How will we recover from the victimhood culture destroying our youth?

(LifeSiteNews) — A documentary, The Coddling of the American Mind, directed by Ted Balaker, is rigorously researched and is starting to rapidly spread ideas among students that we have been made humorless, mentally fragile dependents as a result of teaching systemic victimhood.

In a video produced by John Stossel about The Coddling, the journalist notes that a society whose members are systematically taught to see one another as victims and oppressors is a society that courts curses.

According to interview clips in the movie’s trailer, a sense of enduring victimhood wreaks havoc on the confidence of young adults and spurs adriftness. It can lead to hopelessness and nihilism and, further, even fuel ideas that communities should be burned and a dangerous view towards human beings’ right to exist.

“Social studies” teaching has been based on victimhood status for six decades, including at least twelve years on overdrive. Today, wide calls have arrived for victimhood ideology to be ushered out.

Yet, a serious question arises at this transformative moment: are we in fact prepared mentally and spiritually to fashion society after the victimhood mentality era?

Jettisoning victimhood as a driving model of society will leave a void which it will be humanity’s responsibility to fill. Arduously renewing the mind will be required to part with the counterfeit motivations.

After all, victimhood ideologies gave people a faux sense of order about the way the world worked, which became pervasive in advocacy, activism, philanthropy, charity, and other large aspects of society. Like a counterfeit dollar, you couldn’t purchase value with victimhood narratives, but they made you feel like you had something.

While “God loves a cheerful giver,” “humanitarian” society came to love big giving unconcerned with cheer, often powered by victimhood ideologies that translate into victimhood bucks.

Therefore, if godly fundamental values that ascend above victimhood narratives do exist in our souls, the present mark in history would be an essential time to recognize them and to infuse them into social actions.

The Coddling movie and other efforts have pried open an opportunity for a more constructive, motivating narrative to enter, as systemic victimhood exits.

In this moment of victimhood’s retreat, what are some traditional, constructive, non-victimhood foundational reasons for civic engagement?

1. Because God has a promise of a future for you.

‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ (Jeremiah 29:11)

A promise, especially a divine plan, is better than a vengeance strategy. The sovereign God of all power has said that He knows He has plans to give you hope and a future.

Jesus Christ also promised this:

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)

It doesn’t matter if you’ve ever been corrupt in the past; God’s plan is for you.

2. Because God has prepared a place among many mansions for you.

We can strive to improve our society, inspired by God’s love for all of us. Since the results of our actions in Eden, humans have feared exclusion from God’s goodness and pursued godless forms of justice of their own making. Currying favor by emphasizing the “speck in other people’s eyes” is the essence of systemic victimhood ideology.

In faith, though, the struggle shifts from wresting justice by sheer will and strength to overcoming the tendency to curry favor towards ourselves and against others.

Jesus curried favor not towards Himself, but towards others to the end of His own crucifixion. In contemplation of Jesus Christ in His love, will we pause a moment from figuring what is owed to us? What happens if angling for victim points is replaced with trust in what He promises?

God has answered our human concerns about exclusion from Divine goodness by speaking directly to that fear:

¹Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

² In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

⁴ And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.

(John 14:1-4)

The Lord does not only prepare a place for you, but where He is preparing your place in God’s house, you know the way.

No matter who you are, or how you’ve strayed, if you hear Jesus’s words, you know the way. No one’s blame or shortcomings are required. You simply know.

It means not that you’ll be guaranteed material wealth, but that you are assured of walking side-by-side with God on your path of destiny.

Thomas doubts this in the very next verse, and Jesus reassures:

⁵ Thomas saith unto him, ‘Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?’

⁶ Jesus saith unto him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.’

Even for you and I, who have messed up and done harm, there are many mansions in God’s house, and the way is revealed to you.

3. For a righteousness defined Biblically

Generating identity as a “righteous victim” is a fool’s errand, ultimately. It brings temporary pity at best, and pillars of sand undermining lasting success. From Job to Kings to the Parable of the Talents, it is not human hands alone who do right and bring reward, but our trust in God.

Further, the the Apostle Paul’s Letter to Romans, Chapter 3, says:

¹⁰ As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one’

…

¹⁹ Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. ²⁰ Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.

This says so much. Counterfeit victimhood cannot be redeemed for righteousness or any genuine article of value.

Yet something weighing you down actually can be redeemed, availing you real relief. Give unto Jesus your load if you are weary of carrying your heavy past of sin. (Matthew 11:28-30)

Tasting the freedom of repentance and salvation from sin, fruit is to be found in character development engaged with society: “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17)

In conclusion, with the space taken up in society by victimhood narratives, civic life needs an adequate upgrade and replacement to maleficent coddling.

Victimhood only seems inherent to the process of civic engagement because victimhood narratives fester more the society has kept God away. In reality, victimhood is no more intrinsic to societal functioning than bitterness is to farming or anger is to painting.

Presently, the beneficence of God in public life is beginning to be felt en masse again. One and a half years ago the atheistic judicial doctrine known as “Lemon” was overturned. Reports show that, freed to express faith in places of learning, the tides of public and student opinion have swung convincingly away from victimhood-currying practices.

The now nascent period of philanthropy, volunteering, and activism will aim for the betterment of society for holy reasons, distinguished from doing actions for the morally unrighteous cause of shredding society apart.

Father God curried favor away from His own Son so that lowest sinners that we are could undeservedly be saved from our blemished record. The spoils of a good society are on Christ’s shoulders, never deserved by man or woman.

Loving each other (John 3:17), giving easily to each other (Luke 6:38), and carrying each others burdens as Christ did (Galatians 6:2) comprise the Biblical message that is the only sane way to engage in society after the scandal of victimhood ideology has faded away until it one day rears its head again.