Blaming the victim

From Rev. Stephen

Blaming the victim is a fairly consistent human trait. The poor are blamed for being poor. The homeless are blamed for being homeless. Refugees are blamed for having to escape their homeland.

Blaming the victim helps us to feel excused of any responsibility for their welfare or safety.

I don’t have to worry about the poor, because their poverty is their fault.

I don’t have to worry about the homeless, because they don’t really deserve housing.

I don’t have to worry about refugees, because they should have stayed home.

The fact that in Australia there are usually far more people than there is available accommodation, and that there are more than 27 million* refugees in the world, these facts aren’t allowed to get in the way of being able to blame the victim.

Because blaming the victim is what people do, and what people have always done, we always need to raise questions when people are being blamed for their own problem.

Jesus tells us that God’s not like that.

The sun shines and the rain falls on the good and the bad alike. (Mtt.5:45)

Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people.

It’s the way it is.

So don’t blame God and don’t blame the victim said Jesus. Look to yourselves and your own behaviour because if the world worked along the lines of what we all deserved, none of us could stand, because we’ve all failed.

We trust in God’s mercy and grace, not what we deserve. In the same way, show mercy and grace to others. Never blame the victim.

*At least 89.3 million people around the world have been forced to flee their homes. Among them are nearly 27.1 million refugees, around half of whom are under the age of 18. (UNHCR)