Earlier today I read a blog–and subsequently linked to it–about assigning blame in the case of a drunken co-ed who thinks she may have been raped while intoxicated. The blog’s author, a fellow Christian, seemed to me to be asserting that the victim’s drunkenness created a state whereby the victim shared culpability for the rapist’s actions.
I’ve seen other Christians talk about how various crimes “would not have happened” if [blank].
Now, I know all about being prepared and taking steps to ensure your safety, etc. But I think it’s a mistake to believe that we are ever truly, completely safe. This is a hard world full of hard people with hardened hearts, and all of the guns and teargas in the world won’t always protect a person every time. Bad things do happen to good people.
What I think is most interesting though, from the Christian perspective, is how we seem to put so much faith in works when it comes to things like avoiding crime. It’s as though we’re willing to accept our salvation through the Grace of God, but not willing to also acknowledge the real existence of the force of evil which also walks among us.
I’m not saying that we should throw away our locks and seatbelts and other safety measures. I’m not saying we should wing it out in the big bad world.
I’m talking here to the Christians. If you aren’t a Christian then what I have to say is probably either mildly amusing or wholly insane to you, because I’m talking about a faith that believes we are all fallen and needed the sacrifice of a perfect God in order to redeem us. We needed redemption through the act of Grace–an act completely beyond our control.
If Grace is beyond our control, so also is the evil that other men do to us. Yes we can make choices which may serve to limit our exposure to that evil. But we cannot end it. Jesus knew this–that’s why he told us to forgive seventy times seven and to turn the other cheek.
If others are not Christians, then we cannot expect them to abide by our standards. We have a faith of humility and subservience. It seems odd to me that we who believe that evil exists and we are powerless to stop that evil without God, think that people who do not follow our faith or share our God should then be able to stop evil on THEIR own.
Have we all lost faith in Grace, or is our faith in Grace only for chuchy things like Salvation and Communion?
Just Another Pretty Farce 
kat, i think what you are saying comes to my understanding of our human or distinctly american need to/for control. to know in your head all this is one thing, but one knows who has this faith in their heart because of the way they deal with control. are things/people manipulated in order to garner a result pleasible to you? no matter how well intentioned, this is still an action of controlling ones surroundings. Christ, as i know him, never tried controlling another person (except maybe “do this in remembrance of me”). as for the evil that surrounds us.. it reminds me of the parable of the field where someone scattered bad seeds. the weeds and the wheat were told to let grow together and they would be sorted at harvest… we live with the two dynamics and they are ours to own.
Great post. I get some of the same thoughts about extending grace when I consider the latter parts of Matthew 5.
How many times do we justify our actions by “not wanting to be taken advantage of,” when really, as saved people, we have nothing to lose?
Gavin hit the nail on the head (as did you, Kat).
The absolute hardest thing for Americans to accept is that most of life is beyond our control. This become awfully clear in the course of marriage and parenthood.
Right on, Kat.