“Republicans want to force women who don’t want children to have them.” That’s how a New York Congressman appealed to voters in 2024.[1] Many absurd arguments are made in public during an election year. Such arguments reveal something about the politicians’ worldview, but even more about those who accept the blather without question.
1. Dan Goldman made this comment on social media on February 29, 2024. Goldman is the Congressman for New York’s 10th Congressional District in the House of Representatives.
For many years, the idea that women have “freedom to choose” an abortion has held some sway over Americans. It’s a slogan that assumes complete human agency. But the appeal of the congressman’s argument that people are “forced” reflects a new stage of progressing moral absurdity. Indeed, dehumanization now extends not only to babies in the womb, but to the women and mothers themselves. The implication is that their choice to engage in sexual relations doesn’t count as a choice.[2] Such an argument dishonors the humanity and agency of women and, further, what it means for any of us to be human.
2. This is seen also in a Chicago Public Schools program to provide free condoms to students, including elementary schools. During his radio program, Rush Limbaugh regularly responded to such absurdities by declaring, “Abstinence. It works every time it is tried.”
Here is our thesis: in our age, there is an inverse relationship between victimization and personal agency. The more people are perceived as victims, the less personal responsibility they are perceived to have. As the neo-Marxist doctrine of victimization (detailed later in this article) has escalated, acknowledgment of personal agency has proportionally diminished, as if the all-powerful oppressors have rendered humans utterly helpless—like pieces of driftwood tossed about on the waves of life’s boundless sea. In other words, as the doctrine of victimization has come to dominate the culture, so has the belief in an impersonal force, often called “The Universe,” that robs individuals of agency, rendering personal decisions pointless and wholly ineffectual.
To put it more tersely, and at the risk of being rude, never in history have so many people been whining, complaining fatalists—politicians and people alike.
This argument about “force” did not win out in the 2024 U.S. election, but it did have sway with the broader American public. Why is this so? How did we get here? What does Scripture say to this?
Though the concept of victimization has gained prominence in cultural, social, and political discussions in recent years, it is hardly new. While reality constrains us to acknowledge genuine suffering and oppression exist and obligates compassion, it also requires us to acknowledge that the doctrine of perpetual victimhood—an ideology that frames individuals as powerless, blameless, and entirely at the mercy of external forces—stands in opposition to reality and starkly contradicts the teachings of Scripture. This article explores how the deceptive doctrine of victimization subverts personal agency and responsibility while emphasizing God’s irrevocable design for human beings to function as agents whose choices are consequential.
The Roots and Rise of Victimhood
Ideas indeed have consequences. So do idols. Victimization is an idol fashioned over centuries by the hands of men, with dire consequences for people and society.
A generation ago, Allan Bloom demonstrated how Jean-Jacques Rousseau “single-handedly invented the category of the disadvantaged.”[3] Rousseau led the way in linking the assault against human culture while simultaneously calling for both the unrestrained self and compassion. The combination of these three attitudes—“hostility toward the bourgeoisie [the upper middle class], faith in the self, and the embrace of compassion”[4]—became the policy foundation for modernity’s attitude toward culture.[5] Bloom points out that before Rousseau, “men believed that their claim on civil society had to be based on an accounting of what they contributed to it. After Rousseau, a claim based not on a positive quality but on a lack became legitimate for the first time.”[6]
3. Allan Bloom, Giants and Dwarfs (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990): 196.
4. Charles J. Sykes, A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992): 77.
5. Sykes, A Nation of Victims, 77.
6. Bloom, Giants and Dwarfs, 196.
In Rousseau’s ideal republic, society is founded on the principle of tolerance, whereby “compassion,” for the “sensitive man” (L’Homme Sensible), is not to be regarded as a sacred duty owed either to God or fellow humans but a way to refine one’s sense of self-identity and self-awareness. Consequently, for “the Romantics of the early nineteenth century, concern for the downtrodden and with human suffering became not only fashionable but a form of self-therapy and elaborate self-indulgence. Abstracted from the moral order, pity became contagious, turned first on a lengthening and shifting list of putative sufferers but ultimately back upon the se1f.”[7] Thus Joseph Amato appropriately affirms that “Suffering itself became a vehicle for self-identity and expression.”[8]
7. Sykes, A Nation of Victims, 78.
8. “Sorrow, misery, and suffering provided fertile material for self-dramatization. Identifying oneself with suffering was a way to assert one’s sincerity and profundity. It served many as a shortcut to ‘originality.’ To suffer as Jean Jacques Rousseau—founder and master of the art of self-cultivation—taught, made one sensitive, serious, interesting, something other than a superficial, materialistic, and vulgar member of the middle class, whom artists and bohemians from Baudelaire’s time on condemn with such righteousness and spleen” (Joseph Amato, Victims and Values [New York: Praeger Publishers, 1990]: 113).
