Christian Renaissance on Horizon, Says Academie Inductee

ROME, DEC. 17, 2006 (Zenit.org).- French anthropologist René Girard, one of the most influential intellectuals of contemporary culture, thinks that a Christian Renaissance lies ahead.

Girard, recently elected to be one of the 40 "immortals" of the French Academy, said: "I believe we are on the eve of a revolution in our culture that will go beyond any expectation, and that the world is heading toward a change in respect of which the Renaissance will seem like nothing." The text published by Transeuropa, is the result of 10 years of meetings between the French thinker and Italian professor Gianni Vattimo, theorist of so-called weak thought, on topics such as faith, secularism, Christian roots, the role of the Gospel message in the history of humanity, relativism, the problem of violence, and the challenge of reason.

The book presents specifically to the general public the transcription of three unpublished conferences in which the two authors challenge each other on the most radical points of their thought.