Sin is more than law-breaking: Lessons about honour and shame from a Blue Crayon

Being grandparents is one of those special joys in life I will always treasure. 

One of the opportunities it brings is being involved in the teaching and training of precious young lives and watching them learn and grow. 

Recently discovering artistic blue crayon 'swirls' drawn on one of our white walls provided another of those teaching and training opportunities.

But as I thought about the 'crayon' event afterwards, I realised it not only taught a little four year old something about telling the truth, and being found out for her wrong doing, and confession of sin, and forgiveness, and how her efforts of cleaning it off were useless (she offered to get a cloth and wash it off and tried for all her worth) and only Grand-pa's Sugar-soap was able to scrub the wall clean…

…..but…..she also brought me the blessing of teaching and growing my alertness once again to the honour-shame dynamics of the nature of sin.

 

Blue Crayon Lesson 1 

- There is a non-disobedience, 'shame' kind of wrongdoing

I have lost count of how many times I have read that sin is defined as 'breaking the law' or 'disobedience'.

However, my little grand-daughter's artwork on the wall was not disobedience. No adult had specifically issued her with a command or instruction not to draw on walls in our house. 

However, as soon as I called her and pointed at the wall and asked in a very particular serious tone of disapproval 'who did this?', she went instantly silent and turned her head away and wouldn't look at me. 

She instantly knew she had done something wrong and unacceptable, just from my tone.

But what kind of wrong was it?

If it wasn't disobedience, what was it?

It was primarily dishonour and disrespect.

Eventually after I assured her that although Grandma (me) was not happy with what she had done and it was a bad thing to do that I would not be cross at her for telling the truth, she did honestly confess and tell me that she did it and we had a conversation about drawing on paper only and not walls. She also had a lesson on confession and forgiveness, but that there were still consequences to deal with. Like many situations in parenting, what appeared to be first a 'bad' situation was actually a 'good' opportunity for God to use as a teaching moment in which we thought about what God would want us to learn from it, and be prompted to turn our hearts to him…and thus glorify him.

Blue Crayon Lesson 2 

- Looking for what we can easily miss about shame

But also, what seemed a 'mundane' and 'normal' parenting (or grand-parenting ) event was yet another occasion where I am learning to see and consider 'with new eyes', and be more alert to, the honour-shame dynamics which were 'shouting' out at me, but where I could have easily missed their reality.

As the 'crayon artist' was questioned about the situation, she acknowledged and agreed that it is paper that she should be drawing on (and later I further explained to her only her paper not just any paper she finds in the house!). But there had been no direct disobedience to a previously defined house 'rule'.

But I noticed some further dynamics play out….

• She came to the very real awareness that amidst her behaviour that was unacceptable, she felt unacceptable. 

• Her normal desire to face me and tell me some new discovery or run and hug me had suddenly changed. 

• She went totally silent and seemed to withdraw instantly into herself (even holding her arms close to her body as she stood in front of me as I crouched in front of her). 

• Her head was turned away and even when I moved her and told her to look at me, her face was toward me but her eyes were looking off to the side.

All honour of close relationship with her Grandma had suddenly been destroyed. And though she knew I wasn't happy, even with my arm around her, she still couldn't bring herself to face me.

Blue Crayon Lesson 3 

- Learn from what we observe and interpret it from more than just a guilt-law-disobedience lens

Some of what this event highlighted to me was:

• Wrongdoing is more than disobedience and law-breaking.

• Wrongdoing is rooted in an awareness of not measuring up, and thus not being acceptable to the one you meant to please. Because the word in Scripture translated as 'sin' means to miss the mark, the real meaning and reality of sin is more related to unacceptability than to specifically disobedience and lawbreaking.

• Behaviour exposed as unacceptable is felt as personal unacceptability and is instinctively felt and intrinsically linked to a sense of shame.

• Shame brings an automatic and untaught response. Guilt from disobedience only comes about as a result of transgressing a known itemised, explained and taught law. Shame comes about with no teaching, training or even with no transgression, but by simply 'feeling' a short-coming in the expectations and 'eyes' of the one we desire to please.

• Shame brings separation and a break in relationship. Joy in closeness and togetherness is gone, peace and relaxedness and freedom to converse is also destroyed.

• Shame brings an instinctive desire to withdraw and pull away, to hide, especially from the gaze of the one we have dishonoured.

• Shame brings a fear to even look upon the one who we should otherwise love, and should otherwise enjoy the eyes of joy and approval of.

Blue Crayon Lesson 4 

- Understanding the shame context of sin helps us bring the rightly explained biblical solutions to the problem

The good news was that when she confessed and was forgiven suddenly the reconciliation was instantaneous. Separation and hiding ceased, fear disappeared, the experience of love and closeness and joy returned. Honour of relationship as it was meant to be was restored. 

As we bring others the good news of how Jesus deals with our sin, we need to understand how sin works, not just in the context of guilt but in the context of shame. We need to be careful not to only see and understand wrongdoing in the context of law-breaking and disobedience. We need to recognise how sin is far more deeply and intrinsically tied to shame and how it causes a person to respond in relation to shame, right from a very small child.

As you and I learn more of the dynamics of sin in relation to shame, there comes the opportunity and need to bring the message of the gospel into such situations. We don't need to wait till disobedience occurs to lead someone to recognise wrongdoing or sin…we should not only use the context of disobedience to teach about sin. Jesus didn't come just to deal with the guilt of our disobeying but with the shame of our dishonouring. We need to not overlook the context and opportunities that shame brings to teach us about sin and how Jesus conquers sin and brings reconciliation and restored honour to shame shattered hearts.

