Well, Charles, Girard tells us that the crucified God put an end to the sacrificial mechanism of scapegoating, by exposing it as a lie. And yes, you are quite right, René Girard and James Alison are talking about the same thing. Girard’s mimetic theory has two basic pillars a) mimetic or misdirected desire which leads to rivalry and conflict and b) the sacrificial or scapegoating mechanism, where in archaic society the greater outbreak of violence in a community caused by mimetic desire, is managed by a controlled act of violence, that is, sacrifice; the archaic sacred. But we continue to scapegoat daily in our lives with our rivalry, jealously and conflicts with our neighbour. Girard’s definition of the conversion process is “the redirection of desire towards God”, where we let go of the “I”, which leads us to the recognition of the other as also made in the image and likeness of God, where there are no ‘bad guys’ of good guys’, but all of us striving for the ‘peace that is not of this world’. Again, wonderfully explained by Simone Weil who exposes ‘the Great Beast’ as the world, the place of the idolatry of those who desire things other than the desire for God.