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With increasing numbers of local churches reaching out to people affected by crime—whether by repairing windows and locks after property crimes or organizing VOC programs—Christians across the country are facing levels of trauma and upheaval that defy callow explanation and comfort. God and the Victim is a good place for guidance on some of victims' perplexing questions about evil, victimization, justice, and forgiveness.

Loretta, whose father had beaten her regularly as a child, came for counseling to Dan Allender, professor of counseling at Western Seminary in Seattle and contributor to God and the Victim. The beatings would often continue until she was nearly unconscious. Loretta recalls now that as she began to regain consciousness and started moaning in pain, her father would sneer at her, "Stop whining. You sound pathetic. Just get up and clean yourself up."

"Evil feels no remorse, loss, or pain regarding the harm that is perpetrated," writes Allender. "[F]ar more, evil enjoys the planning, the setup, the trap, and the physical and emotional consequences of the harm." Such encounters with evil awaken theological questions about the character of God. That age-old and unanswerable question—why doesn't God always act when we most need divine help?--can wreak havoc with crime victims' image of a compassionate and powerful God. "Victims must face difficult issues of safety, meaning, and the future," says Lampman. "They often ask, 'What is the meaning of life? Who is the God I thought was there? Is there a God?'"

The essayists in God and the Victim issue an unequivocal call for Christians to understand and respect the intense questioning and anger that often accompany victimization, rather than to offer simplistic advice or counsel. Theologian Miroslav Volf voices his disquiet with liberal and conservative responses to evil and crime: that evil actions are entirely the result of social circumstance, or that they are entirely the will of the individual committing them. Instead of choosing one or the other, Volf walks right into the tangled space between the liberal and conservative camps, clearing a space in which environment and free will can been seen as interacting in complex and shifting ways. In the story of Cain and Abel, Cain's economic success sets the stage for his reaction to God's overturning of privilege; when God grants favor to Abel, we expect Cain to be angry. Yet Cain also chooses, in an exercise of his free will, to commit the ultimate act of exclusion, murdering his brother.

Volf thwarts the reader's rather automatic identification with Abel, the victim; "We cannot choose only one: each of us is both Abel and Cain," he writes. Volf and other writers refuse to negotiate on one point: that we must each come to terms with our own sinfulness, whatever form it takes, and by doing so, remember to offer grace to the guilty.

These complex and at times wrenching truths—that we are all both victims and perpetrators, that God's grace is unearned, and that God's love is given without regard to a moral scoreboard—are essential if crime-victim ministries are to avoid demonizing offenders.

Margaret can't erase the picture from her mind: the three men walking toward her on that night, then grabbing her, holding her down, raping her. Sleep comes slowly these days, and when it does come, it brings nightmares of the assault. She has recently moved to a new city, on the recommendation of officials involved in the case. Here she knows no one; here she has no job or furniture or transportation.

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April 24 2000, Vol. 44, No. 5