July 14, 2015 by Fr. Dwight Longenecker
A three-part Patheos article reposted here with minor edits/additions.
I will return at the end of his articles to make additional comments.
With the rise of Christianity a new perspective entered human history: the triumph of the victim.
Previously if you were a slave, if you were poor, if you were disabled, if you were strange, if you were an alien in the land, if you were an outcast you were considered to have got what you deserved. Pagan philosophies (and Judaism too) had their own concept of karma–that people got what fate had determined.
If you were disadvantaged in some way you or your ancestors had done something wrong.
In this society the strong were the victors because they had inherited whatever it takes to prevail. They were smart. They were strong. They were well connected. They came out on top.
Tough luck everybody else.
Then Jesus comes along and turns the whole world upside down. He favors the poor. He reaches out to the cripples. He embraces the sinner. He heals the broken hearted.
Then he himself becomes the ultimate victim. “A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”
The cross becomes the central image of the new faith and the victorious victim becomes the paradoxical symbol of a new way of looking at the world.
Pagans had an ethic of helping the disadvantaged with charity when possible, but the new Christian ethic is radical. The poor, the hungry, the disabled and weak, the children, the slaves and the downtrodden are not only to be pitied, but they are the new heroes. Christ was seen in them they were “the treasures of the church” as St Lawrence put it.
Now all this is well and good as long as the victim is really a victim, and the way to tell if the person (or group) is really a victim is if they are truly powerless, vulnerable and cannot empower themselves. If so, then the church and the Christian powers are on their side and wish to support and help them.
However, a big lie has been going on in our society which I call “the rise of the post Christian Crybaby Bully”
I call it “post Christian” because it surfaces in a post-Christian society–a society where people have cherry picked what they like and find useful from the whole Christian system and conveniently abandoned the rest. Some people focus on corporate sin, for example, but neglect individual sin and responsibility. Others focus on the need for mercy while ignoring the demand for justice. Some choose a particular liturgical style while ignoring the doctrinal beliefs.
I call it “Crybaby Bully” because certain individuals, pressure groups and political parties and politicians have used the “Victim” narrative to bully everyone into accepting their agenda.
It’s pretty effective and works like this: I’ll use a harmless imaginary example to explain what I mean.
Let’s imagine that you belong to a group called the Ruritanians.
You live with other Ruritanians in the first world and you have discovered that there is some prejudice against Ruritanians. For historic reasons, some Americans–mostly from Argobinian heritage–make fun of Ruritanians, say they are stupid, and they won’t give them jobs and exclude them.
The Ruritanians realize there is mileage in this, and They happen to have some wealthy fellow Ruritanians to back them. so they form a pressure group “Ruritanians For Equality”. They do some PR work. They publish a paper. They hire an ad agency.
They launch a campaign portraying themselves as the ultimate victims of bullying, prejudice, racism/sexism and cruelty. They do a lot of public pouting and posturing. They launch a lawsuit wherever they can so under the guise of being a crybaby victim they actually start flexing their muscles.
They extend their righteous cause: not only have the Argobinians been cruel to them, but the whole of civilized society, by ignoring their plight, have been complicit in the crime.
Before long they are Victim of the Month and everyone has jumped on the bandwagon to support their cause, and if you don’t jump on the bandwagon you’re one of the haters who has caused the problem because you MUST be part of the campaign. It’s obvious. If you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem right?
So group think takes over and they then use their newfound victim status to bully the majority not only into giving them special rights, but every extra privilege they can think of to make up for how they’ve been victimized.
Once the cycle gets going they keep it going because by now they’re doing pretty well out of the vicim business. They’re getting publicity and with the publicity they’re getting money–lots of it. They’ve learned how to tap into the general public's endless sentimental, guilt laden gullibility.
It must also keep going, and to keep it going they must perpetuate the narrative. There must always be another level of prejudice against Ruritanians to uncover. There must always be some other oppressors to target and bully with their passive aggressive tactics.
There’s a lot of crying and hysteria and the more they crank up the emotion of being the wounded victims the more they succeed because first world society just loves to assuage their guilt by helping victims of all sorts.
There must not be any real investigation of facts. No one must look into the alleged cases of persecution and cruelty. We must just see the big crocodile tears and have pity on the poor victims.
This is why everyone is so thin-skinned and easily offended: because we’ve become a society of cry baby pseudo victims.
So how do you spot this phony lying charade?
First of all, ask yourself whether this latest Victim of the Month really exists. Who has actually been injured or hurt? There are a lot of people huffing and puffing about the hurtful, cruel and offensive things that have been done to them, but when you ask for particular examples they fall back into vague language, theoretical offenses and “ideas and words that are hurtful.”
Second, ask if the people launching the latest campaign are truly vulnerable and helpless. The phony campaigns always have hefty bank accounts, wealthy backers and a slick PR team to churn out the propaganda.
