Something has been happening in our society that I have noticed has subtly crept into my own heart as I have imbibed the cultural waters we have been swimming in. It's funny how certain things are very noticeable in societal movements as a whole and yet in your own heart are much harder to spot.
I'm talking about the rise of the "victim mentality." Have you noticed it?
Suddenly, people receive bonus points of respect and credibility if they have been victimized in any number of ways. Extra leeway is given and sometimes even a free pass on bad behaviors. In a dramatic flip from ancient Greco-Roman values, the weak and vulnerable are applauded and the strong are despised as oppressors.
Now, in large part, that fits in with my Christian worldview. And, though most would be loathe to admit it, I believe historian Tom Holland has put his finger on the idea that many of the social trends of our modern, western society are traceable back to the rise of Christianity. Surely, we SHOULD have extra respect for the weak and vulnerable! The Apostle Paul DID teach us to prefer our weaker brothers over ourselves. Doubtless, the prophets of Israel condemned with fiery passion the strong oppressors who took advantage of the fatherless, widows, and strangers and assured us that God looks out for and defends these groups.
And yet, in many ways, I still feel uncomfortable with the elevating of this new class of victims, because our elevation of the weak, the vulnerable, and the victimized seems to have created a desire on the part of many to be part of that class.
I notice it in people who claim minority status if they have any trace of minority ancestry in their blood because there have been benefits conferred on that group by the government.
I notice it in young people who complain of anxiety and a variety of mental illnesses because people in need of mental health are given special leeway and privileges.
I notice it in people proclaiming new sexual identities because with that new identity comes a sense of welcome and belonging from groups of people who are knit tightly together because of a feeling of being the outsiders.
And I have come to notice it in myself when ministry becomes difficult and people are hurtful towards me because of the message I preach.
When we are being mistreated, we are told to take it patiently, love our enemies, and pray for them. But I have realized that I have been giving in to the temptation to tell people about just how much I am suffering as I'm trying to live out these commands. In fact, I have been using it as a seal of authenticity, a badge of legitimacy, proof that I am a true minister of the gospel. After all, doesn't the Bible tell us to rejoice in our suffering?
Unfortunately, I think that I haven't been rejoicing in suffering like the apostles did as much as reveling in it, expecting sympathy and respect. How do we understand the difference between what the Bible speaks of when it talks about rejoicing in suffering and the victim mentality that people use as a get-out-of-jail-free card when they don't behave well?
C.S. Lewis wrote a profound book called Till We Have Faces. Not at all the kind of book I generally expect from him with overtly Christian themes. This is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche and set in a deliberately pagan context, told from the perspective of a queen whose sister, when she was young, was taken to be married to the god of the mountain. That may sound very unChristian and pagan. And it is. Yet, by framing the story in that context, C.S. Lewis is able to slip under the locked doors of people's defenses against Christianity, and even for Christians, because the discussion is about pagan gods who aren't real, he is able to explore themes and ideas that people genuinely wrestle with but can't discuss without sounding blasphemous. The book isn't for everyone, but it is one of the most profound books I have read in years, psychologically speaking.
In particular, in specific reference to the ideas I'm trying to trod out in this blog post, one aspect hit me hard. The pagan queen retelling the story when she is old, feels very misused and abused by everyone. As a girl, she was the ugly one of the king's daughters and he did not hesitate to let her know that. She was not good for anything because she couldn't be married off to the prince of a neighboring kingdom to make an alliance. She has a little sister whom she basically raised, and considers more as a daughter than a sister, who is taken off by the priest to be sacrificed, and she can never know the romantic love she craves in marriage because she is so ugly. And yet somehow she becomes queen, and a very good queen. Now, please keep in mind, that I am trying to summarize C. S. Lewis and can never do this story justice in a simple summary when his writing and themes are so rich and complex and for me, somewhat inexpressible. I'm just trying to relay the necessary information needed to underscore my point. I've also been listening to a discussion of the book by Corey Olsen, the Tolkien professor, who has been walking through it with an online class that anyone can listen to, which has been exploring the themes.
The part that prompted me along the line of thought in this blog post is that the first person narration of the queen gives us her perspective in such a relatable way that we are on her side, even if we recognize the root of some of her actions are due to jealousy and selfishness. The reason we relate to her so much is that we are like her. (I'm using the first person plural so that I don't feel lonely when I talk about relating to a selfish, jealous, pagan queen haha.) We have all felt that selfish jealousy at times, and have certainly all felt misused and hurt in all kinds of ways. We are quick to point out all the ways we have been victimized and "ill-used," as she might say. The frame of the story we are reading is in the form of a book she is writing in accusation against the gods, and I recognize many of her barbed accusations in what people have told me about God when they don't understand why they have suffered as much as they have in life.
What the queen doesn't seem to realize at first, though she comes to realize it through writing the book and through conversations she has as an old woman (you maybe should skip these paragraphs, if you're worried about spoilers, by the way), is that she has been guilty of the very thing of which she has accused the gods. In her role as queen, she misused and hurt others, and her very feeling of being so victimized blinded her to the ways in which she was victimizing others! The very belief she had that she was unloved and unloveable blinded her to the people who really DID love her very much (though maybe not in the ways she desired) and led her to be unloving towards them! There are parts of the book where the irony is so palpable that it is almost painful! There are many more parallels and themes that I could go into, but that would serve to bog down the blog, so to speak, so I have to move on before I start raving about how brilliant Lewis is in the way he writes this.
The uncomfortable part of reading the book for me was realizing that in many more ways than I would care to enumerate I am like her. As we begin to see the ways in which Orual (the queen's name) is clearly in the wrong, like David listening to Nathan, I started to realize that I also have made the same mistake at times.
Ministry is hard. No one who has really gotten into the trenches with people, teaching them the Bible, encouraging them to live a godly life, and seeing them turn on you after you have done so much for them would deny that. It's easy to start to become bitter and see in yourself a martyr who is suffering for the Lord. But is that rejoicing in suffering? Or is that more like reveling, or perhaps wallowing in suffering? When I tell others about how hard ministry is, am I seeking counsel and encouragement, or am I looking for pity and admiration for how much I have to put up with? When people ask me how things are going, why do I tend to start out with a complaint about how hard things are? In what way does that kind of answer glorify God?
When James tells us to count it all joy when we fall into diverse temptations, I don't think he means to relish the recounting of our sufferings and how badly we have been mistreated when we are just trying to do what is right. I think he means that we should genuinely rejoice! At some point I may write another post getting into this concept in more detail.
For now, I am aiming to not relish my sufferings as much as to rejoice in them. God uses difficult things in our lives for our benefit AND for the benefit of others and that's a GOOD thing. We don't need to have a martyr's complex in living for Him. We, instead, need to "kiss the wave the casts us upon the rock of ages" as a Charles Spurgeon quote I heard from one of my coworkers says. The reason we do is because it throws us on Him. He is our consolation. He is our joy!
