“Once individuals accept a ‘victim’ label, their lives become centered on this new identity…. Being a victim becomes all they have to think, talk or read about.”[1] –Clinical psychologist Dr. Tana Dineen

Just as the Nazi holocaust did not spring up in a moment and devoid of a context but was built upon earlier converging epistemological and philosophical ideas[2], the current social justice movement likewise did not appear in a vacuum. Some have wondered where this ideological wrecking ball even came from. We must remember that all such various social, political or theological movements which rise up in the course of history (under various names or expressions) are always built upon a foundation—be it rock or sand—laid down in the time preceding it.

With regards to much of the narrative central to the social justice movement’s wailing and gnashing of teeth, credit is due in large part to the psychologizing of Western society over the past five or six decades and subsequent cultivation of a nation of victims. Without this seductive paradigm shift in place (turning sin into sickness and replacing virtue with victimhood), the modern self-obsessed emotional tumult over being “oppressed”, “marginalized” or “triggered” would simply never have gotten off the ground. If Marx planted the dialectical seed of “oppression”, Freud most certainly watered it.

“Probably no single individual has had a more profound effect on twentieth-century thought than Sigmund Freud. His works have influenced psychiatry, anthropology, social work, penology, and education and provided a seemingly limitless source of material for novelists and dramatists. Freud has…changed the face of society.”[3]

“[Freud] touched and titillated an age such as none had done before or have done since…. In his lifetime he had an influence both superficial and profound upon the lives of millions and upon the spirit of the age. Few people who live in Western nations have been able to escape his influence.”[4]

Despite modern psychology’s general abandonment of Freudian theory, It is noteworthy that psychology—a field of study “built on myth”[5]and incompatible with Christian theology—has made its way into the church on a massive scale. Its illegitimate child, “biblical counseling” has hardly been impervious to the wordly, unscientific and unbiblical underpinnings of secular psychotherapeutic theory and technique (this claim is not meant to indict every biblical counselor with the sin of promoting psychotherapy and victimology, but is based on research into the movement at large[16], [17]).

Without attempting to cover the history of how this camel made its way into the tent, suffice it to say that psychological “givens” (such as victimology) have been embraced by Westerners en masse, with churchgoers in no sense insulated from its impact (In fact, psychology—literally the study of the soul—has been reported to be “the second-most popular career choice for students at Christian colleges”).[6]

“The concept of ‘victimization’ is based on the idea that I am not in control of myself—that who I am and how I respond is determined by someone or something else. I am at the mercy of people and things that influence me. I will, therefore, hold them responsible for the reaction evoked in me.[7]

…A victim mentality permeates much of our modern family life and society. Many parents foster in their children this mindset by excessive coddling, rewarding excuses, and rescuing them from opportunities for character development. Politicians and social activists carry a similar approach into government, which impacts our schools, our courts, and our social programs. We have become a culture of victims.”[8]

On the subject of victimhood as the veritable backbone of psychology, Tana Dineen has written and spoken out considerably against her own profession. In her book, Manufacturing Victims, Dr. Dineen wrote:

“‘Victim,’ once a term reserved for those who suffered from a calamity of nature, of fate or of violent crime, has become psychologized so that it can be applied broadly to anyone and everyone who knowingly or unknowingly has been exposed to or experienced stress, distress or trauma. Feelings of unhappiness, boredom, anger, sadness and guilt can now all be interpreted as signs of prior trauma, creating victims.”[9]

“…The word ‘victim’ used to evoke images of blood and torn limbs on a battlefield, naked bodies thrown into a mass grave, scenes of torture, terrible accidents, brutal murders and violent rapes. These harsh images, which defined the word, have now been fused with fuzzy images of people exposing their emotional wounds and demanding retribution.”[10]

Be it privileged versus underprivileged, white versus black, oppressor versus oppressed, straight versus sexually “marginalized”, or the “triggering” of assorted millennial misfits, victimology plays an essential role in the social justice narrative.

SJW extraordinaire Tim Keller has been charged with psychoheresy[11], and he is not alone in denying (in practice, if not in theory) the sufficiency of Scripture to deal with the problems of life. Many other well-known pastors and churches in America have compromised with the wisdom of the world and to varying degrees have allowed psychological concepts or methodologies to affect how they themselves do ministry, or worse, defer their God-ordained responsibility to guard and minister to the flock to “the professionals”[12] (Thabiti Anyabwile holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in psychology, and Kyle J. Howard has a degree in Biblical Counseling, and specializes in counseling “racial trauma victims”).