Third ask if the people claiming to be victims are campaigning for themselves or for someone else. If they are campaigning for themselves it’s bogus. If they are standing up on behalf of the truly vulnerable and helpless, the campaign is more likely to be authentic.
Fourth, ask what they are actually campaigning for. Are they really campaigning for justice or equality or are they campaigning for themselves to get more money? Maybe they are campaigning for some intrinsically immoral practice to be approved. Maybe they are campaigning for more political or economic power for themselves and their friends.
Finally, check the rage temperature. The fake “post Christian Crybaby Bully” (like every spoiled brat) will always be driven by rage. Behind the mask of caring compassion and the self righteous crusader for “justice” will be deep, seething, irrational and unquenchable rage.
What to do about it? Christians are called to help the truly vulnerable, needy, poor and helpless–and there are plenty of them. I’m thinking of the Christians persecuted and homeless in the Middle East. I’m thinking of victims of human trafficking and sex slavery. What about The falsely accused? I’m thinking about the urban poor, the homeless and mentally ill, the impoverished and lonely elderly.
Those are the real victims.
All the rest? Smile, wish them well and use that special prayer:
“May the Lord bless and keep you….far away from us.”
-end of article.-
what is being called social justice is actually social revenge.
if you listen to feminists talk about all the "oppression/abuses" men have heaped upon women throughout human history, you will only hear about it in terms of their gender. Never mind the fact that men were also oppressed and abused, and women were also abusers and oppressors.
If you listen to BLM (black lives matter) harp on about the slave days, they won't tell you about the blacks who also owned slaves, or the whites who worked to get slavery abolished.
You will only hear about how "white males" were the biggest blight in the universe, and how our current society must atone for the sins of the long past, which, in their minds, justifies their racist, sexist attitudes of hate. Compound that with their continued screaming about how "powerless" they think they are and how "powerful" and "privileged" any and all whites/males must be, they won't even allow anyone to call out their racism and sexism for the racism and sexism it actually is. Because to BLM, only whites can be racist. To feminists, only males and females who do not embrace feminism, can be sexist. To them, democrats cannot be racist and sexist, but only republicans, conservatives and libertarians are candidates to receive those labels and judgements, especially if they are Christian.
So bullying is just fine, when done by and to the right people... Because then, it isn't bullying. It's "justice".
Such is the mindset of the SJW left.
Want to see some of these cry-babies in action?
Social Justice Warriors (SJW) vid 1
Watch how this scary racist woman carries on in order to get out of paying for water like everyone else.
and also
Feminist free inhabitant cries rape when nothing like it is actually happening.
Scary Woman tears apart gas station.
Phoebe suicides because of fear of being labeled a racist
Feminism is fixated on keeping women down as victims. We are always being told that we are disadvantaged just because we are women.
The equal pay act has been in since the early 60s.
So feminists have been looking long and hard for any excuse to keep up a fantom fight.
Did you know they are even starting segregation all over again, to please BLM?
Yes. There is a college in California with a freaking segregated dorm, one space for blacks, another for whites!
Who's idea is that?
Not any Christian's, not the white man's. This is what BLM wants...
They are on the political left.
They want the days of inequality brought back, they just won't admit it. They don't want to have any glory going to people of the past who fought real inequality and injustice, they are trying their hardest to recreate their fantasy world of racism and sexism so they can steal the glory from the past and claim it for themselves, while merrily dropping famous names such as Rosa Parks.
We are already seeing toxic feminist propaganda on TV ads, and cherry-picked news reports designed to make it look as if racism is rampant among cops who are always white. The media ignores police brutality against whites or black on black crime, in favor of pushing a deceptive white on black narrative, enabling BLM to become as prominant as they are, with their racism being completely ignored or even embraced as something "just". This isn't even social justice. It's social revenge.
According to feminists, cat-calling in the street is rampant, video games are sexist, women never get lead roles in action movies, which must mean sexism, and air conditioning is supposedly sexist now, because scantily clad women have to work in freezing conditions.
Well no one is making women dress scantily, and if you are cold, for goodness sake, have the brain to dress yourself appropriately so you will be warmer!
There is a fair amount of representation of cast in movies. I don't care who has the lead, it could be men, women, or a mixed group, or a single person of either gender. I watch shows for entertainment, not to sit there and try to tally up which gender gets the most air time as a lead...
The video games a good friend of mine plays, are definitely not sexist. There are characters of either gender, both equally represented. But feminists would still contrive some excuse to find something about them to grouse over and cry "sexism!" That is just how gender-obsessed the cult is.
And I refuse to play the victim for feminist cry-bullies and their patriarchy conspiracy theories.
Discrimination against men - australian report
Julia Gillard feminist windbaggery, ousted by Aussie voters
Feminism And The Turn Against Enlightenment
The Guardian publishes SJW feminist article, that gets debunked here.
Feminatheist wants men killed off to make a utopia
Good on these students for calling out this political correct madness for what it was and how it was handled by the staff.
Over and out!
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