Blue Crayon Lesson 5 

- We need to parent and disciple more from a base first of instinctive and inherent honour-shame realities and not skip this only teaching sin in relation to guilt-law-disobedience.

Foundations are built from physical birth and from spiritual birth and habits and perspectives and understandings are formed. Life is full of observation, interpretation and application. We take in what we are exposed to, we then try to make sense of it (consciously or unconsciously) and then we try to fit it into how we see and what we believe about life and thus it emerges in how we then live.

I would like to suggest that we miss the most foundational parts of the human soul when we overlook shame or over-emphasise guilt to the neglect or mis-understanding about shame.

To conclude…

Let's be gospel-honour hope bringers 

to a world deep in the mire 

of sin-shame hopelessness.

Whether you are a parent or a friend or in ministry or looking at your own life, the shame-roots of how sin is and how it functions, is imperative to understand and understand well. In reality it is nothing new, and it doesn't become less important just because we fail to prioritise its importance in our thinking. Right from a very young age a child is responding to awareness of unrighteousness through a lens of honour or the loss of honour (shame). 

While the law was given to taught about what we should do, living in honour is how we were made to be. Before the law, there was honour. Under any law-breaking issue is a more foundational honour-loss issue. Before a person, including children learn about law-breaking they already know that honour-losing is a place of fear, anxiety, separation, ruined relationship, isolation, unacceptability and shame. Our world is filled with awareness and fear of honour-losing, so let us maximise that awareness and bring the good news of how Jesus made a way to overcome that very thing that we have feared from before we ever learnt about laws and law-breaking. Let's be gospel-honour hope bringers to a world deep in the mire of sin-shame hopelessness.

The Problem of Forgiving Yourself

Have you ever felt like you need to forgive yourself?  Have you had someone else suggest you just need to forgive yourself?  Even after confessing your sin to God and knowing he promises he forgives you (1 John 1:9), do you sometimes feel like its not enough?

Why do we sometimes feel this way?

Randy Alcorn recently wrote a really helpful article on this and challenged his readers to think through a few issues. Let me quickly summarise them as they are important. But then I want to look at something which I think may additionally be feeding this self-forgiveness desire.

Alcorn raises four main considerations:

• Talk Back to the Devil - he is a liar and accuser and he will want you to feel that God's forgiveness is not enough, but you can refuse to listen to his deceptions
• God is not a liar - His forgiveness is enough and to not accept his forgiveness as sufficient is to say that Christ's sacrifice wasn't enough, and that absolution from ourselves is of greater importance in our lives than forgiveness from God 
• Trust God's Word not your Feelings - we have to learn to trust God more than our feelings. When God's promises and our feelings don't match up, faith is about choosing to trust the one who is more trustworthy - God, not us.
• It's all about Christ - his work on the cross is sufficient and is enough. Forgiveness is about Christ's righteousness imputed to us, not our righteousness. We don't have the righteous position to be able to offer anyone full eternal forgiveness not even to ourselves. Only God in Christ provides that.

Alcorn also related a poignant quote on the topic, from Tim Keller in his Counterfeit Gods book, 

"When people say, 'I know God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself,' they mean that they have failed an idol, whose approval is more important to them than God's."

When we say we need to forgive ourselves, we are setting ourselves above God, as more vital than God and more capable and authoritative than God. When we do that, we then need forgiveness not only from God for whatever sin we have committed, but for the additional sin of thinking we have any capacity at all to truly forgive ourselves.

HOWEVER…..

having said all this, do we dismiss our feelings altogether in such situations?

Feelings are vital signposts

Maybe we need to think a bit more about the role and place of feelings in our lives…

Feelings are not irrelevant, and to just say 'ignore your feelings, they are lying to you' may not help much.

Feelings are signposts to beliefs, because they are the fruit of beliefs. Feelings to a great degree are a reaction to something. We fear because we think something is a threat or bigger than or contrary to our ability to cope. We get angry when something challenges our autonomy or we see injustice. We feel loved when we feel valuable and blessed by others. We feel happy when we are surrounded by good, by what is pleasing and refreshing and we believe to be beneficial. We hurt when we believe we are harmed in some way. 

Sometimes feelings can be an alert system. Since they respond almost intuitively and 'automatically' in response to when something does or does not sit well, or comfortably, sometimes we will say before making a decision: 'I just don't feel right about it although I can't yet explain it'. This should be what then triggers us to pause on making the decision, but also prompts us to find out more of maybe why we didn't feel comfortable. So we do some more research, or dig into God's word more, or pray about it further, or wait till we can know more contributing data etc.

Now these feelings can lie to us - they can deceive us. Not so much because the feelings themselves are bad, but because what we believe to be good, beneficial, just, pleasing or valuable, might be not based on God's truth about such things, but might be based on Satan's temptations to trust in a false 'good' - ie what appears to be good but is in fact against God's perfect design and thus is bad.  That is what happened to Eve in the Garden of Eden.  And since we are now sinners by nature, even as Christians, we still fight the presence of the old nature in these unresurrected bodies as we live on this sin-infected earth on which the great deceiver is still busy prowling about.

So we are very easily tempted to believe and be guided by false or mis-placed ideas about what is good for us and the world. When that false ideal of 'good' is not met we can feel sad or mad!

So instead of feeling sad and mad about sin, 

we can easily feel sad and mad about 

our own sinful desires not being met!

So yes, we can get 'feelings' all mixed up and upside-down to how God created us to have them.  

