Love’s Entanglement
God as Nonviolent Relation and How That Brings the World to Peace
- Theology
- Publisher: Cascade Books (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2026
FritzSearch.com earns a commission on purchases made through Bookshop.org links.
Publisher's Description
In a decisive advance, Love’s Entanglement locates meaning radically in relation, not metaphysics, breaking theology free from its long paralysis in Platonic other-world intellectualism. It discovers instead vital truth at the roots of human relation unearthed by the revolutionary anthropology of René Girard. The power of biblical revelation comes into its own, supplying new communication about what it means to be human—a choice between the annihilating cycles of violence and the inbreaking of divine peace in human history. Bartlett traces the Greek sources of Western philosophy and the slow separating out of the key function of relationship by thinkers like Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Peirce—the last developing the field of semiotics as the framework most responsive to this vision. This electric book brings to the surface the deep structure of Girardian thought, demonstrating its transforming this-worldly core—the revelation of a nonviolent mode of being human rather than the endless falsehood of sacred violence and its military and political functioning. What results is a dynamic contemporary offering of nonviolent transcendence as the shape and meaning of humanity today—a hope-filled theology and identifiable path forward in the midst of contemporary human crisis.
Endorsements (7)
“Wow! What a book! In a crucial, engaging questioning, Anthony Bartlett asks, ‘What if relationality is more fundamental than being, and what if relationality were the key to nonviolent and nonretaliatory living?’ Theology matters intensely for Bartlett, propelling his criticism of the nonrelational and omnipotent deity characteristic of classical theism, offering instead a convincing argument for the primacy of a process of relationship, something truly indispensable for the gospel of love.”
“By pushing relations and relationships as the ultimate nature of reality, Anthony Bartlett renews our vision of the world we live in and, just as decisively, our idea of God. Conducting a wide-ranging critical review of the Western philosophical tradition, from Plato to Heidegger, his path is guided throughout by the mimetic anthropology of René Girard, whose philosophical and theological implications are brilliantly brought out. Far from being just an intellectual tour de force, this book aims to promote a radical humanism rooted in the Gospels, understood as the unveiling of humanity’s transcendent vocation to live in true peace.”
“Once again Bartlett takes us beyond an unfortunate Christian legacy rooted in Platonic stasis, revealing the semiotic breakthrough that René Girard brings. Here a living dynamic of human self-understanding and transformation is unpacked and celebrated, announcing also a necessary and more-than-timely development for Western thought. We are offered a new ‘transcendent relationality’ in place of stale metaphysics—here is ‘Entanglement’ as first philosophy. Tony Bartlett has done it again!”
“The Gospel is the freshest thing in the world, and once again Bartlett makes this palpable. With Girard as catalyst, Heidegger and Peirce are brought to a maturation such that it becomes possible to think relationality as prior to reality, to give sense to something true that cannot be thought metaphysically: The Lamb Slain Before the Foundation of the World. Here is Girard’s insight faithfully filled out beyond René’s lifetime, and here is a living sign of what the life of the Church is to be.”
“Anthony Bartlett offers a highly original comparison between René Girard and Martin Heidegger. Counterposing the ‘relationship with the other’ and the ‘relationship with being,’ he shows how the relationship of generative violence that constitutes the world as a world will always already have covered over the ‘relationality of love’ which alone can save the world in times of peril. This theological reading of Girard is therefore also a great lesson in hope.”
“This critically important book by Anthony Bartlett extends the work of René Girard. Bartlett demonstrates that relationship is constitutive of being and that relationship works by semiosis —sign-making—in fact relationship is sign-making. God-in-Christ, the ultimate sign of nonviolence, has lovingly entangled himself in our world, transforming our signs rooted in violence into new meaning of nonviolence, thus enabling human beings to have fullness of life in loving relation.”
See something wrong on this page? Report a problem