Honour and Shame and the Prosperity Gospel in Africa

The Prosperity Gospel has flooded Africa.

So much so that here in Botswana, a new law was passed to curb the proliferation of churches.  A reason given is that these 'new' churches are robbing the people with great promises of health, success and prosperity if they give great amounts to the church but the promises don't come through.  National leaders don't like it.

But why has the Prosperity Gospel engulfed this continent more than other places around the globe?  Are Africans more greedy than anyone else?  No I don't believe so.

It's all about worldview - an honour/shame worldview.

Gaining honour and avoiding shame are two partner goals of African culture, as I've said many times before.

The Prosperity Gospel offers wealth, health and success.  To be wealthy, healthy and successful is honourable in the society.  In other words the Prosperity Gospel offers what an African sees as honour.

WEALTH

The West looks at the apparent poverty of Africa and thinks that the offer of prosperity is something new and attractive.  Not so.  African's have not suddenly become eager for wealth.

As the West observed Africa, it saw what it thought was poverty and lack of wealth.....but that was according to the West's definition of wealth - big house, electricity, air-conditioning, plumbed hot water, flash car, Western Education, TV, DVD, computer, Cell phones, access to supermarkets etc etc.

What the West didn't think about was other forms of wealth....such as cows!  Yes cows.

Here in Botswana people don't live on their farm.  They don't live and have fields and graze their cows all in the one place.  They live in the village, with their fields further out from the village in another area and the cows are in a different place again - the cattle post where the men go.  You may look at a little hut in a yard and say they have very little.....but they may have 30 cows and fields under cultivation.  The number of cows you had was a main measure of your wealth.  Even now cows are valuable.  30 cows if they were sold could net at least P90000 - almost $10,000.  It's like saying a person doesn't have a TV but they have $10,000 in the bank, or they don't have running water but they have a nice car.  Of course traditionally the chief was the one with the most cows and the most land. Another traditional sign of wealth was the number of wives.  African's have always desired wealth. Wealth is honour and honour is power.

Urban Africans don't always have lots of cows (although many still have their cows and lands out at their home village) or lots of wives, but they do have the opportunity now days for lots of Western style wealth to show off.  Wealth still brings honour and honour still brings power.

The inverse is also true: Poverty is shame and shame is fear and insignificance.

Everyone wants to look the 'big man'!

HEALTH

Traditionally, sickness in Africa is seen as shameful, maybe the result of a curse and to be hidden.  Temporary illness is bad enough and traditional medicine is sought to reverse the curse. But Chronic illness or permanent disability that can't be reversed is perpetual shame and so the only way to overcome it is to hide it. The book 'Debility and the Moral Imagination in Botswana' talks about this very issue.  We have a friend doing post-graduate study here focusing on enabling the disabled, and I asked him how it was going.  His reply was that he faced a problem in that it was hard to find the disabled as they are hidden away.

As I think I have mentioned before, there is a widespread belief that when a person becomes a Christian, God has promised that they will no longer be put to shame (Romans 9:33).  Because the gospel has not been explained with any reference or teaching relating to shame, people bring in their cultural definitions and thus interpret that God is saying they will now not be ever having any shame in the eyes of other people.  This wrong understanding then leads to the view that whatever will alleviate shame before other people must be God's will, and whatever brings shame in the eyes of other people cannot possibly be God's will. 

Thus there is a belief that God would only want their physical healing.

This, combined with the widely held doctrinal belief that there is present healing in the atonement, not least through a mis-understanding of 'by his stripes we are healed' (Is 53), just fuels  and re-inforces the possibilities offered by the Prosperity Gospel.

SUCCESS

Thus success is seen as good health and great wealth - that is honourable.  Poverty in any form and illness/disability is seen as shameful.

So what we see is the Prosperity Gospel slotting in very nicely to traditional belief - a traditional belief that kept people trapped.  

People are busy trying to look rich in the eyes of others and look healthy in the eyes of others.  

People don't share their physical struggles - always everything is happy and fine!

People go into huge debt to 'look good'

People don't want to be seen going to 'cheap' shops or buying 'cheap' items,..... they want to be known to be wearing the latest clothes, and driving the latest car and smart phone. (the clothes might be on credit card, the car might have almost no fuel and not been taken to the mechanic for the proper tune-ups, the phone might have no call credit to be able to make calls, and there may be almost no food in the house but people don't see that.)