But those same feelings can be 'shout-outs' to us about what is going on in our hearts which we are often not so alert to. Remember the heart is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9), and when we listen to our heart's desires and follow our heart's desires without submitting them to God through the standard of His Word, we can be misled by the desires of our hearts. We could say that feelings are like symptoms of a deeper cause. 

If we are seeking to follow God's directives through the truth of His Word, but we continue to struggle with feelings that his Word tell us are not honouring him, then its the signal to stop, think and examine our hearts to see where we have mis-placed and false beliefs, and thus expectations, that are feeding these mis-placed feelings.

Feelings for the need of self-forgiveness are therefore signposts to what?

And if there is a continued nagging of a need for self-forgiveness even after you have studied, accepted and embrace the 4 points Alcorn raises, what then?

Maybe we need to ask what is understood by forgiveness?

Forgiveness is linked to a need for cleansed guilt. It is a primarily guilt/innocence issue. It is a need for wiping the slate clean, to have no accusation standing against us. From such a forgiven state, we then hope for a re-opening of the relationship. In seeking forgiveness from God we acknowledge that he has the power to set the rules, declare guilt and thus give punishment, and he has an accusation against us for something that we did that was a violation of his desires (law/command) for us, and which has thus broken the joy of the relationship we are meant to have with him. 

Forgiveness from God is his promise/word to us that he will not count that violation against us. This thus allows the fullness of relationship with him to be enjoyed. When we wrong another person, and seek their forgiveness it is a similar situation - we have done something they don't approve of and so we believe they are accusing us of contravening their requirements/instructions/rules and their good, and thus we are cut off from the full harmony of relationship with them.

So when we say we seek forgiveness from ourselves, we are saying we have set a law for ourselves, and then broken it, and so now have accused ourselves and stand guilty according to our own law. We feel we have violated or broken our own rules and we want restored relationship with ourselves.

Now that last phrase might sound peculiar - how can we lose relationship with ourselves in the first place…after all, are we two people? No. But it is helpful to realise that this is the logic underlying what is hoped to be achieved by 'forgiving yourself'.

Muddied Waters

Interestingly I don't notice Africans worrying about self-forgiveness, they seem to be more worried about forgiveness from others because traditionally it is believed that harmony with others gives them right standing with God - albeit a distant God and via the ancestors who they believe to be God's representatives/intermediaries on earth.

I believe this idea of self-forgiveness has come about because our 'modern' world thought itself 'clever' enough to live apart from God. 

But in doing so, we not only set ourselves on the path of eternal destruction, but we find ourselves living the way we were never designed to live. 

We were not created to be 

autonomous individuals 

only accountable to ourselves. 

We were not designed to live only according to 'our own truth' and to only be true to ourselves. 

In Western culture we might have been told to not be directed by other people's wishes, but we failed to realise that this was originally rooted in a Judeo-Christian context that permeated much of Western thinking, of being directed by God's wishes above people. But if we cut God out, and cut people out, and live only according to our own law, we get ourselves in a fix. If we are only accountable to ourselves as makers of our own laws. Then we have, by default, appointed only ourselves to be in the position of authority to forgive.  We suddenly train ourselves to 'need' to forgive ourselves in order to find absolution.  

Sadly, if we still believe that when we have wronged others we need to seek their forgiveness, but find we then find that forgiveness insufficient, our world does not tell us that we more importantly need God's forgiveness (since it believes God is unecessary or doesn't exist). Instead our 21st Century Western world tells us that the 'gap' we feel in the forgiveness process is because we need to forgive ourselves…. since afterall 'self' is the only final authority we have committed allegiance to.

Added to this, is the fact that we often confuse guilt and shame in how we feel. We might say we feel guilty for transgressing our own law/rules, but we might also feel ashamed for failing to meet our own standard and failing 'in our own eyes' to 'make the grade' and be who we hoped or wanted to be. In seeking forgiveness for our transgression we might be trying to restore our sense of honour - our value, worth, and significance. 

But whether we assess ourselves on the basis of guilt or shame, if we have set ourselves up as our own lawmaker (what laws and boundaries we set ourselves) and our own honour-bestower (what credit we gain for meeting the standards/expectations we set ourselves), we also set ourselves up to be the ones we look to for guilt-forgiveness and shame-covering when we over-step our self-made boundaries and when we under-meet our self-made expectations.

God has made us to find honour and forgiveness from the one who sets the laws and standards in the first place. So, when we replace God with ourselves as the authority/law-maker, we may find a slight sense of 'feeling ok' once we 'forgive ourselves'. But it will leave us still 'lacking' something. It's won't satisfy the deepest realities of our lives and it will keep us from the One who can fully satisfy and the One who promises to fully forgive, cleanse,  justify and sanctify.

The Big Lie

The big lie in the 'forgive yourself' mantra, is that we think we can be in the place of God and all will be well.  All will not be well on earth, and all will definitely not be well in eternity. 

Maybe you are busy forgiving yourself and not seeking God's forgiveness at all and have never accepted his forgiveness for all your sin for eternity.  If so, I encourage you to come to God to find his ultimate forgiveness for your sins through the death of his Son Jesus on the cross.

But its more likely if you are reading this you have accepted his eternal forgiveness and have no doubt that only God can provide such forgiveness and you certainly cannot…but maybe you are still living with the legacy of the world's modern but mis-informed understanding and influence that has trained you to believe you need self-forgiveness and that without it you can't live well on this earth. 

But the God who can forgive you for all eternity is the same God who forgives you now. 