“Some Christian psychologists…have settled on the side of the humanist. Their view of man’s nature comes from secular psychology, not from the Bible. They believe that if one can just take man far enough backward or inward, the new man in Christ will blossom…. It implies that we can’t be expected to stop sinning until we have dealt with the root of our sin. It places that root not in our Adamic nature, but rather in an experience in our past that involved sin, either our own or someone else’s.”[13]

What, then, is the ultimate goal in all of this intersectionality and critical race theory mumbo jumbo within the context of social justice? If historic Southern Baptist and Southern Presbyterian racist sentiments have been addressed, apologized for, and condemned by current and previous leadership ad nauseum, and if dead people are not in a position to repent of their own personal racist sentiments and unjust actions toward others, what exactly does the social justice crowd expect to accomplish at this point? What amount of reparations will they be satisfied with? What laws need yet to be enacted to alleviate or compensate for racial injustice? What compensatory measures still need to be taken by the church and/or state? What amount of guilt heaped upon others will be sufficient to satisfy their demands? The only goal that appears to be in view is that of maintaining a permanent status of ‘victim’ for the oppressed and permanent stigma of ‘racist’ for the oppressor. 

In a work titled Theological Approaches to Christian Education, Fumitaka Matsuoka shamelessly embraces the concept of a permanent state of victimhood for “racial-minority churches”:

“Christian education in a racial-minority church is appropriately stated as a formative experience, whereby the church and its members endeavor to articulate, in light of Christian faith, the issues and meanings that arise out of our own state of marginality.[14]

…Racism is, has been, and will continue to be a core value and practice in American culture and life. Racism has been incorrectly diagnosed in a manner which suggests that society is gradually eradicating it…. For the racially and ethnically oppressed, racism is real, permanent, and unavoidable. It cannot be dislodged from the psyche by any maneuver. It is an ever-present reality.”[15]

Victimology (unlike white supremacy) is rampant in the psychologized Western world and has made significant inroads into the church. Kyle J Howard, since his field of expertise is “Biblical Counseling” (a field not immune from the poisonous fruit of its secular psychological predecessor[16]), appears to be especially proficient at the task of manufacturing victims.

“The many biblical counselors who are problem-centered often both hear and support the prevalent victim mentality by focusing on “felt needs” and the healing of emotional ‘wounds.’ However, victimization shifts the attention away from one’s own responsibility for what is thought, said, and done; away from one’s own sin; and onto the sins of others committed against them. Victimization diverts believers away from the cross of Christ and their new life in Him.[17]

…Every person has both sinned and been sinned against. In fact, some people have been grievously sinned against and we do not want to minimize or ignore that fact. Nevertheless, healing does not come from focusing on the pain that others have inflicted. If that were the case, there would be a great deal of attention given to that in the New Testament, since many First Century Christians would have been victims of pagan sexual perversions and of the exploitation of slaves. A prevailing idea from psychology, embraced by many, is that those who have been sinned against need to be healed from their emotional pain before they can progress with the Lord. Actually such a psychological mindset is a deceptive trap where the focus of being emotionally wounded by others takes precedence over the recognition of one’s own sin.[18]

…In contrast, Christ-centered helpers will attempt to divert the conversation away from all the talk that leads to or expresses a victimhood mentality and will therefore turn the conversation to the One who is victorious in overcoming evil.”[19]

In another work, researchers Martin and Deidre Bobgan go on to say

“Because so much of what is called biblical counseling is a reflection of psychological problem-centered counseling, the biblical counseling movement also manufactures victims. When people are encouraged to talk sinfully about their problems they easily assume a victim mentality. When counselees see themselves as victims rather than sinners, they act as hypocrites, complaining about the other person’s ‘beam’ and excusing and minimizing their poor little ‘mote.’ As we have said in our other writings, there are true victims, but even they do themselves a disservice when they take on a victim mentality and live accordingly.[20]

Shelby Steele explains how this widespread victim mentality has been capitalized on by both “blacks” and “whites” for the purpose of fighting ‘racial injustice’:

“…in the face of freedom’s unsparing judgmentalism, we reflexively claim that freedom is a lie. We conjure elaborate narratives that give white racism new life in the present: ‘systemic’ and ‘structural’ racism, racist ‘microaggressions,’ ‘white privilege,’ and so on. All these narratives insist that blacks are still victims of racism, and that freedom’s accountability is an injustice. We end up giving victimization the charisma of black authenticity. Suffering, poverty, and underdevelopment become the things that make you “truly black.” Success and achievement throw your authenticity into question.”[21]

Compare the antichristian ideas prevalent among the left concerning an ‘eternal state of marginality’ and similar politically correct progressivist pandering with the view of Voddie Baucham as articulated in an interview which took place three years before he participated in the drafting of the Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel:

“WORLD NEWS SERVICE: I remember Martin Luther King Jr. saying the most segregated hour in America is 11 o’clock on Sunday morning. From where you sit as a black pastor, are things getting better or worse? 

VODDIE BAUCHAM: Things are incredibly better. They’re not turning dogs on black people and fire hoses on black people. Things are better, for sure, but I think there are people who have a vested interest in things not being better, or at least a vested interest in not allowing people to acknowledge the fact that things are getting better. The racial-grievance industry is a multi-billion-dollar industry” (source).