People don't save, because tomorrow and the future is not where Africans live - they live today and for what others see today.

Prophecies are attractive because a prophecy in itself brings a sense of honour in being 'chosen' to be 'blessed' and of course the 'blessing' in the prophecy is eagerly received as a promise of success and thus further honour.

The need for success isn't just personal either, because there is associated honour and associated shame.  Who a person is seen with affects how they are 'seen'.  So a person will want their family to be seen to also be successful.  

A Christian girl I mentored graduated from University.  Her mother (who also was a regular church attender) just happened to graduate from a Post Graduate degree at the same time and her mother decided to have a combined big graduation party.  The daughter had just finished doing a bible study on materialism and decided she didn't want to spend her entire bank account and more on the clothes she would wear on that night (under her graduation gown).  But her mother got very angry with her when she saw how simple and ordinary (though still elegant and new) the clothes were that her daughter was going to wear - 'what will all my friends think?' was the mother's cry.  She demanded her daughter wear something more expensive and glamorous.  It was a very difficult time and eventually there was a slight adjustment made but the mother still wasn't happy although she eventually accepted her daughter wasn't going to budge any further.  There was great pressure that she would bring shame on her mother by not dressing with the appearance of wealth and honour.

Replacing the Mis-placed

It saddens us greatly when we see the destructive twisted lies of the Devil still impacting people around us under the guise of Christianity.  But it reminds us again how vital it is that people hear the truth and let the truth set them free.  

Mis-placed cultural and Prosperity gospel beliefs need to be replaced with what God says about honour and shame.  This involves good Bible teaching and also teaching folk how to read and understand the text of their Bibles in context.  We are reminded that when Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness he used Scripture out of context and made error sound believable and attractive.  

Not only do culturally mis-placed shame perspectives need to be replaced, so do religious ones.  

Don't be ashamed to hang onto your pen!

photo credit

I don't feel old, but maybe its a sign of the reality of my age as I pass another birthday that puts me closer to 5 decades than 4, that I still prefer to sometimes hold a book and a pen in my hand rather than an electronic device.

I get excited when my 4 year old African 'grand-daughter' (who is proficient at playing learning games apps on her dad's touch screen smart phone) , comes to visit and says 'Gogo, I want to write!' ....so she goes and gets her little pink plastic 'lap table' from under my day bed with her pens and pencils and crayons and notebook and colouring book to 'write'!

('Gogo' is the Shona word for Grandma and is pronounced closer to a goo-goo sound as in 'book')

I spend hours at my laptop each day, researching, reading and typing away and there are many times I am very thankful I was taught typing so I can speed type - it means I can get thoughts down much faster and with less hand strain, than using a pen and paper.

But there are times that a keyboard and computer screen just don't 'make the grade'.  Drawing a chart or diagram on a computer is often too slow for me to get down what is whirling around in my mind. I need a pen and paper for that.  So alongside the files buried in the computer hard-drive is a ringbinder file full of 'jottings'.

I must say, that in our modern world of technology its almost too easy to feel ashamed if you don't use an iPad or iPhone and instead you carry a pen and notebook in your pocket.

But I want to say 

DON'T FEEL ASHAMED!   

&  

 DON'T GIVE UP YOUR PEN AND PAPER!

My hairdresser commented the last time I saw her, that our huge local power problems have reminded her that all our access to information is subject to power!  If Google was to collapse, or our power supply fails suddenly, we have no access to data. But this is not the only reason to not give up your pen.

Our brains actually function differently with our fingers on a keyboard and looking at a screen than with a pen and paper in our hands...and the pen and paper comes out on top!

I found a TedTalk on YouTube about the importance of the pen, by a young guy in his 20s, Jake Weldmann, who is the youngest Master Penman and an advocate of keeping the pen 'alive'.

He also explained that writing with your own hand is better for imprinting data into the brain than typing it.  He warned that although he is also a user of technology, if we are not careful, our 'clever' modern generation might find that technology is fast-tracking ourselves into illiteracy!

Watch the video here

He isn't the only one finding negatives with our 'attachment' to the electronic keyboard and computer screen.