It is a lie and bondage of the devil that you need to forgive yourself. It is subtle idolatry that entraps you and blasphemes God.  

We are not our own law, 

or our own truth, 

or the bestowers of our own honour. 

We have been made not to find fulfilment and peace through relationship with ourself, but through relationship with God. We are not bound by laws/rules or standards of our own making, but by God's laws and standards which are not only different from ours but higher than ours. God the ultimate law maker is also the ultimate forgiver. If you have ultimate forgiveness from him, forgiveness from human beings (others or yourself) is not the measure of whether you are forgiven or not.

So….Let the truth of who God is, and that he is the ultimate law maker, and honour bestower, transform you and release you from mis-placed feelings that make you think you need to forgive yourself. Let God transform your feelings by soaking in his truth about forgiveness, so that your feelings can be changed from ones that Satan uses to condemn you and paralyse you, to ones of praise and joy to your Maker and Saviour which release you to serve him with fervour and delight!  

Balanced or Biblical? 3 needs for missionaries from guilt-innocence contexts!

In the last few days 2 blog posts (one from honorshame.com and one from Jackson Wu) have emerged countering a recent TGC article titled '5 Dangers for Missionaries in Honor-Shame Contexts'.

I doubt the TGC article (which first appeared at IMB) is meant to just create trouble, but it has definitely caused a response.

Both honorshame.com and Jackson Wu responses raise valid concerns, just as Elliot Clark, author of the TGC article most probably felt he raised valid concerns.

I don't really want to just fuel an argument, but my concern is that there seems a desire for 'balance' in a context where honorshame.com point out there is currently little balance, but in the opposite way in which the TGC article is concerned about.

Clark, is worried that with the growing realisation and understanding of honour-shame dynamics in cultures around the world and in Scripture that we are in danger of losing a guilt-innocence-obedience context of the gospel.

I totally agree that with any 'new' understanding any of us are in danger of pushing so hard on that, in order to correct a previously wrong emphasis, that we 'keep pushing' beyond the point of 'balancing' the pendulum swing. When we do that we risk the possibility of dangerous overcorrecting. The refreshing  re-awakening to Scripture's honour-shame aspects cannot be expected to be exempt from this human tendancy. But like the honorshame.com cartoon illustrates, we are a long way from an honour-shame over-emphasis in biblical scholarship and Christian literature and preaching and missions, especially when we look at the last 50 years or so in the West.

The whole reason for my local African Theologian co-worker  and I writing our book 'Highest Honour' (just printed here in Africa and shortly to be available on-line) was to have a discipleship tool. In a world where there are hundreds if not thousands of discipleship programs from a guilt-innocence perspective there just weren't any discipleship programs available that we could find, which addressed honour-shame issues as part of Godly growth in grace, let alone ones appropriate for Africa.

Personally, in ministry I am almost constantly aware not only of making an effort to contextualise appropriately for an honour-shame African context, but to also ensure that guilt-law-innocence contexts are not overlooked and are explained in ways that will be understood.

I understand the fears of the TGC article author, and he is the voice of many others who share similar concerns that guilt-innocence truths of Scripture will be overlooked if the honour-shame focus is too strong.  And yes, we do have to be careful not to 'overcorrect' or just in our zeal, over-emphasise something to the unintentional neglect of other parts of Scripture. I recall very early on in my 'discovery' about honour-shame I was talking with a local theologian about ways to speak the gospel so that honour-shame ears would 'hear' it and I asked about using the word/concepts of guilt. I was in danger of initial overcorrecting, but he was emphatic that alongside honour-shame, to definitely refer to guilt as for the very reason it is not often spoken about, it is 'weighty' and severe when it is spoken about... and when joined with honour-shame concepts would have great impact…and it did.

So I do not deny the caution re pendulum swinging, but this is where we need to realise, that 

guilt-innocence and honour-shame are not two alternative opposites in a fight for greatest emphasis in missiology, 

but are two God-given partners in co-operation to give us gospel clarity.  

However, they are not, in fact, equal partners.

photo: wikimediacommons

1. Need for Re-instatement of the Bible's Supreme Theme

If I could be so bold as to say, the opposite to Clark's fears, is our real danger.

We in the West, have taken a guilt 'sub-theme' of Scripture and made it the supreme theme. The supreme theme of Scripture is not guilt-innocence. The supreme theme of Scripture is God's glory…His honour. As Jackson Wu pointed out, those such as John Piper have repetatively strongly preached this and written about it. 

Sin is 'coming short of God's glory' (Romans 3:23) We have failed to honour Him - bottom line. (Romans  1:21-23) 

We do well to remember that God first describes sinlessness in Scripture not as 'innocent' or not even as 'innocent and unashamed', but simply 'unashamed'. Scripture has a priority and overarching way to describe sin and it is in honour-shame language not guilt-innocence language. We don't need to make apology for that, it is simply unequivocal reality whether we like it or not.  It is not something to be worried about, but to rejoice in. We can fully embrace the Scriptural (rightly placed) honour-shame emphasis with freedom as we endeavour to bring the gospel to a world with a (mis-placed) honour-shame emphasis.  

If you want an Old Testament example just go to Nathan's confrontation of David's sin in 2 Samuel 12 - probably on of the most well used examples of personal sin in Scripture. As God's messenger, Nathan did not use 'obedience' language but 'honour' language, even in regard to God's word. He didn't tell David he 'disobeyed' God and God's law (though that was certainly true), but that he 'despised' God and God's word. 

