Furthermore, she writes, truth was compromised:  "There are rules in this peculiar world. Givens. Paramount is that a victim always tells the truth, with one exception. When a victim tells the same story as the offender, then the victim is wrong--because also paramount is the rule that an offender always lies."

I think we need to be wary of such ideologies which simplistically divide the world into good and bad, innocent victims and guilty offenders.  People are not so easily classifiable.  The mother writes, "In this particular world, no ambiguity is allowed.  Either one is on the side of the victim or one is on the side of the offender."  Interestingly enough, in his book Exclusion and Embrace, theologian Miraslov Volf says almost the same thing: "From a distance, the world may appear neatly divided into guilty perpetrators and innocent victims.  The closer we get, however, the more the line between the guilty and the innocent blurs and we see an intractable maze of small and large hatreds, dishonesties, manipulations, and brutalities, each reinforcing the other...people often find themselves sucked into a long history of wrongdoing in which yesterday's victims are today's perpetrators and today's perpetrators tomorrow's victims" (pp. 80-81).

Donald Mader echoes this theme in his article "Perpetrators and Victims."  (He confronts an ideology which sees all men as potential perpetrators, one which sex abuse expert Underwager also finds troublesome.  Underwager's research, as well as research presented at a recent conference of the American Psychological Association, reports resulting widespread fears by fathers and male teachers that they will be accused of child abuse if they touch children.  These same studies show clear links between low levels of physical affection and high levels of aggression, anxiety, and depression among children.) 

Mader's point is that classifying someone permanently as an irredeemable perpetrator is not biblical.  But this is what happens to the members of the therapy group in which the 13-year old "sex offender" participates.  The mother writes that all of the boys "are child molesters in the world's eyes now, and it's an unforgivable sin, an irrevocable name...I should direct this undying rage at him [her son]...It is his fault, and I must not forgive. It doesn't matter that he's a child, too...a boy, who is not allowed to have any goodness in him anymore."

I have come to see how clinging to an ideology to the point that it is impervious to challenge elevates it above human welfare and blinds one to reality.  When it classifies people into innocent victims and unforgivable monsters, or pits groups against each other--whether women against men, straights against gays, pro-gays against ex-gays, gays against boylovers, or boylovers against child abuse workers--it is not the way of Christ.  Romans 3 says, "There is no one righteous, not even one...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."  When we decide that one group of people is of less value than another, that a certain group is unworthy of our time or understanding, and worst of all, that God's saving grace through Christ is not available to them--the result can be spiritual and emotional abuse--even death.

Again, the mother of the boy labeled as a sex offender:  "What I wish I could do is somehow find a way to tell these boys they have a future. Sometimes I wonder if they do, if they'll be allowed redemption, or if they'll just go through life in the stocks of societal rejection, our new lepers."

Mark Distefano is a teacher at a private secondary school in the U.S., and editor of Paraklesis.