Some University lecturers are even prohibiting tech devices in their lecture rooms and forcing students to take hand written notes.  (we are encouraged, since we do the same for certain parts of our discipleship programs).

An article in the Washington Post tells of a Professor of Media Studies at New York University, Clay Shirky who "allowed his students to bring laptops, tablets and phones into class and use them at will. But he just told students to put them away. He explains why below in a piece that first appeared on medium.com."

Writing on paper and reading a hard copy book is also good for our eyes.  While there are times I value the bright clear computer screen and the ability to enlarge the font, there are also other times when my eyes welcome the restfulness of a real book.  Sleep is also assisted by reading a 'real book' but is significantly hindered by the light of the screen in reading an e-book.

MedicalDaily  in a recent article listed some points about why we should put aside the ''e-reader' and start reading paper books again.

1. You're missing out on important information: "A 2014 study found that readers who used Kindles were less competent in recalling the plot and events in the book than those who used paperbacks."
2. E-books get in the way of sleepytime: "A recent study out of Harvard University found that reading an e-book before bed lessened the production of an important sleep hormone known as melatonin. As a result, people took much longer to fall asleep, experienced less deep sleep, and were more fatigued in the morning."
3. Screens=Stress: Reading helps you de-stress faster or just as fast as listening to music, taking a walk, or having a cup of tea or coffee, according to a 2009 study. When researchers measured heart rate and muscle tension, they found that people relaxed just six minutes into reading.But reading on a device might cancel out this effect, and may even impact your stress levels negatively.

And what about the effect of technology on our devotional and church life.  

Although there are electronic forms of the Bible and Commentaries etc etc and they are extremely helpful (I use them), and there are Apps to help organise your prayer life (which I don't use but some folk say they find helpful), I wonder about the distance we are putting between ourselves and our real paper bible and a pen in our hand. ...the tactile reality is better to imprint truth into our brain and the distractions are fewer. 

A pen and paper are also not as socio-economically exclusive as technology devices.  While many in the Western world have the access and funds to be able to buy such devices in multiple forms, there are many in the world that don't have that privilege.  If we aren't careful we may sadly make 'books' and knowledge the privilege of the elite!...

And here is a note to preachers - as much as there may be some positives in preaching from an iPad, I would like to suggest differently.  It is much more tangibly clear that God's word is the authority when the 'flock' can see that their shepherd is speaking from his open Bible.  

If you are visiting Africa to preach, please don't use your iPad for your notes out in the village church, or maybe even in the city church.  Please don't set a standard that the 'most honourable' and 'high' positioned preachers must use technology - because that is how it will be viewed by most who will see you.  Allow the most poor and 'lacking in technology' listener to know that power in preaching doesn't come from access to technology but from God and His word.  Let them see that they are equal to you and we are all one in Christ Jesus - neither Jew or Gentile, neither slave or free............neither user of iPad or Pen! 

It seems I'm not alone in my concerns, as just today I received an email highlighting a link to an article by African-American Pastor HB Charles Jr about 'Little Screens and Corporate Worship'. That article and another by him a while back, On Technology and Transcendence, reveal the issue is not one we can just turn a blind eye to.  He said :

"While I am grateful for all the ways the technology makes our lives easier, I am concerned about anything that aids our trivialization of the Almighty. And any medium that gets in way of the message. As we integrate our gadgets into our worship lives – or before we do so – we should think long and hard about whether our gadgets dull our sense of the majesty of God in worship or help us to see and sense the supremacy of God more clearly and deeply and joyfully. Could it be that using mobile devices in worship can be just as dangerous as texting while driving?"

So whether you are a mum who likes to read, a student at University or a Pastor preparing sermon notes......don't just 'go with the flow' in our world's rivers of technology.  

As Christians we should be the ones to 'consider our ways', the ones to want to allow ALL to access knowledge, and to encourage literacy (both reading and writing).  

Maybe we should consider, for all the immense knowledge and power of God, He chose to write with his own 'finger' into stone when he gave Moses the Law - you can't get more tactile than that.  I'm not saying we must all go and carve into stone, but we should not be too quick to leave the 'tactile' behind.

So.....Think before you turn on the screen, and instead reach for a real book, paper and pen.

What the Australian Parliament 'Speaker's travel claims' incident tells us about Honour and Law.