The sin problem with our hearts is firstly not an obedience problem but an honour problem. Tedd Tripp even identifies this in regard to how we raise our children in his book 'Shepherding a Child's Heart'. 

We have a regal problem before we have a legal problem.

photo: publicdomain

2. Need to Pursue Biblical Realignment More Than 'Balance'

We don't need 'balance', so much as a major biblical re-alignment.

Scripture talks far more about shame than it does guilt. (see 'The Global Gospel' by Werner Mischke p47)   Scripture is not 'balanced' in that regard. 

Clark in his article mentions the Apostle Paul's reference to the 5th Commandment. Exodus 20 tells us that we are to 'honour our father and mother'.  It does not first tell us to 'obey' but to honour.  There are only two places in Scripture where a command to obey parents is given, as a 'sub-issue' of the main commandment. (both in Paul's letters - Eph 6:1, Col 3:20) So, yes these mentions by Paul do link obedience with honour but not as a couplet of equally weighted terms. Nor does Paul say to honour parents because there is an overarching command to obey parents, but he says for children to obey parents because there is an overarching command to honour father and mother. His basis for 'obeying' is in the foundation of 'honouring'. Obedience is 'within' the honour issue.  

Obeying is more the fruit than the root. 

Scripture isn't 'balanced' on this issue, as we might want to understand balance. 

God starts with an honour context (no shame) in the Garden of Eden, and that theme continues right the way through Scripture till its culmination in Revelation. It's true, within that is the reality of innocence and the need for obedience, but they are not the main issue.  Paul did not say in Romans 1 that God's rebuke and condemnation was because of 'disobedience' but because of 'dishonour'. The thanks we don't give Him, is not just because we are disobedient to a command to 'give thanks', but because our hearts are not inclined as they should be to 'want' to give thanks from a heart that 'wants' to honour Him. 

God looks beyond outward displays of 'obedience' to inward devotion (honour) of the heart.

  

3. Need to Awaken to How Honour Helps Us Understand and Teach Obedience

Clark also seems to fear that if we emphasise honour too much we will be in danger of losing emphasis on obedience. This maybe comes from a mis-understanding that honour-shame emphasis cultures don't have a concept of obedience or law, right and wrong or as he says 'lacks categories for transgression'.  This is not a correct understanding of such cultures. 

The 'law' categories of honour-shame cultures are that you must give honour and you must not bring shame. The thing to obey is the one category of 'always maintain honour and harmony in relationships'. Anything outside of that is seen as taboo, shameful, and wrong. Every culture is sin-infected and lacks the fulness of godly descriptions of God's objective and eternal definitions of right and wrong, and instead lives by its own (to one degree or another) mis-placed definitions. 

We all need our minds renewed with new godly definition of right and wrong. (Romans 12:2)

In fact, since ministering in an honour-shame emphasis culture I have actually come to a greater and wider and deeper understanding of 'obedience' - I have had to - because those around me come at 'obedience' from perspectives that I had not encountered so much in my Western setting. I have found myself more particular in how I deal with the concept of obedience in discipleship because understanding the mis-placed contexts of honour-shame around me, has highlighted the mis-placed understandings of obedience as well. 

When honour is sought before the eyes of people instead of God, then obedience becomes something that takes on a subjective 'near enough is good enough as long as no-one sees or objects', rather than a need to obey completely and exactly no matter who sees.  (I raised this in my article in the Orality Journal and in that article mentioned how even Nabeel Qureshi mentions the matter in his book 'Seeking Allah Finding Jesus'). Understanding honour-shame has increased, not decreased, my understanding of guilt-innocence-obedience.

photo: wikimediacommons

And if we neglect honour-shame perspectives in our guilt-innocence-obedience emphasis Western culture we quickly become legalistic in our attitudes and require 'laws' for everything. We then have a false view that if there isn't a law to tell us not to do something, we are free to do it, when in fact it might be totally disrespectful. So then a lack of honour-shame awareness distorts the place and purpose of obedience and law and a well functioning society…to say nothing of our relationship with God.

1 John 3:4

I used to think that 'lawlessness' (as a definition of sin mentioned by Elliot Clark) meant individual sinful actions of specific disobedience to the law. However, it is far more than that. Rather than a defence that sin is inherently disobedience, this definition of sin tells us that lawlessness is an attitude of total disregard for both the law and the lawgiver as both Charles Spurgeon and John Macarthur explain.  

As Spurgeon says: 'he who dares to break God's Law, seeing that he cannot do it except in the immediate Presence of God, for God is everywhere—he that acts contrary to God's Law before God's own face does, as it were, fling down the gauntlet to his God and defy His power! By such action as that, he either means to declare that God is not almighty, or that Jehovah will not exercise His Omnipotence to defend His honor, or that he, himself, does not care what God does, so he will leave Him to do His worst. Every sin has this venom within its bowels—it is a defiance of the mighty Majesty of God' [i]

– or we could say a 'defiance of Almighty God's place of Highest Kingly Honour'!

John MacArthur in his sermon "The Christian's Incompatability with Sin Part 1" on this passage says: "Everyone is doing sin, practicing sin is engaged in practicing lawlessness. And lawlessness is an attitude.  It is not so much the transgression of the Law, as the indifference to the Law.  Construction here makes sin and lawlessness identical. It's living as if there is no Law. It's living as if there is no law-giver."[ii]

This is about a heart that is 'indifferent' and has no regard or respect for the One who gave and instigated the law. Rather than 1 John 3:4 proving that individual actions of sins of disobedience to the law are transgressions of the law, it is saying that sin (singular) is an attitude of heart that is the very essence of disrespect (dishonour) of both the law and lawgiver…..just as pronounced by the prophet Nathan when he confronted David. 

