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Last week Prince Harry released his long awaited (or feared!) book 'SPARE', supposedly the fastest selling non-fiction book and was the #1 seller on Amazon for the week. And yes, it is being read even here in Africa!
It has gained understanding, sympathy and praise from some quarters - as giving his side of the story, but seems to have made other readers disgusted, appalled, saddened and horrified as being a book that just tears people down, while others are refusing to read it. Although Americans seem more accepting of it than the British, even some Americans who don't understand the British Royal Family, have a problem with someone publicly trashing one's family and publicly exposing family stuff that should stay private behind closed doors...and all for a reward of millions of dollars...without mentioning the risks now brought to military veterans and beyond, over 'kill-count' revelations. Australians seem to be having mixed reactions. One Christian Aussie blogger suggested that to enter into the discussion or read the book is akin to fuelling or participating in 'gossip'.
I must confess I have not yet read the book and I'm not necessarily convinced I want to spend the money or carve out the time to read it…especially just now. But I have watched the interviews with him to hear his own words, and viewed/listened to some of the commentary on the book, not least out of interest in honour-shame dynamics of people and of the British Royal Family and British culture. And I'm not convinced that something that is influencing millions of readers and viewers across the globe should be totally ignored by the church….not to join the gossip, but for knowing the wisest and best ways to bring light and truth into such a situation and discussion.
But, in the light of the honour-shame interest, I thought it might be worth to briefly highlight three elements which stood out to me, which I think are worth reflecting on and learning from to be better equipped to understand our world and be witnesses and gospel-bringers in it.
SPARE
The book title 'Spare' is certainly a powerful one-word title. Prince Harry gave the reasoning behind the book title in an interview saying that it was so he could 'own' a word that had been used against him for a long part of his life.
This appears to be a desire to 'redeem' a word and reverse a status. What he is doing here seems to be wanting to change the honour status of a label, from something that shamed him to something that is part of achieving value and worth. It re-assigns value…from negative value (shame) to positive value (honour).
It is a desire to reverse the honour-code.
We all have a deep inbuilt desire to reverse our 'shame' status and gain an 'honour' status. But ultimately and sadly, our own efforts to redeem ourselves are not likely to achieve what we hope in the end, or at most they become a pseudo-honour that Satan convinces our own hearts is the answer to our problems and keeps us away from the true and supreme shame-to-honour gift of grace that God's own Son (our perfect redeemer), died to gift us.
Shame
Maybe one of the biggest problematic and dangerous ramifications of his book stems from his comments about numbering those whom he killed while a soldier, and how he had to view those people not as real people at the time.
In refuting the accusation that his comment was a 'boast', in one of the interviews he gives his reason for numbering those he killed as: 'I made a choice to share it because having spent nearly two decades working with veterans all around the world, I think the most important thing is to be honest and be able to give space to others to be able to share their experiences without any shame. And my whole goal and attempt with sharing that detail is to reduce the number of suicides.
Despite what many believe is a lack of wisdom in such ill-advised sharing in a book like this, what becomes obvious is, Prince Harry's awareness of the destructive nature of shame (or what I would say is 'mis-placed shame') and his desire to escape it, not only personally but also try to help others to escape it.
Suicide is at its core most often a desire to either escape, avoid or end humiliation and shame. Suicide is real, and the desires and fears behind it are real. However, once again it is a lie of Satan and our sin-bent hearts that it is the way out of shame. What Harry has got right is that suicide is not the answer. However, to beat suicide, and stay alive on this earth to try to conquer this earth's shame, and yet ignore or refuse God's offered rescue from a far greater eternal shame (which we will wish to escape from but will endure forever with no escape), is a far greater horror than suicide. And when we don't deal with shame, God's way, all other therapies (in missing the mark of God's solution), will have their own other negative impacts one way or another either on the person or those around them. For example, the subtle but powerful allurement of shaming others in order to elevate oneself, as a mis-placed means to overcome shame, is a path that will ultimately bring more pain.
However, having said that, this reminds us yet again that in our bringing of the gospel…the good news…to a sin-sick world, we must bring good news for shame. If we don't wake up to the reality of this, we not only fail to bring the full truth of the good news to hearts, but by our silence on the subject of shame, we end up pushing people to search for false and temporary shame-rescue options, and keep them thinking that Jesus Christ has nothing to offer.
In one interview Harry talked about how he thinks the Royal Family need to deal with 'unconscious bias' that can lead to racism.
Interestingly in another interview, he has now very much tried to disassociate himself from labelling the Royal Family as racist.
But what is interesting here is that he has highlighted a very much overlooked factor in human community life - that of 'unconscious bias'….but his view of it is actually quite limited.
Scripture gives us the truth that it is a more pervasive problem than we might like to admit. Human beings all have an 'unconscious bias' - in other words a proclivity toward something that we are most often oblivious to, naive about, and unaware of. And for some, racism might be part of that of course (...and racism doesn't just mean tension between people of differing skin colour, or white toward black….racism can also be white to white or black to black!).
Interestingly some are commenting in response, that 'unconsious bias' is still something people should be held responsible for, and it can't be detached from deliberate 'racism'.
However, there is a far more serious and sinister 'unconscious bias' than is being raised by Prince Harry ….which is our basic human assumption that we are in the right, that others are to blame for our problems, and that we should make sure to vindicate ourselves and shame others so that we can maintain or 'prove' our worth to ourselves or to others.
Furthermore, we have a deadly bias toward ignoring God, and looking to creation (self and others) rather than the Creator to find honour and significance.
Fundamentally our unconscious bias is toward sin and away from God. That is the most serious type of unconscious bias that we need remedy for, first and foremost.
Yet, within this is an unconscious bias in us all, to seek honour. Romans 2 tells us this. Where we seek honour determines our life dignity, direction, and destiny. We need to fundamentally recognise the reality of that bias in our own heart and the hearts of others if we are going to understand how our fallen sin-bias functions. It is only then we are likely to grow in our openness and willlingness to have God show us where we seek honour in a mis-placed way which thus blocks (quenches and grieves) God and his work, and therefore blocks his fruit-bearing in our lives and his light-shining through our lives.
And yes…it is also true, that 'unconscious' or not, God still judges sin. It is wrong in his eyes whether we are aware of it or not. But unlike much of todays world, where the only answer to such partiality (whether conscious or not) is 'cancellation' without offer of forgiveness, God has an offer of forgiveness and grace. God's condemnation of sin, which brings 'cancellation' and 'separation' eternally, only has to be endured if we don't take him up on his already secured promise of his forgiveness gift in Jesus Christ.
So, that was just a few more points to ponder….and maybe some ways you can ask the Lord to help you use them in conversation, to bring the gospel into the conscious awareness and needs of desperately honour-hungry hearts that fill our world.
Go into all the world and bring this good news!
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