Australia's new Speaker in Parliament has now been appointed after the pressure was so much that previous Speaker Bronwyn Bishop had to resign.

In a previous blog I talked about what the incident which led to her resignation, revealed about the shift from law and guilt to honour and shame in Australian society.

Since that blog, I received an ABC news bulletin related to some other Politicians being 'investigated' over supposed wrongful spending of their travel allowances, and it said: 

"while the entitlements claims were within the rules, they were "beyond community expectations""

....thus unacceptable and 'wrong'.  Guilt is then defined solely by 'going beyond community expectations'.

Here is what I see:

1. Rules are being ignored in favour of 'community expectations' rather than the community being subject to the rules.

Only the Prime Minister has suggested that maybe the rules themselves should be looked at to see if they are wrong and should be changed. An assessment and possible adjustment in the written rules, brings opportunity for those subject to them to still be held accountable to laws and rules, and maintains some objective, knowable and clear standard.  However, this is not what is happening.

2. Society (in this case the Parliament) is subjecting itself to the tyranny of honour without law

This is what I also see functioning in traditional African practice.

Honour without law is an 'after the fact' type of behaviour control.  It is a set of boundaries that are constantly moving because community expectations are constantly in a state of flux.  Community culture is never entirely static. You only know where the current boundary is when you get a 'reaction' from the community.

Although traditional African religion has certain 'rituals' which seem like laws, they are not a complete set of written standards.  They are a collection of orally passed down community expectations which are constantly 'adjusting' - sometimes obviously and sometimes subtly. 

• for example in talking with our local co-worker he commented that it is true that if something 'goes wrong' (such as crops failing or illness) the afflicted will seek from the witchdoctor information as to who cursed them and brought such affliction. They may well know of several events/matters in which they have maybe not properly maintained traditional practice, but they will not admit to them.  Instead they will wait to see which ones if any the witchdoctor says is the reason for this particular problem.  If the witchdoctor says it is because the ancestors are not happy because you did not make sure your entire family were at such and such a ritual and so you must bring a cow, then a cow is brought - end of story. The other events/matters that the witchdoctor didn't raise are then seen as 'ok' after all, since it seems the ancestors didn't mention those as disrespectful.  So as another local Pastor told us in reference to his own people - 'culturally we just do whatever we like and hope we won't get caught'.  

• another example is from another local friend who when she got married was complaining how much the tea, sugar and biscuits for her parents and relatives were costing her in the week lead-up to the wedding.  She explained that it was 'culturally' her responsibility to cover the cost of all such items consumed as extended relatives from near and far began arriving and village members came to 'help' prepare for the wedding. And she further explained it had to be a certain brand of tea - other brands were unacceptable and would be disrespecting the elders of the family and village. I asked how it could be 'culturally traditional' when tea is not a traditional crop, it is something brought in by foreigners and only purchased at a supermarket?  'Well its now cultural' she said.  Evolving community expectations were deciding what was right or wrong.

This produces  a situation where people have one of two reactions - so much fear of community reaction that they become obsessive people pleasers, or a willingness to risk not being found out and so do whatever they want, constantly trying to 'gauge' where the community feeling is at, so as to navigate around any potential 'reaction'.  

Law on the other hand gives definition to what is acceptable and what is not and is not adjustable as the wind blows.  It is thought through, carefully decided and defined,written down and able to be referenced, and not easily changed so relatively stable, and with judgements made accordingly.  Such judgements are bound to be made in accordance with the law.

Honour without law brings lack of clarity, lack of definition, less ability to reference, less stability, and a reliance on oral expression not written record and standard.

God giving law and thus an example and pattern of law, is on the one hand a curse (as it reveals as an objective standard any trespass of it and is a standard we can never attain), but it is also a gift.  It is a way in which those subject to it all know where they stand and that a fair and equal standard will be applied to all and every situation.  It is no respector of persons.  As we say, no one is above the law, and everyone knows where they stand.

Community expectations on the other hand are very subjective and actually highly discrimatory as its only those people and situations to which the community 'reacts', that are subject to any type of judgement.

3. Sin becomes 'mistakes' and confessions become blurred

As much as the previous Speaker made an effort to apologise, it was an apology not based on a wrongful breaking of the law (rules) but only on trying to restore public approval.