It was my growing understanding of honour-shame that, rather than hindering, has enabled an enlarged understanding of the meaning of lawlessness and the contexts and concepts of obedience and the law. 

Proverbs 30:9

If we take a look at Proverbs 30:9 "lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God" 

or as the KJV puts it 'take the name of my God in vain',  

or as the New Living translates it 'insult God's holy name', 

and as some other translations including the NIV put it - 'and so dishonour the name of my God',

...Breaking God's law (stealing in this instance), is all about dishonouring Him and His name - who He is - His very being and position as our Creator, the Almighty. Obedience to the law is foundationally rooted in the requirement for us to honour Him.

A biblical emphasis does not detract from a right understanding and teaching of the law and obedience, but I find it more greatly enables it.

Let's not be afraid of encouraging people to come to understand more and more what it means to see Scripture's overarching theme of honour from beginning to end!

[i] defiance meaning bold resistance to authority, open disregard, contempt - dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/defiance 
[ii] http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/62-25 

Is shame objective or subjective?

Following on from the last blogpost, Challies also makes comment in his blog post that guilt is objective and shame is subjective.  

Jackson Wu, author of  the superb book 'Saving God's Face' addressed this objective/subjective issue in his recent blog as he commented on Tim Challies' blog.  Wu explained that the terms objective and subjective can be mis-leading.  He rightly showed how that our shame position before God is objective (as after all God's standard is an objective one) and he also said that shame through failing to meet the standards of a group or community is objective.

For those interested in digging a bit deeper on this topic and want to keep reading, I would like to weigh into the discussion with some of our own observations and research.

I agree that shame before God is objective and believe that it is also true that guilt can be described as subjective in that a sense of guilt is determined by whatever laws one subscribes to and they can differ from place to place.

However, although both guilt and shame can have both objective and subjective aspects, there is a sense in which I can also agree with the generalisation that Challies used. 

I think it can be unhelpful at times to use the broad categories of 'honour/shame' and 'guilt/innocence' without differentiation between what I call a 'vertical' form and a 'horizontal' form.  How these factors function 'vertically' before God and 'horizontally' before mankind, significantly impact how we understand them.

Vertical Right-Placed OR Horizontal Mis-Placed

Maybe we would do better to 'pre-fix' them with "right-placed" and "mis-placed".  The vertical form of honour or shame before God is 'right-placed' and always objective.  The horizontal form of honour or shame before man is 'mis-placed' and subjective.  Vertical guilt is always from an objective and unchanging and universally binding law.  Horizontal guilt is subject to variation in laws from one earthly society to another.  Although, within that society there may still be some sense of 'objectivity' about the law, and thus in regard to guilt.

Part of the gospel message is the good news that honour and shame, & guilt and innocence are no longer determined by or reliant on changeable, subjective human opinions or decisions.  

A major factor in the moral decline and confusion in the West is because 'we' have denied that God is the source of absolute truth, and in the process we have also denied ourselves the blessing of peace that comes with that objectivity.  Instead, in the 'wisdom' of our foolish darkened hearts we have given ourselves the added stress and confusion of constantly trying to navigate people's opinions, desperate for the honour and acceptance of people above God  - ie we have replaced the Creator with the creature.

But to help us understand this, and better share the gospel in our world today, I think it is important to be aware of how both shame and guilt function in a horizontal person-to-person way in our world's various societies.

Generally speaking from our observation and research, we have seen that mis-placed shame in Africa is very subjective. It is determined by a partially flexible and fluid implementation of the 'standards' of honour of a group or community, by those in authority within the community.  It is reliant on the response of the elders (present at the time) - and they are multiple and fallible, rather than singular and infallible as God is.  A person can do an action one day and the elders are angry with you thus there is shame, but the next day you could do the same action and nothing happen at all.  

Nabeel Qureshi gives an example of this also on page 60 of his book "Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus":  an incident occurred where his uncle was speaking in front of their Muslim elders and said something that would normally not be allowed as it would be considered shameful because it put the Quran in a 'less than it should be' light.... but.....his uncle's "eyes were set on the elders, who did not display any reaction, so he proceeded".

Guilt, however, before a clear fixed law is not 'subject' to approval. It is 'objective' fact.  

Our Objective Vertical Standing before God

God is perfect in consistently matching objective law with 'subjective' opinion - his opinion is never contrary to his law. In that respect his 'opinion' is objective.  God is the one 'author' of the law and the law is an expression of His nature and His unchanging character.  When we fail to measure up to His standard, at the same time we have transgressed His law/s.

Therefore, shame before God is never inconsistent with guilt before God.  

He may be patient with us in metering out the punishment, but there will one day be judgement and we will never escape the punishment for shamefully breaking his law.  (His patience is not lack of judgement but gracious delay in judgement.)  But even in human 'law' contexts, the law stands objectively, unchanging in standard, whether people approve of it or implement it, or not.

The Impact of Orality and Written Law/s

How guilt and shame play out in our world is also influenced by the level of the orality of the community or group - the greater the level of orality the greater the reliance on subjective shame rather than objective written law.  Written law is objective in the sense that all those within the juristiction of that law have equal non-negotiable standing under the law as well as opportunity to examine and know that law......  it remains unchanged in its content and all are equally obliged to obey the law and equally come under the effect of the law.  If a culture is essentially 'oral' there is simply not enough 'memory space and accuracy' to properly implement a detailed and extensive law code. 