Consequently, obsession with self and compassion for others became inseparably linked. Genuine “moral concern had become virtually indistinguishable from aesthetic posturing.”[9] So, as the twentieth century dawned, the revolution of ideas gave birth to a fully developed “sensitive man” who, thanks to the twentieth century’s Cultural Marxists, has become the “virtuous human” who fixates on the alleged oppressor v. oppressed dynamic, publicly signaling one’s virtue.
9. Sykes, A Nation of Victims, 79.
Hence, our therapeutic society transforms any disadvantage from a misfortune that needs to be overcome to the essence of existence and, thus, an entitlement to dependence on society. Virtue signalers coddle the alleged oppressed victim and condemn the oppressive circumstances and agents as victimizers. Two generations ago, Herbert Schlossberg correctly identified and rejected the politics of our therapeutic culture, which
exalts categories of weakness, sickness, helplessness, and anguish into virtues while it debases the strong and prosperous. In the country of ontological victimhood, strength is an affront. Denying the possibility of strength for the weak keeps them weak. Being freed from dependence would bring the victim back into the human family, responsible for himself and others. How much better to remain a victim, shielded from trouble and responsibility by altruism.[10]
10. Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction: Christian Faith and its Confrontation with American Society (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1983): 69–70.
Schlossberg’s assessment appropriately applies to every form of alleged oppression. He also observes that Rousseau promoted embittered enviousness.
Ressentiment begins with a perceived injury that may have a basis in fact, but more often is occasioned by envy for the possessions or the qualities possessed by another person. Ressentiment has its origin in the tendency to make comparisons between the attributes of another and one’s own attributes: wealth, possessions, appearance, intelligence, personality, friends, and children. Any perceived difference is enough to set the pathology in motion.[11]
11. Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, 51–52.
Once set in motion, the evil of the Rousseau-derived-embittered-victim worldview, enhanced by Cultural Marxism’s “oppressed v. oppressors” dynamic, expanded and intensified for both the alleged aggrieved victims and their virtue-signaling coddlers and handlers.
The Nature of Personal Agency in Scripture
Victimization is almost as old as humanity. The Bible opens with the profound truth that human beings are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Succinctly stated, this imago Dei bestows to humanity personal agency, namely the ability to reason, the capability to make moral choices, and the accompanying moral accountability for every choice. Hence, in the Garden of Eden, God gave a clear command to Adam and Eve concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16–17). Obedience would sustain life; disobedience would incur death. God granted agency to them—and by extension, to us—and holds us accountable for how we exercise it.
When Adam and Eve sinned, their initial response was to play the victim by shifting blame away from themselves to outside agents. Adam pointed to Eve, and Eve pointed to the serpent (Gen. 3:12–13). This act of deflection exemplifies the human tendency to avoid personal responsibility by casting oneself as a victim lacking agency. However, God did not absolve them of their choices. He addressed each one individually, summarizing the consequences of their actions (Genesis 3:14–19). This episode demonstrates that while external influences may tempt or influence us, each person remains a responsible agent accountable for their own decisions.
The Danger of Perpetual Victimhood
The doctrine of victimization diminishes if not denies personal agency by attributing all suffering, failure, or moral shortcomings not to personal choices, but to external forces. While injustices, oppression, and genuine harm are real and acknowledged in Scripture (e.g., Exod. 3:7–8, Isa. 1:17), the Bible also emphasizes the reality of personal agency, holding us accountable for our choices and actions, calling for repentance, and requiring us to mature in grace.
Proverbs 19:3 states, “When a man’s folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord.” This verse encapsulates the danger of a victimhood mentality, which encourages us to externalize blame rather than confront our own role in generating our circumstances. By doing so, it fosters bitterness, resentment, and rage.
The Biblical Balance: Recognizing Injustice Without Abdicating Responsibility
The Bible does not ignore or trivialize genuine oppression. Scripture is replete with accounts of people who suffered unjustly—Joseph, Job, David, and Jesus Himself, to name a few. However, their responses to suffering illustrate a crucial truth: while external circumstances may be beyond our control, our response to them is not.
