Victim Wars

Victim Wars- Victimhood and Intersectionality – A Biblical Response 

Psalm 11

Have you noticed that nowadays it seems that victimhood is actually fashionable. Gone are the days of looking adversity in the face, determined to overcome it. We have great sympathy with those who have suffered, who are genuine victims, and there are many. But ‘fabricated victimhood’ is now a prevailing attitude in society. In this study, we will try to find out how this happened.  

Listen to the PODCAST HERE

1. Critical Theories and the Roots of Victimhood.

You may have someone talking about “Critical Race Theories.” CRT states that modern society is by its institutions and structures, is inherently racist, discriminating against ‘people of colour.’ Critical Theories are not confined to race. The essence of Critical Theory is that everything considered to be institutional in society is to be questioned and deconstructed.  It’s important to look at the roots of critical theories to understand how these influences have spread throughout society. The first major influence that we need to think about is:-

• Karl Marx. Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary.
  • Marx was a materialist – Marx was an atheist, and he believed that outside this present world, nothing existed, so people had to have the best possible life now. In this life, this present world, Marx thought, everyone lived in a relationship with others and the nature of those relationships determined people’s own opinion about themselves, – their self-worth, their ‘identity.’  And for some, those relationships would lead to alienation, causing the individual distress and emotional discomfort. Marx saw disadvantage and alienation in the way that working people of his day were treated by their employers, and in how they could never hope for a better life.  
  • Marx was anti-religion.  I suppose one of the most well known Marxist doctrines is encapsulated in the phrase: “Religion is the opium of the people.” In context, the statement is part of Marx’s argument that religion was constructed to calm  the population’s uncertainty over their role in society. Marx saw religion of any kind as a tool, or perhaps even a weapon, used by the bourgeoisie, – the mill and factory owners, the business proprietors and middle class oppressors of the proletariate – the workers, to keep them in a state of submission. For Marx therefore the complete destruction of religion, and especially of Christianity, was essential in creating a society in which everyone was equal and no-one was alienated. (How’d that work out in the Soviet Union?)
  • Marx was a strategist. He believed that every single part of society, every human social interaction was based on economic and political values. So, for Marx, every area of human interaction became a battleground, everything from the national parliament, down to the local meeting of the Women’s Institute.  

Everything from cake-baking companies, to wedding service providers, to school toilets have become areas of social conflict.  There’s another influence upon modern society we should briefly consider (This list is not exhaustive):

• Sigmund Freud. Freud, who lived from 1859-1936 was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of a theory of ‘psychoanalysis,’ – what he described as a ‘clinical method’ for evaluating and treating mental illness,  specifically a ‘talking treatment’ – a dialogue between patient and therapist.  Freud has influenced modern thought in two very important ways,:
  • His supposition that sex is the basis for human happiness. In the opinion of Freud, happiness is achieved through sexual gratification.  That gratification became Freud’s idol – as it has become the idol of the modern world. The ‘god of the groin’ must be satisfied at all costs, whatever the price, even if that price is the murder of an unborn human being, a baby. The ramifications of this godless demonic dogma are obvious:-
  • Everything in life centres on sex. Modern society reflects Freud’s ideology in education, entertainment, media etc.  
  • Sexual boundaries were breached.  Freud had no problem with homosexuality, even though in his lifetime it was illegal. If you think that human happiness only comes from sexual satisfaction, satisfaction of your most base desires, then HOW those desires are fulfilled is irrelevant, so long as they ARE met. This has deeply influenced society, and is all pervasive in the secular worldview.  
  • Society is defined and demarcated by sexual identities. Society breaks down into self-identified groups, based on sex and perceived gender, or alternatively colour, race, ethnicity, social status, refugee status, disability etc etc.  
  • Freud’s theory of civilisation. We understand morality as being law-based, the Biblical Law, underlying the common law of our once ‘Christian’ nation. So there is a solid foundation for the law, – we do not murder, or steal or commit adultery – in any form. Breaking those laws is against the law of God, and against common law, and common decency and is therefore immoral.  Freud had no time for the Bible’s moral codes. He believed that the only reason so-called moral people didn’t like homosexuality for example, was disgust. People were prevented, thought Freud, from attaining happiness in their sexual activities, because they were afraid others would be disgusted by them. It was Freud’s opinion that ‘disgust’ was what informed our morality, and so that ‘disgust’ had to be broken down. The government and media continue to employ this policy in their presentation of immorality in entertainment and media opinion.

These two important influences are the foundations of the culture of victimhood in which we live. The battle ground includes language. Those who question the victim status of ‘protected groups,’ will be branded as racists or  homophobic, or transphobic, or Islamophobic. If you utter the words “cultural Marxism” as a description of what is happening in society, you are an ‘anti-semite!’  

