If you are a member of an organization that had many parties and conflicts that suddenly all become calm as everyone pursues a singular crusade, you need to read this book:

The more unbearable their personal scandals become, the more the desire to extinguish them in some huge scandal seizes the scandalized. This phenomenon can be seen quite clearly in political passions or in the frenzy of scandal that now possesses our “globalized” world. When a really seductive scandal comes near, the scandalized are irresistibly tempted to “profit” from it and to gravitate towards it. The condensation of all the separated scandals into a single scandal is the paroxysm of a process that begins with mimetic desire and its rivalries. These rivalries, as they multiply, create a mimetic crisis, the war of all against all. The resulting violence of all against all would finally annihilate the community if it were not transformed, in the end, into a war of all against one, thanks to which the unity of the community is reestablished.

The book could be subtitled, Why Americans need regional football teams and why N. T. Wright is far more important to those who disagree with him within NAPARC than to those who appreciate him.