 It is perfectly understandable that the unwritten 'law' simply becomes 'don't bring shame'.

 (It seems to me at this point in our research, that any 'objectiveness' of shame in mis-placed honour/shame emphasis cultures actually stems from this. The objective standard within an honour/shame dynamic is singular and of a general all-encompassing nature. There are not firm and specific, unchanging definitions of all that means in the multiple complexities of life.  God on the other hand not only gave the singular  and general 'honour law' of "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength" but went on to give multiple written 'laws' as definition of what that main one 'honour law' entailed. )

Written law/s are not subject to an individual's memory or opinion or mood at the time as to whether it is 'present' or not.  It's verdict stands. The metering out of its punishment may be subject to a person's mercy, but its existence and verdict is essentially unequivocal.  If I fail to stop when the traffic  lights are red, whether another person turns a blind eye to it or the court grants me leniency, the fact that the law has been broken objectively stands.

The Subjective Perspective of Horizontal Mis-Placed Honour and Shame

Honour/Shame directed authority has far greater 'room for movement' than authority that also acts out of of firm and definitive laws. Defining what right and wrong means becomes 'subjective'.  And because any honour/shame emphasis culture has mis-placed the 'object' of their honour from God to human beings, they have removed it from the One who is unchanging.....to.....many ones who can differ from each other as well as change or modify what they do or do not allow at a particular time.  The only 'unchanging' factor is that the general concept of honour remains, but how to fulfil it exactly is never entirely predictable.

Honour/shame is about navigating the nuances of multiple and varied relationships and social exchange - in any culture.  But we have to recognise that when it is the dominant driving force for life's peace and success in a HS emphasis culture, the dominating 'objective' factor of written laws that we have in the West, as we have emulated a Judeo-Christian design, is lacking.  We have lived for so long in the West with written laws, we have little idea of what it would be like not to have any written law at all. 

The ability to read and write and worship a God who gave us written laws to graciously define for us what it means to obey His supreme law of honour and love, is an immense blessing that removes the huge burden from our shoulders of having to 'learn by mistake' and constantly walk warily through life.  

God, through Christ has released us from the bondage of subjective, multiple 'people-pleasing', and provided us the freedom to serve and worship and belong to the One Creator-King God who is the embodiment of absolute truth and objective holiness.

I want to once again say how much I value all input to the shame/guilt conversation....

...even if it comes out incomplete or muddled or only with a partial perspective or with a differing perspective, lets keep the discussion going as we fuel each others thinking and study on this vital topic.  Even reading the books and post mentioned above has proven opportunity for me to further pursue a growing comprehension of these issues....'as iron sharpens iron'...lets persevere!

Guilt or Shame - which comes first?

GUILT.......SHAME

It is really exciting to see the amount of conversation or mention in current Christian media that is including the topic of 'guilt and shame' - ie. its not just guilt that is being talked about but shame as well.

I am enjoying how the conversation is becoming 'interactive' as various ones respond to what others are saying/writing.  It's enjoyable because its really making me think harder and deeper on the topic in ways I wouldn't have otherwise.

However, it has become increasingly clear that there appears to be a significant difference between how guilt and shame function in a pre-dominently guilt emphasis culture as opposed to a pre-dominently shame emphasis culture.

When guilt is the major paradigm of thought in a guilt emphasis culture it stands to reason that it might have some slightly different emphasis and role than when it is a minuscule factor in a shame-emphasis culture. 

Likewise, when shame is the major paradigm in a shame-emphasis culture it stands to reason that it would have a different emphasis and role in the West which majors on guilt.  

Third Culture contexts could be the exceptions. This is when kids of shame culture parents grow up in another country which has a guilt culture context, or when shame culture kids are growing up in their own country but in highly Western influenced urban contexts and schooling in Western-education-saturated settings. It also can happen when a family from a Western guilt culture are living overseas and their kids grow up in a culture with a shame emphasis, as is the case with my husband who grew up as a 'Missionary's Kid' - 'MK'.   According to The Culture Test the balance between shame and guilt emphasis in such circumstances is about equal, so either one may have higher chance of having a strong influence in life, thought and priorities.

 The West that has been strongly guilt culture emphasis but which is growing in shame culture emphasis and welcoming a growing number of immigrants from shame culture contexts, is heading for an increase in Third Culture combinations as well.

The varyied outworking of guilt and shame was an issue which we observed very early on in our research and was a major factor in catapulting us into our current ministry focus.  From our own personal Western experience we understood shame as something that follows guilt, yet around us we thought we were seeing guilt only following shame.  Guilt wasn't felt until a person was 'caught'.

I have recently read a blog post by Tim Challies on the Guilt and Shame and a section of a book "Killing Sin Habits' by Stuart Scott who is Associate Professor of Biblical Counseling at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Firstly I want to commend both these guys for venturing into the 'zone' of mentioning shame and endeavouring to understand its presence and effects and how it interacts with guilt.  I firmly believe there needs to be much more of what they are nudging the edge of.  

But both these men are North Americans (Tim Challies-Canada and Stuart Scott- USA) and reflect a Western perspective.

There is a tendency to interpret shame, and even base its existence, from a foundation and lens of a guilt/legal premise.  Jackson Wu tackles some of this in his blog post response to Challies, which was then reposted by honorshame.com.

But for now, I want to touch on something else that emerges from Tim Challies post and Stuart Scott's book...

Tim says

"sin incurs guilt and guilt generates shame."

"My guilt, the realization that I have sinned, brings a feeling of shame."