Joseph’s story is particularly instructive. Sold into slavery by his brothers, falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, and imprisoned unjustly, Joseph had every reason to adopt a victimhood mindset. Yet, he chose to trust God, act with integrity, and faithfully steward his responsibilities. In Genesis 50:20, Joseph acknowledges human wrongdoing and, simultaneously, God’s sovereign purpose: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” Joseph’s life demonstrates that acknowledging injustice does not preclude personal agency or trust in God’s redemptive plan.
Similarly, the Apostle Paul faced immense suffering—beatings, imprisonment, shipwrecks, and betrayal (2 Cor. 11:23–28). Yet, he declared, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances” (Phil. 4:11). Paul’s attitude reflects a profound understanding of personal agency rooted in dependence on Christ: “I can do all this [i.e. endure every difficulty] through him who gives me strength” (Phil. 4:13).
The Call to Personal Accountability
The Bible consistently calls on individuals to take responsibility for their choices and the consequences of those choices. Ezekiel 18:20–32 emphasizes individual accountability, rejecting the idea that children bear the guilt of their parents or vice versa. Instead, each person is judged in keeping with their own actions resulting from their own choices.
Jesus also reinforced the principle of personal responsibility in His teachings. In the parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14–30), the master entrusted his servants with varying amounts of money, expecting them to steward it wisely. The servant who buried his talent out of fear was rebuked, not because of external circumstances, but because he failed to act responsibly. Individuals are accountable for how they use their God-given abilities and opportunities.
The Transformative Power of the Gospel
The doctrine of victimization routinely leaves individuals feeling powerless, trapped, and enslaved to the imagined whims of their alleged oppressors. In contrast, the gospel offers hope, transformation, and freedom. Through Christ’s death and resurrection, believers are no longer defined by their past, wounds, or circumstances. Paul writes, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor. 5:17).
This new identity empowers believers to rise above victimhood. In Romans 8:37, Paul declares, “In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” The phrase “more than conquerors” speaks to a victory that not only overcomes adversity but transforms it into a testimony of God’s grace and power.
The gospel also calls believers to be forgiving and forsake bitterness, which is key to breaking free from a victimhood mindset. Ephesians 4:31–32 exhorts, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Embracing an attitude toward those who afflict us marked by a readiness to forgive—the opposite of bitterness and resentment—does not negate the reality of wrongdoing, but it prepares us to grant forgiveness to those who sin against us when they acknowledge and repent of their sin.
One Sinful Woman’s Story
This essay argued for personal agency. But Jesus nor the Scripture writers settled for arguments alone. They brought arguments home to real people like you and me. One New York congressman took away the agency of the women he purported to help. For one “sinful woman,” Jesus did the opposite.
Jesus ate with Pharisees when she entered the room—“a woman of the city, who was a sinner” (Luke 7:36). We can imagine what sins made her famous. Almost certainly, she was involved in prostitution and sexual sin.[12]
12. What else would a woman be known for by that label? She would not be in a position to abuse servants or embezzle money.
She kissed Jesus’ feet, wet them with her tears, then wiped them with her hair. The Pharisees were upset with her, but more with Jesus. “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is … for she is a sinner” (Luke 7:39).
The Pharisees granted her personal agency, but that is all. Jesus showed her compassion, yet not by reframing her plight as something that has happened to her, like a sickness.[13] Instead, Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven” (Luke 7:48).
13. Thomas Sowell: “Many of the words and phrases used in the media and among academics suggest that things simply happen to people, rather than being caused by their own choices or behavior. Thus, there is said to be an ‘epidemic’ of teenage pregnancy, or of drug usage, as if these things were like the flu that people catch just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” The Vision of the Anointed: Self-congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy (Basic Books, 1995): 198.
This lovely passage shows the kind of people Jesus forgives and the kind of love he forges in our hearts. But sitting under the surface of the text is an anomaly for our times, a truth basic for our gospel witness: she is a “sinful woman.” Whatever her circumstances, she had agency. And guilt. Luke was not unkind or unjust for saying so. In fact, it is the knowledge of sin that made it possible for her to love Jesus. “She loved much” because she was forgiven much (Luke 7:47).
The Pharisees of Jesus’ day would leave us in our sins. By a trick with words, the political Pharisees of our day do the same. Yet to all who come to Jesus, he says still today, “Your sins are forgiven.”
Unless we reject the dehumanizing project of the Neo-Marxist West, we cannot understand that statement. Unless we reject the false doctrine of victimization, we are dead in our sins.
We are human beings with the privilege and responsibility of personal agency, a necessary pre-requisite to see our sinfulness and believe the gospel. God will surely judge us all in keeping with our exercise of agency, as Romans 2:6–8 attests, “He will render to each one according to his works:to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.”
