidated single-volume, and revised second edition of James Alison's classic work. The present 2026 English edition has been typeset to fit the complete, unabridged text into 364 pages. This reduction in bulk makes the book significantly lighter, more portable, and more accessible for study groups—whether via the open-access version (available from www.aliosventos.com), the Kindle ebook, or the paperback—without omitting a single word of the original content. Finally, the hardcover version features premium colour printing, making it the definitive collector's piece for any theological library.