 Stuart Scott, on page 3 of his book, diagrams the cycle of temptation and places guilt well before shame.

So does shame always follow guilt - does guilt always come first?

This is where I am reminded that although material mentioning shame is being written in the West, not all of it is transferable to the context of Africa and other shame-emphasis cultures. Core shame realities may be common, but how they play out in life can be different. 

To use  the cycle of sin and temptation in Stuart Scott's book here in Africa would create confusion rather than conviction, and would not resonate with the African's heart at.  I'm sure the author wants to help the reader to understand their own heart and sin's processes, but he doesn't realise just how much his analysis of how sin works in a human heart, is 'cultural'.  A few years ago I would have had no reason at all to disagree with him.

However.....

From our observation and experience, shame-emphasis culture people do not encounter guilt before shame, rather they experience guilt after shame.  For them, shame triggers guilt, rather than guilt triggering shame.  It's not that a shame culture person doesn't experience guilt at all, they just experience it differently.

If this sounds all confusing, let me explain further:

In a guilt emphasis culture many laws are set down itemising various boundaries and requirements.  If a person breaks one of these whether others know or not, the internal conscience is pricked and guilt is experienced.  Shame may follow as a person feels they haven't lived up to their own standard but significantly kicks-in when found out and exposed that they haven't lived up to others' standard.

On the other hand.....

In a shame emphasis culture there is one overarching 'law' or boundary; Don't bring shame.

So no 'guilt' is felt until the law of 'don't bring shame' is broken.  In other words, if a person brings shame/does something shameful, they are then 'guilty' of breaking the cultural rule/law of 'don't bring shame'.  Thus inherently, the conscience doesn't kick-in as crossing/transgressing a boundary, until shame has occurred.

(now, it could maybe be argued that there would still be an increased and additional shame for the guilt status of having brought shame, but the shame factor is so dominant that some have even proposed that the conscience functions according to shame, not guilt....although for reasons too long to go into here, I am not entirely keen to follow the line of reasoning that the conscience functions on shame not guilt.  I am in agreement however, that shame is so strong that it appears that way.)

Thus in contrast to the above quotes from Tim Challies and Stuart Scott, in recently reading another superb book called 'Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus' by Nabeel Qureshi, I found something he said, from the position of a very honest, open converted Muslim growing up in a shame-emphasis home and religious culture, very profound:

 "..for children raised as second-generation Western Muslims.  We wrestle with the honor-shame principle that tells us, "It's okay as long as you don't get caught."  If there is no dishonor, it is not wrong."

This also perfectly reflects the African shame-emphasis.

Both Guilt and Shame are functioning in all of us as post-fall human beings, but how they function can differ.  True contextualisation of the gospel cannot occur until this difference is realised.  Otherwise how we explain the gospel will not make sense to the hearer and not reach the heart.

Are guilt and shame separate entities or out-workings of each other?

Although maybe not intended, Challies article could infer that shame is almost a byproduct of guilt - so that if we fully understand guilt and what Jesus did on the cross to deal with our guilt, we can 'lump shame in the same package' and have our shame dealt with too.

It is absolutely true that Jesus dealt with shame at the cross alongside guilt, and for a person to comprehend that can be profoundly life-changing. But shame does not get dealt with as a byproduct of dealing with guilt.  Shame is not a 'sub-set' of guilt.  In fact for various reasons I would be inclined to say the reverse. (maybe a topic for another blog post)

It is true that in days past many theologians would put shame within the topic of guilt, (if they mentioned it at all).  In the index at the end of the book 'The Vanishing Conscience' by John MacArthur, if you were to look up 'shame', you would see written beside the entry: 'see guilt'.  But shame is not just a sub-set of guilt.  Shame is not automatically dealt with, just because guilt is.  They exist on two entirely different planes - guilt is about what we 'do' and shame is about who we 'are'.  They are vitally connected but shame is not simply a by-product of guilt.

To complicate matters, as Nabeel Qureshi explains, those of shame-emphasis heritage growing up in a more strongly guilt-emphasis Western culture, encounter all kinds of confusion.  

It's not so different here in urban Africa where kids grow up in a shame-emphasis traditional culture and then encounter aspects of education and business practice that teach and expect guilt-emphasis approaches and responses.  Like Nabeel, there is a subtle yet very real situation where they don't 'fully fit' in either culture and don't really understand why....and both cultures get frustrated with them.  Part of their thinking is 'guilt' influenced and part is 'shame' influenced and they don't even realise the different dynamics at work.

Now, if we are to look at the matter biblically to see whether guilt or shame comes first, that opens up a much greater discussion.  Both guilt and shame emphasis cultures have got something to contribute to understanding the two dynamics and how they interact.  But suffice to say that not everyone on this planet has the dynamic of guilt kick-in as the clear first response.

 .... to get you thinking.....Scripture mentions the concept of shame (they were 'naked and not ashamed' - Genesis  2:25 ), prior to any mention of guilt.   The West could learn something here that has been largely ignored - sin should involve both shame and guilt. Scripture intertwines both but gives much more textual space to shame than to guilt. If Scripture mentions 'shame' more than 'guilt', then that ought to make us even in the West to sit up and take notice.  It should also give us reason to consider that if 'shame' is felt first, if may not be so surprising.

Maybe the problem is not simply that shame is felt before guilt in 'shame-emphasis' cultures, but before whom the shame is felt!

The Mis-placed-ness of shame in shame-emphasis cultures is more about the fact that the shame is felt before people and culture rather than God the Creator.

------------------

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!