The Power Of Unrelieved Guilt

“In fact, one might say that all modernity, all the creators of the intellectual artifice that is the modern age, were bent on nothing more than rationalization of apostasy, with sexual rebellion as its vehicle. What do Margaret Mead, and Bloomsbury, and Picasso, and Sartre and Freud, and the various forms of socialism, and Paul Tillich, and any number of lesser lights have in common? Precisely that: rationalized sexual misbehavior construed as liberation. In reality it was nothing more than an attack on God in general and the Christian sexual morality in particular….

Add to apostasy the sexual sin that follows almost automatically therefrom — modernity, as I said, is nothing but rationalized sexual misbehavior anyway — and then add the abortion that follows naturally from the sexual revolution, and you have, after a while, a pretty impressive pool of guilt, one big enough to form the basis for a political movement…. Guilt has not only become endemic; it has become a powerful political tool. Liberalism, as currently practiced, is the politics of guilt. Guilt is the engine that pulls the Liberal train… what we are interested in here is the political grammar of those ostensibly involved in righting these wrongs. All the liberal causes are orchestrations, in one way or another, of the pool of guilt that has been building throughout this century.

The Democratic party is a good example of how this all gets brokered. The women blackmail the Liberals, who feel guilty about the sexual revolution, and the feminist power block comes into existence. The homosexuals blackmail the feminists, who feel guilty about abortion and so compensate by allowing the homosexuals to become officially designated victims, so that the feminists won’t have to face the real victims — their own aborted children. Guilt becomes the power base for each of these movements. It becomes the medium of exchange in the political marketplace. In order to play, you must first get yourself designated as a victim…. It works in direct proportion to the number of people in our society who turn away from Jesus Christ, the one and only effective antidote to guilt. It is simple enough to be reduced to an equation: the politics of guilt and blackmail will increase in inverse proportion to the number of people who follow Jesus Christ and — we might add, as he would — do his will. All of this only makes sense because the need to escape from guilt remains a constant in the life of human beings. If people deliberately turn away from Jesus Christ … they will be forced to seek release from guilt by ritual actions … ”

E. Michael Jones
Degenerate Moderns – pp. 121-122

“The reality of man apart from Christ is guilt and masochism. And guilt and masochism involve an unshakable inner slavery which governs the total life of the non-Christian. The politics of the anti-Christian will thus inescapably be the politics of guilt, man is perpetually drained of his social energy and cultural activity by his overriding sense of guilt and his masochistic activity. He will progressively demand of the state a redemptive role. What he cannot do personally, i.e., to save himself, he demands that the state do for him, so that the state, as man enlarged, becomes the human savior of man. The politics of guilt, therefore is not directed, as the Christian politics of liberty, to the creation of a godly justice and order, but to the creation of a redeeming order, a saving state. Guilt must be projected, therefore, on all those who oppose this new order and new age.”

R. J. Rushdoony
The Politics of Guilt and Pity — p. 9

1.) Rejection of God and His Law word as incarnated in Jesus Christ brings guilt. Guilt is objective and will always require some attempt at being assuaged. For Biblical Christians our guilt is assuaged in the blood atonement of Jesus Christ and the following assurance that “if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The modern does not have this means to relieve themselves of guilt and so much of their behavior and life is spent as a means to find a relief valve for their personal inescapable guilt.

2.) Since those outside of Christ do not have the only proper means to deal with their guilt they only have one of two options in order to find a temporary release of guilt. Those two options are either sadism in some degree or another or masochism is one degree or another. This is just another way of saying that either they will punish themselves (masochism) for their guilt or they will punish others for their guilt (sadism). If they punish others for their guilt often it will be those who are closest to them in their personal relationships. The attempt at removing guilt by means of self atonement can be seen in history by the religious flagellants as they whipped themselves bloody in order to relieve their sense of guilt. However, this means of relieving guilt can also be as comparatively benign as some small form of self sabotage that insures that one can not succeed in some effort. Sadistic attempts at removing guilt are sometimes as blood drenched as abortion where living human beings are made the guilt sacrifice of their parent’s sins or it can be simply the work of a parent shoving their guilt off on their child or a spouse placing their guilt upon their husband or wife.

3.) Guilt becomes a tool whereby whole cultures and social orders are manipulated. For example, White people are made to feel guilty for their success and they are manipulated, by false guilt, to support policies (quotas, educational set asides, manipulated SAT scores, etc.) that work to insure that they, as a people group, no longer can be successful. False guilt over a false sin, as named by a false god, can only be paid for by a false masochistic atonement. For example, women are made to feel guilty for being a wife and homemaker and they are manipulated, by false guilt, to take up careers and to place their children into day care centers. False guilt over a false sin, as named by a false god, can only be paid for by a false atonement. For example, heterosexuals are made to feel guilty for rightly finding sodomy and perverseness disgusting, and they are manipulated, by false guilt, into believing that their natural abhorrence is unnatural and worthy of being sanctioned. False guilt over a false sin, as named by a false god, can only be paid for by a false atonement. Guilt, as Jones notes, is a powerful political tool.

4.) When guilt is allowed to be the train that pulls the body politic, then the weak rule over the strong. When guilt is allowed to be the ruling motif of any social order then it is only those who can somehow claim victim status who are prioritized in import over non-victims. When this happens (and it has happened in our culture) then whole pecking orders of “more victimized than thou” are created. Women more victim then men. Lesbian women more victim then straight women. Handicapped Lesbian women more victim them non handicapped Lesbian women… and on and on it goes. In such a culture the weak dominate the strong so that the strong must continually brought down to the level of the weak.

5.) The blackmailing that happens that Jones mentions I suspect takes place in the following way. In return for homosexuals not mentioning the abortion issue to guilt laden feminists the feminists lend the weight of their support for the homosexual movement. In such a way guilt over abortion is used as a muting factor that allows a large power bloc that was itself created by guilt (feminists) to turn a blind eye to the creation of another large power bloc that is created by guilt (homosexuals).

6.) Blood is still often connected with this pagan relieving of guilt. The blood sacrifice of abortion provides relief of the guilt that comes from violating God’s 7th word.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

2 thoughts on “The Power Of Unrelieved Guilt”

  1. I understand the logic here, and it makes sense, but I guess I don’t see examples of homosexuals guilting the feminists in the world at large…the media, the internet…they always have each others backs and every feminist I come across is a HUGE advocate for gay rights, but I guess I don’t see the actual ‘homosexuals making feminists feel guilty’ happening in action. Maybe its more subversive, and is never actually stated out loud.

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