Nowhere have these influences been more apparent than in education.  We are looking at a whole generation of new cultural marxist activists, now in training, and just waiting to be unleashed into the world.

2. Intersectionality.

But is this fabricated victimhood of the same importance in society as other so-called victims? That’s where we are confronted with a truly modern dilemma,  a hierarchy of victimhood, described as ‘intersectionality.’ The issue becomes, – how many victimhood boxes can you tick? And that struggle, perpetrated in every form of human interaction by cultural Marxists, using human sexuality and gender as weapons to destroy childhood, murder babies in the womb, mutilate the bodies of children too young to decide to drink alcohol, or drive a car, destroy families and the family unit, to wreck marriages and relationships, to divide society into warring groups defined by their perceived identity, to attack basic Christian morality; that struggle is driving the culture today with a ferociousness that defies every attempt by conservative thinkers to stop it. It is pumped into a sleeping, comatose population by the film industry, by Holywood, the media, the press, the government, even some sections of the visible church. 

3. A Christian Response.

What can we do? There is a verse that challenges me. READ Psalm 11:3  It is not a cry of despair. It is a question. The psalmist has been advised to run away from his enemies, the strong, confident warriors who are ready to unleash mayhem, injury and death upon the land. But for the psalmist, cowardice is not the answer. The foundation of society – any society – is the word of God – it is living in the manner in which God intended us to live, as outlined for us in his law. That is the foundation. Cultural marxists are working away to destroy that foundation, with the clear aim of causing our ordered society to crumble. We cannot allow the foundations to be destroyed. It is up to the righteous to do something, not to bury our heads and pretend there is no satanic agenda, that everything will be fine! What can the righteous do?

1. We trust in the Lord. Our psalm begins with this forceful and confident statement,  “ In the Lord put I my trust” We do not trust in man, and we know that our sovereign God is in total command of this world, this universe and its destiny. And he concludes that this almighty God is interested in you and me. READ: Psalm 11:7  The Lord is with us in this battle.
2. We recognise the true nature of mankind. We are rightly identified in Scripture as ‘sinners.’ That is the identity group to which every one of us belongs. We are ALL sinners. READ Romans 3:10  It is a unifying factor that transcends any man-made division in society.   In this we observe two dichotomous truths. It means that:
   1. We are ALL VICTIMS. We are all the victims of the Fall. Romans 5:12  We can’t do anything about that, it has happened to us, we are victims of what Adam has done, from the moment of our conception. Psalm 51:5  YET…
   2. We are ALL PERPETRATORS. We compound the problem, we entrench our victimhood, by our willing and complicit participation in perpetuating what Adam has done. From birth we sin, – we sin because we are conceived as sinners.  1 John 3:4 

So we all are simultaneously victims and the cause of our victimhood. We are guilty before God, and the end of the unrepentant sinner is death, – eternal death under the condemnation and wrath of the Creator God who is perfectly just, holy and righteous. Romans 6:23  

3. Be out in the public square. There must be Christian representation. The lobby groups and special interest groups have loud voices. We cannot be quiet about these matters. We must recognise sin, and call it out for what it is. So-
   1. We MUST speak up. We are often cancelled and silenced by those who say that we are on the wrong side of history, – we are dinosaurs, and flat-earthers and bible bashers… The real issue is do you want to be on the right side of history, or the right side of eternity? And that will also mean speaking up within the visible church, where too often these uncomfortable truths are buried for the sake of convenience and popularity, or even for government patronage. Joel 2:1 
   2. We proclaim the saving work of the Lord Jesus at every opportunity. The Christian must always be placarding Christ, and his work, rather than our own philosophies and theories.  In a sense the life of Christ and what Jesus did at the cross is a mirror image of our own human condition.
      1. Where we are sinful, the inheritors of Adam’s sin he is sinless. 1 Peter 2:22  1 Peter 3:18  
      2. Where we, the victims of Adam’s fall, continue to sin willingly and defiantly, Jesus willingly became a victim, for us, and as a victim he took away, destroyed for ever what Adam had done in his death for sin at the cross. Isaiah 53:5-7  
   3. We must PRACTICE our Christian worldview. Romans 12:2  Practice the historically moral and conservative lifestyle that the Social Justice Warriors and Cultural Marxists despise and want to destroy. Develop good family relationships, build up the family, work hard and achieve, love your neighbour as yourself, go to church… Live for God and what is acceptable to Him, rather than what is acceptable to the culture.

The victimhood culture, with its Marxist strategy of creating conflict and division in every social setting, fuelled by leftist ideologies, is a war.  The war is satanic. We are the soldiers of the Cross. Let us learn to do battle for the Lord. We are NOT passive. Psalm 144:1