Judging by the fact that certain prominent voices on the social justice side of things have virtually nothing to say on social media that does not pertain to race, oppression and victimhood, Dr. Baucham may be on to something (As a side note, it must be really difficult for Dr. Baucham to advance the cause of white supremacy. Someone really should tell him that his melanin count is way too high for that).

In the context of social justice, victimology has garnished intersectionality-deficient white men with ‘white guilt’ and the stigma of being “racist until they prove otherwise”[22] to the extent that the tendency among many has been to prove a negative by any means necessary (“I’ll do anything to prove I’m not a racist!”). 

“At the…43^rd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America [2015]…in a resolution presented by J. Ligon Duncan and Sean Lucas…the Assembly was urged to ‘confess our complicity and involvement in racial injustice during the Civil Rights era up until the present day’—this despite the fact that the PCA did not even exist as a denomination until 1973 and the majority of the men in attendance at the Assembly were either not yet born, or were too young to have participated in such ‘racial injustice.’”[23]

J. Ligon Duncan yet evidently remains so overwhelmed with white guilt that he has even gone on to write the forward to Eric Mason’s, Woke Church.

When political correctness reigns, rationality exits stage left.

[1] Dineen, T., Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry is Doing to People (3^rd ed.), Studio 9 / Robert Davies Publishing, Inc., NY, 2001, p. 27.

[2] “The multivalence of Darwinism and eugenics ideology, especially when applied to ethical, political, and social thought, together with the multiple roots of Nazi ideology, should make us suspicious of monocausal arguments about the origins of the Nazi worldview.” Weikart, R., From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, Palgrave Macmillan, NY, 2004, p. 4.

[3] Thornton, E.M., The Freudian Fallacy, The Dial Press, Doubleday and Co., Garden City, 1984, p. ix.

[4] Breese, D., Seven Men Who Rule the World from the Grave, Moody Press, Chicago, 1990, p. 126.

[5] Dawes, R.M., House of Cards: Psychology and Psychotherapy Built on Myth, The Free Press, New York, 1994.

[6] Hunt, D., and McMahon, T.A., Psychology and the Church, The Berean Call, Bend, OR, 2008, p. 47.

[7] Bradley, R., Born Liberal, Raised Right: How to Rescue America from Moral Decline—One Family at a Time, WorldNetDaily, Los Angeles, CA, 2008, pp. 92—93.

[8] Bradley, ref. 7, p. 94.

[9] Dineen, ref. 1, p. 20.

[10] Dineen, ref. 1, p. 29.

[11] A term coined by Martin and Deidre Bobgan. See the list of resources in endnote 16.

[12] Bobgan, M. & D., PsychoHeresy: The Psychological Seduction of Christianity (revised & expanded), EastGate Publishers, Santa Barbara, CA, 2012, pp. 359—360.

[13] Ganz, R., Psychobabble: The Failure of Modern Psychology and the Biblical Alternative, Crossway, Wheaton, IL, 1993, pp. 55—56.

[14] Matsuoka, F., The church in a racial-minority situation, in Seymour J.L. & Miller, D.E., Theological Approaches to Christian Education, Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN, 1990, p. 103.

[15] Matsuoka, ref. 14, p. 106.

[16] See Williams, E.S., The Dark Side of Christian Counseling, Wakeman Trust & Belmont House Publishing, 2009; Bobgan, M. & D., Against Biblical Counseling; For the Bible, EastGate Publishers, Santa Barbara, CA, 1994; The End of ‘Christian Psychology’, EastGate Publishers, Santa Barbara, CA, 1997; Bobgan, M. & D., A Radical Proposal: Christ-Centered Ministry Versus Problem-Centered Counseling, EastGate Publishers, Santa Barbara, CA, 2004; Bobgan, M. & D., Counseling the Hard Cases: A Critical Review, EastGate Publishers, Santa Barbara, CA, 2016; Bobgan, M. & D., Biblical Counseling Reviews, EastGate Publishers, Santa Barbara, CA, 2018. Most of the Bobgans’ books are available as free ebooks at PsychoHeresy Awareness Ministries.

[17] Bobgan, M. & D., Person to Person Ministry: Soul Care in the Body of Christ, EastGate Publishers, Santa Barbara, CA, 2009, p. 63.

[18] Bobgan, ref. 17, p. 184.

[19] Bobgan, ref. 17, p. 192.

[20] Bobgan, M. & D., Stop Counseling! Start Ministering!, EastGate Publishers, Santa Barbara, CA, 2011, pp. 59—60.

[21] https://www.hoover.org/research/oppression-black-people-over

[22] Steele, S., White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era, Harper Perennial, New York, 2006, p. 27.

[23] Durand, G.L., Ex Uno Plures: Traditional Southern Presbyterian Thought on Race Relations, Institute for Southern Historical Review, Toccoa, GA, 2015, p. vii.