Vanishing Grace

Gil Bailie points to a modern trend that we take for granted but is actually unprecedented in history: empathy for the marginalized. “Today the victim occupies the moral high ground everywhere in the Western world,” says Bailie. He builds on the work of French historian René Girard to argue that the crucifixion of Jesus stands as the central event of history. The cross upset the longstanding categories of weak victims and strong heroes, for at that moment the victim emerged as the hero. The gospel put in motion something new in history, which Bailie calls “the most astonishing reversal of values in human history.” Wherever Christianity took root, care for the victims spread.