Cries for Justice...unmuting the cries of the sinned-against. Part 1 of 2

How many of you know someone that has been a victim of other people's sin?  People that have been deeply hurt emotionally, abused physically and sexually, or even touched by the iron hand of human trafficking.  Their voices have been muted by their perpetrators, families and even the church.  The sinned-against have been encouraged to forgive their "unrepentant perpetrators" from their heart.  They have been told that their only pathway to freedom is to forgive someone who has never repented, and to add insult to injury, they have been told that if they won't forgive, God will not forgive them. 

Beloved, there is a "more excellent way" that connects them with their justice-making God.  A God who is close to the brokenhearted, hears their cries, dries their tears and moves into action on their behalf.  We need to understand repentance and forgiveness from a two-dimensional biblical worldview, rather than from a religious individualistic one.   We also need to be able to distinguish sinned-against issues from sinner issues, and see their different paths for healing.

People are both sinners and the sinned-against.  We sin against God and one another, and we are also the victims of other peoples’ sins.  Both the sinner and the sinned-against can have issues of broken-heartedness that need to be addressed.

The Gospel of the Kingdom is a demonstrated message of rescue and relationship.  It is greater than our sins...AND...it is greater than the effects of others’ sins that have been committed against us.

In the biblical worldview the sinned-against have the debt, the power, and the right for justice. The Lord commands, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay’” (Rom. 12:19; Heb. 10:30; Deut. 32:35).  God is on the side of the sinned-against and He hears their cries.

The brokenhearted and the sinned-against are people whose hearts have been crushed to powder…literally pulverized by the sins that other people have committed against them.  We serve a God of justice who hears their cries, who cares about their pain, and who wants to dry their tears.  He wants to un-mute their cries and give them back their voice.

In his book, The Wounded Heart of God, Andrew Sung Park contends that the church has overlooked the victims of sin and injustice.  In his Korean culture, they have a term to describe the depth of suffering the sinned-against experience.  That term is called han.

Throughout its history, the church has been concerned with the sin of people, but has largely overlooked an important factor in human evil: the pain of the victims of sin.  The victims of various types of wronging express the ineffable experience of deep bitterness and helplessness.

Such an experience of pain is called han in the Far East.  The church has developed the doctrine of sin and other theological ideas with the sinner, but not the victim of sin.  The traditional doctrine has been one-sided, seeing the world from the perspective of the sinner only, failing to take account of the victims of sin and injustice.  

“The experience of the powerless, the marginalized, and the voiceless in the world can be summed up as han…Han is the suffering of the innocent who are caught in the wicked situation of helplessness.  It is the void of the soul that cannot be filled with any superficial patch.  This void is the abysmal darkness of wounded human beings…han is a physical, mental, and spiritual repercussion to a terrible injustice done to a person, eliciting a deep ache, a wrenching of all the organs, an intense internalized or externalized rage, a vengeful obsession, and the sense of helplessness and hopelessness.” The Other Side of Sin by Andrew Sung Park (47)

Biblical Examples of Han

Cain and Abel (Gen 4:1-16)

–     The story of Cain and Abel is the story of han.  The two brothers gave offerings to God.  Cain’s offering was rejected, while Abel’s was accepted.  Out of anger, Cain murdered his brother and muted his voice.  Only Abel’s blood cried out to God from the ground (Gen 4:10)

The crying-out blood is the voice of han

Uriah and David (2 Sam 11)

–     David plotted to have Uriah killed because he had slept with Uriah’s wife and she had become pregnant.  Uriah was sent to a place of battle where he could not survive, and when he was killed, David married Bathsheba.

–     The faithful, loyal Uriah was betrayed, and he lost his wife and his life.  Like Abel, Uriah’s voice was muted.

No English word can adequately express the unfair treatment Uriah received, but han does.

Our individualistic worldview causes us to focus theologically on what my sin does in my relationship with God, with little corporate responsibility as to how my sin affects those I sinned- against.  For a theology that addresses the suffering of the sinned-against, we have to look outside our Western Christianity to find theologians that understood the suffering of the sinned against.

If you would like to hear more about this subject then please "stay tuned" and in part two you can hear "the rest of the story!"  In the meantime I can highly recommend two books, "Rediscovering the Power of Repentance and Forgiveness," and “Pastoral Theology of Rescue and Relationship For The Sinned Against: Solidarity and Empowerment For Christian Women Sexually Abused As Children.”  Both of these books were written by Dr. Leah Coulter and you can find a link to them from my website www.gloriadinerman.com on "links we like."