Bruce Burgess of the excellent Christian organisation 'Peacewise' recently noted some problems as he observed the previous Speakers apology - the very same problems that we are seeing in relation to the issues of confession and forgiveness here in Africa.

He referred to the fact that wrong or selfish choices get renamed as 'error of judgement' - in other words a 'mistake'.  This is something we see as common practice here. At first when we came to Africa it bothered me that no-one said they did wrong but that they made a mistake.  But I have learnt that they were actually not being evasive.  

When you remove the 'law' factor, there is no objective knowable standard.  Community expectations are something that a person must just constantly have a 'sixth sense' about and learn to intuitively navigate - thus it is not always a specific choice to 'cross a boundary' when one fails to meet community expectations - it simply is a mistake, 'an error of judgement' and accidental displeasing of others, because the other's exact requirement for their approval was unknown until the person failed to reach it!  

They 'miss the mark' - just like in Archery....to miss the bulls-eye is not necessarily because you intentionally chose not to hit the bull's eye but because you 'accidentally' missed it while actually aiming to hit it.

Burgess also explained that an apology simply for 'not meeting community expectations' is never a solid basis for true confession and forgiveness. 

Her apology was shown to be 'not enough', as resolution of the matter was not accepted until she resigned.  As I have said in a previous blog, when the concept of guilt being hinged on law is removed, the only level of 'resolution' is to either ignore the 'lack of meeting community expectations' and maintain the relationship, or reject the relationship.  Parliament didn't want to ignore it so the only option for her was rejection.

Bruce Burgess says:

Ms Bishop finally apologised for "letting the Australian people down", offered to repay the money with penalty interest and tendered her resignation.
When asked by a journalist, "If you believe you did nothing wrong … why do you want to repay the money?" She responded, "… Because it was too much money, it just looked wrong. Although it's within the rules, it just doesn't look right and therefore I'm apologising and I'm repaying the money."
It is impossible to truly apologise and make a confession if you don't actually believe that you did anything wrong.
Whilst Ms Bishop's offer to repay is commendable, and she has now also resigned from the public office of Speaker, people are struggling to accept Ms Bishop's apology is genuine, because her words, however heartfelt, really only reflect her sorrow for "letting the public down whilst acting within the rules".

Not only did her attempt at 'confession' fail but her actions may end up costing her her political career.  Confession that does not factor in transgression of a standard is intuitively felt by the one offended as 'incomplete' and 'insufficient' even if they don't understand why.  This becomes even more complicated when the objective 'standard' is replaced by a 'subjective' standard when society devolves into functioning under honour without law.  And Australia seems to be in a state of wobbly transition, where the populous is in a state of confusion, in tension between the two.  Ms Bishop tried to give a 'guilt type' confession for something she didn't actually feel guilty for, to an 'honour type' offended party.  

Honour without law is not a positive advancement of society but a negative regression.  One without the other is not a good place to be.  We need both.  God made us for a balance of both.

It seems that the West that has overemphasised the law is now reacting with an overemphasis on honour - but in the process has also shifted from law primarily based on God's law to honour essentially based on man's honour.

Sadly the Western world is in a bad place!

Oh, the blinding bondage and destruction of sin!

But if we recognise what is going on, we can also better bring the gospel in such a way that brings truth to both the aversion to God's law and the prevalence of mis-placed honour.

I challenge you to get to understand the realities of both law and honour and how to best reach our 21st Century Western world as well as the great continent of Africa. 

Is Guilt the answer to Shame?...or is there something GREATER!

When I first read the last couple of chapters of Shame and Vulnerability Researcher Brene Brown's (PhD) book 'Daring Greatly' I was disappointed to read that she felt the answer to shame and its negative impact was to emphasise guilt more heavily.

She said on p 224  "...we need to separate our children from their behaviours.  As it turns out, there's a significant difference between you are bad and you did something bad.  And, no, its not just semantics.  Shame corrodes the part of us that believes we can do and be better.  When we shame and label our children, we take away their opportunity to grow and try on new behaviours.  If a child tells a lie, she can change that behaviour.  If she is a liar--where the potential for change in that?

Cultivating more guilt self-talk and less shame self-talk requires rethinking how we discipline and talk to our children."

