A quick Google search turned up this quote that gets at the kind of thought I was trying to think (from here—I have no idea if this is a misappropriation of Girard or not…):

Boersma maintains that the subjective dimension unique to the moral influence model secures it as ‘an indispensable anchor for the hospitality of God’ – God’s hospitality takes the human response seriously, persuading rather than violently forcing people to love him by the example of Christ (p. 132).

Boersma perceives René Girard’s influential theory of mimetic violence and the death of Jesus to fall within the moral influence category. Against a traditional Abelardian understanding, rather than display God’s love, Christ’s death exposes and hence nullifies mimetic violence within our culture.

why do you feel that scapegoating is more effective if the victim is innocent or even more so if the victim is willing. It seems to me a large part of Girard’s argument is that we make up lies about the victim in order to justify our scapegoating. In other words it seems that the scapegoat need represent the ills being expiated. Part of the reason Christ was accused of crimes, both religious and national, is that he would thereby make a better scapegoat and bring unity whereas in the alternative the people would have to be introspective and change, perhaps even follow the sermon on the mount, or at least this is how I understand Girard’s approach. I think he would argue Christ’s innocence and resurrection undermined the scapegoat phenomenon in that the people killed an innocent and willing victim.

(I’m hoping to do some Girard reading this week after which I might actually have a substantive comment to make!)