Victimization

Evil triumphs. And you ask why.

Some people wring their hands in desperation, pray like crazy, talk about it with their friends, condemn the evil perpetrators. But nothing changes. Why?

Is it that God has made us automatons, without a mind and will of our own, that we might not do something about evil? History is littered with the names of evil. Robespierre, Amin, Castro, Stalin, Krushchev, and Mugabe wreaked havoc on the lives of millions. How did they get to those positions?

It is true they were driven by their own evil disposition. They seemed to be in constant discontent unless their henchmen were inflicting pain and torture on ordinary people. It had nothing to do with good government. It was simply brute power. And they needed to demonstrate their power was without human limits.

These men, however, are the mirrors of our own, dark souls. We all crave power — power to convince others of the rightness of our positions; rightness in the methods of arguing for our rightness. I am god: hear ye me!

And then you ask, whatever happened to conceit? This is a concept you hear very little of today because conceit is recognizable only against the backdrop of humility. Our culture considers humility a weakness; it sees conceit — self confidence and self absorption –as strength, the ultimate strength. There is no longer conceit because there is no longer humility. And because there is no humility there is no confession of sin.

By and large, major portions of Christianity have abandoned symbols of the faith such as Ash Wednesday, and this Wednesday, March 9, 2011, will be ignored by many who carry the name of Christianity.

This day is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, a 40-day (not counting Sundays) period that ends at Easter. It is a day when people use ashes mixed with oil and place the sign of the cross on their forehead as a sign of repentance.

A sign of repentance. A symbol for all to see that here is a person who at least is willing to publicly display the message of repentance. For sure, you cannot know the heart of those with the mark of the cross, but you have a better chance of knowing them if they have the sign than with the rest of the population who talk the language of repentance and give no sign at all that there is meaning in their lives to the idea of change.

If you want to find the reason for the lack of humility and repentance in our culture, you don’t have to look far. Rushdoony penned these poignant words: ‘”Man’s problem is that he sees himself as a victim, not as a sinner, and as a result he is morally compromised.”

This Wednesday, take some time to reflect on these words, and ask yourself if they are not true. True for you, true for me, and true for everyone in your life with whom you have a relationships that contains some kind of conflict. They are true because the words of Scripture are true when it says that man’s desire is to be his own god, determining for himself what is right and wrong (Gen. 3:5). I’m right, everyone else is wrong. This is the struggle for every person, to overcome the conceited opinion they have of themselves.

The propensity of “original sin” is therefore as Rushdoony indicates, to claim: “I’m OK, he (or she) is the problem.” And behind this idea is every broken relationship, every failure to stand firmly on the Creator-creature distinction that gets blurred because we see everyone else or every circumstance as the problem.

Our lives are testimonies to our failures just as much as they are testimonies to our victories, often more so, because our failures can easily outweigh our victories. Our failures are hidden by our one-sided descriptions, the “I’m a victim” mentality that distorts our morality. We would rather lie than admit our failures.

Maybe this Ash Wednesday is day you will look upward at the Cross of the Messiah, and see again the ugliness of every dictator in the world because they epitomize those who crucified the Man who knew no sin.

Make it a day of fasting and prayer and repentance, a day that is committed to change, a change that confronts the evil in your own life and claims victory over sin and evil.

Find a church that holds an Ash Wednesday service and participate with others the combined confession of sin and renewed commitment to change.

It will make a difference.