She went on to use terms such as a child is 'good' but just makes bad choices.  Now, we know that from a Biblical perspective we are not inherently 'good' and just make bad choices.  We are sinfully bad and thus we make bad choices.  We lie not because we accidentally made a bad choice but because sin hates the truth.  We lie because at heart level we are liars.....so much so, that in saying we are 'good' is actually a lie in itself!

BUT separate of the false 'good' premise she promotes, she actually has a very good point that I failed to realise at the time of that first read.

She is right, guilt is imperative.  Or should I say an awareness of the reality of guilt and its place and function is imperative.  Without it, we have a lop-sided and detrimental perspective on our wrong-doing.

Living, as I do, in a culture that according to The Culture Test results has some of  the highest honour/shame emphasis levels in the world, I see more and more the problems of a lack of guilt emphasis.

You see, Brene Brown is right.  As she and so many others point out that shame is about who I am, and guilt is about what I do.  And if we leave off half the story we create a problem for ourselves.

But you see, I suggest Brene Brown is also wrong. God offers an answer to 'who I am' as well as 'what I do'.  If we only emphasise the 'what I do' we will miss out in offering people an answer for 'who I am'.  

Psychology has for years said that telling people about guilt is a bad thing,  Brene Brown is right in saying that perspective is destructive, because it has left us with only the 'shame' side of the picture.

We may not think so, but God blessed us with guilt in addition to shame.  It gives us balance.  It gives opportunity to hope and start again.  You see, we can see what we do more than who we are.

So when we see what we do, its easier to believe we 'are' something different. When we see what others do, its easier to believe they might be becoming something different.

This is where, if you are managing to follow me, her argument actually contradicts itself.

There is a reason that seeing what we do can give us hope that we 'are' becoming someone different.  And that is because what we do, does come from who we are.  If we are Christians, new creatures in Christ, the 'who we are' changes and thus the 'what we do' changes. ('by their fruit you shall know them' Matthew 7:20).  

What we do comes from who we are

But on the other hand, in our sinful nature, we lie because we are liars.  We sin because we are sinners.  Even our 'good works' outside of Christ are for our own honour and pleasure apart from God, and come from a heart that is self-focused. (Although it is true there is a vague marred image of God's character in our world and a knowledge of 'good' and 'evil' as well as the living example of Christians as salt and light that draws people to desire the benefits of 'good' and to avoid the realities of 'bad'.  And there are certain God ordained 'cause and effect' realities in our world of what happens when 'good' is done as opposed to 'evil' that the world enjoys as part of 'common grace'.)

The problem with her argument comes when a person for whatever reason does something 'bad' again.  At some point they will inevitably still feel that they are becoming 'bad' again.  So they will hide it because to 'become bad' is a  shame issue.

So Brene hopes that teaching kids to emphasise the guilt factor will help them focus on the 'bad thing' and not feel a 'bad person' and thus be more willing to even admit wrong in the first place and learn from it. She believes this will help to create 'shame resilience'.  But its an argument that is built on a false foundation that won't stand the tests she hopes it will.  Focusing on guilt may reduce the impact of shame, but it won't eliminate it.

Focusing on guilt may reduce the impact of shame, but it won't eliminate it.

Now, lets take a leap from this point, as I want to use what we have just talked about to talk further about the place and importance of guilt.  You see Brene Brown is on the right track, she just got a bit diverted by another aspect of psychology (that we are all inherently 'good') along the way.

When there is no or little emphasis on guilt, if a person does wrong, as we have said, there is no room for any interpretation except that the person is bad.  There is no distance between the act and the one committing the act.  There is no space or hope for change.  

But as we interact person to person, God has given a design that includes both guilt and shame.  When we focus on shame alone, and someone does something wrong, we have only two options.  1. ignore it.  2. have full on shame/rejection.  There is no middle ground.   Shame is a 'being' related function whereas guilt is a 'behaviour' related function.  

Shame severs relationship and if we only have 'shame' as a means for dealing with wrong, and emphasise the 'being' without the 'behaviour', we have no means for acknowledging the wrong but still offering relationship in which the person can bring new behaviour and rebuild the honour.  Forgiven guilt is the bridge one has to cross to properly move from shame to restored honour.  Without that bridge, the only answer to shame is a total separation of the relationship....or an ignoring of the behaviour so as to avoid the separation of the relationship.

