Book excerpt: The ideas of Rene Girard are having a profound effect on Christian theology. This book offers a critical introduction to his thought and then uses it to interpret the Book of Revelation. The result is a reading of extraordinary relevance for the contemporary world. Readers of the Apocalypse are often disturbed by the images of destruction in the book and are unsure why these are unleashed after the exaltation of Jesus. This study examines past approaches to these texts and uses Girard's theories to revive some old ideas and propose some new ones. Seen in this light the Apocalypse becomes the story of the ultimate vindication of the victim, a source of hope, and a resource that can be used both to encourage resistance to the destructive forces within culture, and to help the church and the poor to engage constructively with the issues of our day.