Where Does God Show up in This Whole Thing?

Part three of a short series on mimetic theory and divine nonviolence

6 min readOct 21, 2019

[This is part 3 of my mini-series about mimetic theory and divine nonviolence. To start from the very beginning, click here. To read part 2, click here. To read part 4, click here.]

Peer pressure is real. It’s easy to relegate peer pressure to strictly being a reality of middle or high school, but I’m afraid that would be letting peer pressure off too easy…

Peer pressure is a cultural reality throughout all of human life. Unless you live life in a hermetically sealed bubble away from all other humans, peer pressure is working on you (and everyone around you). Wherever two or more are gathered, human influence happens.

A couple of thousand years ago, there was a bearded man named Jesus who told the masses that they were all trapped in a condition of rivalry over gaining control and favor of God. He also told these people that they need to chill because God loves everyone just as they were created — no jockeying for position required.

A few years after Jesus’s crucifixion, Paul showed up and wrote it down oh-so eloquently…

I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created.
- Romans 8:38–39

What Jesus and Paul are saying is this: even on our worst days, there’s nothing we can or cannot do to stop the torrent of love swooping towards us from God.

Nothing…

Did you yell at your kid for no good reason and make her cry? Have an important lunch with an inch-long nose hair pointing defiantly at your sandwich the whole time? Condescend your spouse?

(Or even worse?…)

Get a DUI? Get shamed online (or shamed someone else online)? Beat someone up (or get beat up)? Lie to your boss (or get lied to by your boss)?

The list of possible human transgressions is endless. That being said…