Forgiven guilt is the bridge one has to cross to properly move from shame to restored honour. 

Aussies are seeing a form of this possibly playing out when the Speaker in Federal Parliament was 'found guilty' for claiming some transport allowance that when 'exposed' was beyond what the Australian public and other parlimentarians thought was acceptable even though it was within the 'rules'.  The Speaker explained it was not done as a deliberate breaking of any rule and she immediately offered to pay it back and did promptly pay it back with penalty.  She also made a significant statement of apology exhibiting remorse.  

Now I am not here to judge the sincerity or accusations surrounding this incident but....it reveals some interesting dynamics.

There were many (especially in the opposition) who demanded the Speaker step down and that she has totally lost their respect over the incident.  They say they cannot respect the position she holds in the Parliament while she fills it.  Interestingly a poll (31 July 2015) taken by THE AGE newspaper had about 2/3 agreeing she should step down because people have lost trust in her, and 1/3 who said she should stay otherwise the punishment would be greater than the crime.  

Here we have a situation that is like big flashing lights to me of a guilt-shame culture collision of a Western culture that is in tension, and dare I say transition, between a once guilt emphasis and a growing shame emphasis - although neither side would be aware of what is going on.

The Speaker (age 72) did all the 'right' things expected in a guilt emphasis culture - she confessed (didn't deny it), she gave an apology showing remorse, and she paid back the amount even with additional 25% penalty.  Not only that but she voluntarily asked the Finance committee to check all her other past expenses so if there is anything else that is felt she should pay back she will. I think she expected forgiveness and permission to 'start again' and show she would not do the same thing again.

Those accusing her, however have little room for forgiveness of guilt, it seems.  In their framework, she has broken the trust that they believed was necessary to hold the relationship of respect together.  So now the relationship is broken and the only way for the Parliament to move on is for her to be removed.  In their minds, the relationship has ended.  Behaviour is inseparable from the person, in their thinking, and opportunity for behaviour change is not permissible.  There is not the slightest hope for forgiveness and in fact the word hasn't even been mentioned in anything I've read. This is considered enough to ruin her reputation with no room for reparation.  From their perspective what she is guilty of, is that she lost their respect.

While details may differ, the elements of this scenario are so common in situations I've observed in the culture around me.  There is nothing positive about losing a right emphasis on guilt.  The West has been blessed for many years to benefit from a 'guilt factor' reality.  Brene Brown is right to be concerned about its fading from the scene and the need to make sure it comes back.

Lest I be thought to be simplistic in this, I am not saying an over-emphasis on guilt is the answer.  Part of the reason I was originally in disagreement with Brene Brown's statement was that if we just keep ignoring shame and emphasising guilt, it won't just go away.  Shame is not a human construct that we can eliminate.  Focusing on behaviour alone will not remove the reality of our 'being'.  We cannot detach 'what we do' from 'who we are'. 

Our world in its broken sinful state, and the West with its post-Judeo-Christian legacy, is grasping at ways to solve its problems.  It sees some blurred images of truth, that are fast fading in the Western world, but neither understands their source nor seeks the fullness of their truth.  Our world wants the blessings of godliness without God.

God has an answer for 'who we are

What our world fails to realise is that God has an answer for 'who we are'.  We do not have to declare ourselves 'good' in order to escape a knowledge 'we are bad'.  In fact when we do, we keep ourselves estranged from the very One who is good, and who wants to give us a new 'good' nature, in Himself.  

We can't rename a bad thing 'good' in the hope it will change.  But God doesn't just re-name us (although that's included since we go from sinner to saint!), but He remakes us and redeems us!  We get to change who we 'are'. 

We don't just have to learn shame resilience, but we receive shame replacement. We gain a new identity - one of honour instead of shame.  Not only are our sins forgiven, but the old 'me' goes and a new 'me' comes....a new 'me' is born!  

We can be born again when the One who cannot sin and does not sin is born into us and give us His new life!  Then since we behave from a base of who we are, our behaviour also begins to change.  

We won't be perfect in behaviour in this life as we battle the reality of this sinful world and our 'old' sinful nature in our flesh, but as we submit to Christ, we are being transformed from one degree of glory (honour) to another.

This is the good news of the gospel!