A disturbing trend in our society is “blame shifting.” People have found some very imaginative ways to absolve themselves of personal responsibility for their actions. It is more than an ancient practice. It is also a phenomenon with a new face.
Do you remember the Flip Wilson TV show of the early 1970’s and his character “Geraldine”? She always had a way out of any predicament. Her famous line was, “The devil made me do it.” Flip Wilson hardly invented original material. Adam and Eve both played the blame game (Genesis 3:12-13). Saul was an adept blame shifter (1 Samuel 15:3, 13-15).
The new repository of guilt has been found in the Freudian concept of “I’m not guilty, I’m sick.” Some thinkers among us have concluded that something has gone seriously awry in the human moral code. Along with that, a certain word has become conspicuously absent from our modern vocabulary — that word is sin. In his 1973 book entitled, Whatever Became of Sin? Dr. Carl Menninger lamented the disappearance of the word sin as involving a shift in the allocation of responsibility for evil.
One of the most interesting books to come along in recent years is A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character by Charles J. Sykes. Winford Claiborne reviewed this book at the 1995 Freed-Hardeman University lectures and said, “If I had the money, I would like to give all of America’s leaders a copy…” Mr. Sykes mentions that most misbehavior can be re-defined as disease. There is an Anonymous club for almost every physical or mental problem imaginable: Alcoholics Anon., Gamblers Anon., Pill Addicts Anon., Nicotine Anon., Unwed Parents Anon., Workaholics Anon., Youth Emotions Anon., Debtors Anon., Dual Disorders Anon., Batterers Anon., etc. He mentioned a church in Colorado that had twenty-four different “Anonymous” groups meeting in its facility. We live in a “no fault, no responsibility” society.
Are we all victims? In place of evil, a therapeutic culture has substituted “illness.” San Francisco supervisor Dan White invented the “Twinkie” defense during his trial for the murder of that city’s mayor and a fellow supervisor. White claimed that his addiction to junk food had clouded his brain and induced his violent behavior. The Bible says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10). Jesus Christ will judge the souls of men (2 Timothy 4:1). The fact of judgment implies personal responsibility and accountability. Our great Judge will take care of those who are not responsible due to insufficient mental capacity and unaccountability due to age. Others will be treated as accountable for their actions and judged accordingly (Matthew 25:31-46; Romans 14:10-12). Ours has become a non-judgment society. Our cultural shift, however, will not determine how God will one day deal with the human family.
