Category Archives: Honor and shame

Presenting the Gospel in Honor-Shame Cultures

Global Christian mission, Gospel of Jesus, Honor and shame, Shame pathology, The Global Gospel

Presenting the gospel in honor-shame cultures.fwThe interview (below) was published in the October 2015 issue of Anthology, a publication of Missio Nexus. Marv Newell, Sr. Vice President of Missio Nexus, has been an endorser and advocate for my book, The Global Gospel. Marv’s enthusiastic support is what led to this interview, which is posted here with permission. Click here for the PDF. Thank you, Marv! To God be the glory!  –Werner Mischke

Mission Nexus articleWhat do you mean by a culture that is embedded in “honor and shame?” Just how do you define and describe these terms?

In Jerome Neyrey’ s book, Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew, he describes honor as “the worth or value of persons, both in their eyes and in the eyes of their village, neighborhood or society”. He says the “critical item is the public nature of respect and reputation.”[1]  Brené Brown says this about shame: It is “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging. … It’s the fear disconnection.”[2]

What ties these two definitions together is the social, relational or public aspect of the dynamics. Western philosopher René Descartes coined the phrase, I think, therefore I am. And one African theologian modified it to describe people in honor-shame cultures this way: I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am.

This idea shows that in an honor-shame culture, people are really immersed and completely embedded in their community, and their sense of individuality is far less than how we perceive ourselves in the West.

What’s the difference between cultures that emphasize honor-shame and cultures more like ours that value guilt and innocence?

In guilt-innocence cultures I would say we are more law-oriented and individualistic. Kids grow up in the West with the phrase, What do you want to be when you grow up? Many of us have been raised to value individual dreaming and pursuit with minimal  regard for the opinion of the extended family or community. This is far less common in an honor-shame
culture. They are so embedded in their extended family and community.

Now, to be sure, the West is not completely individualistic and guilt-oriented—neither is the Majority World is completely group-and-shame-oriented. But without a doubt, in guilt-innocence cultures, we are a lot more individualistic, whereas people in honor-shame cultures are more collectivistic. Sometimes anthropologists call group-oriented cultures dyadistic—meaning the individual is embedded in the group.

Consequently, laws are not as important as relationships in honor-shame cultures. In the West, our society is ruled by laws. Honor shame-cultures do have laws, but there is a greater emphasis on relationships and how one is perceived in their community.

What are some of the blind spots that we in the West have toward cultures that have honor-shame as their pivotal cultural value?

When Westerners observe honor-shame values at work in other cultures, we normally see them as unethical. In other words, we only see the dark side of honor-shame. Now, to be clear, there is a dark side. We have become familiar with the honor killings that have taken place in some of our own cities in the West as people from south Asia and the Middle East have come to North America. And when someone from an honor-shame culture shames their family, sometimes violence and bloodshed is the result.

So if we are aware of honor and shame, it is almost always the dark and evil aspect that we
notice. The Bible plainly describes the source and the results of that evil. There is, however, a bright and glorious side to honor and shame throughout the Scriptures, which I examine extensively in my book.

As Christians we don’t see the honor-shame dynamics in our own Bibles. We don’t realize that there are twice as many occurrences in the Bible of the word shame and its derivatives than there are to the word guilt and its derivatives.

When we read the Bible we’re not alert to the myriad honor-shame dynamics in Scripture
because Westerners do not normally use that language—and more importantly, Western
theology has a blind spot about honor and shame. We don’t live with this awareness of honor and shame nearly to the degree that the authors of Scripture did.

Give us some biblical examples of honor and shame that you advocate permeates the Scriptures.

I’ll mention just three of the ten honor-shame dynamics we describe in the book. The first
dynamic is called love of honor. And that’s simply the recognition that people in the Ancient Near East had as a primary motivation—the pursuit of honor and glory. Jerome Neyrey quotes Aristotle who says: “Honor is clearly the greatest of external goods. It is honor above all else that that great men claim and deserve.”

The Roman Empire was saturated with values of honor and glory, so this is the social context and emotional environment in which the New Testament was written. So we see this love of honor, and correspondingly the fear of shame, to be something that goes from Genesis to Revelation.

A second honor-shame dynamic is purity. We see purity codes in the book of Leviticus, for
example—who is included and who is excluded. As someone moves toward holiness, they gain honor. As someone moves toward being common or unclean or even an abomination, they move toward exclusion and shame. [See article: “The Gospel of Purity”.]

If you want to see an example of how shame equates with uncleanness, look at Ezekiel 16.
You’ll see that God’s unfaithful bride is described in crude shameful terms. Plus, the dynamic of purity is part of the atonement in Leviticus and Hebrews. So purity is a key honor-shame dynamic in Scripture which beautifully relates to the gospel.

There is also the dynamic of what I call “honor-status reversal”. And by that, we mean
someone’s family, community, or people whose status is being reversed from shame to honor or from honor down to shame.

Consider the great stories of the Bible: Adam and Eve, Abraham, Joseph, Moses and the
Exodus, Job, David—all are examples of honor-status reversal. Whether in the books of Moses, the historical books, the prophetic books, many of the Gospel stories and parables, or in the epistles, we see this dynamic of honor-status reversal appearing again and again. The climactic example is the story of Jesus Christ. Look at Philippians 2:5–11. There it is—honor-status reversal! That’s why I call this honor-shame dynamic a motif—we see it repeatedly in the Scriptures.

What are examples of a gospel presentation in which guilt-innocence and honor-shame are the focal messages?

I think most of us are familiar with the gospel presentation called The Four Spiritual Laws, which was developed decades ago by Campus Crusade for Christ. God has used this presentation mightily. I’ve met numbers of people who have said, “Hey, that’s how I got saved.” We don’t want to disesteem what God has done in using this great resource to introduce people to Christ. However, the very name of this gospel presentation—The Four Spiritual Laws—reflects a legal framework for the gospel. But it needs to be pointed out that we don’t have to articulate the gospel using laws. We can also articulate the gospel using stories. We don’t have to rely exclusively on propositional truth.

The Four Spiritual Laws is geared toward individuals. It talks about you as an individual and how you must make a faith commitment to Jesus Christ. Furthermore it talks about forgiveness of sins. In other words, all of us have behaved badly and we have committed sins for which we need forgiveness.

This may be distinguished from needing forgiveness—not just from our sinful behavior—but also from our sinful being. Behavior is more about guilt whereas our being is more about shame. It is not just our behavior—but also our being—which dishonors God. You can see this emphasis on sin as the dishonoring of God in Romans 1:23, Romans 2:23 and Romans 3:23.

So a Western gospel presentation like The Four Spiritual Laws focuses on a legal framework.  And we certainly affirm that the gospel can be articulated using a legal framework that focuses on forgiveness for sin as guilt and based upon laws of Scripture, propositional truth.

The Father’s Love Gospel Booklet, the gospel in the language of honor and shameIn contrast, consider a gospel presentation called The Father’s Love Booklet which we
developed a couple of years ago. It’s the prodigal son story in words and pictures. It shows how the prodigal son’s descent into sin and shame alienated him from his father. Then his father—in his desire to have his son reconciled back to his family—went out and met this prodigal as he came back from his shameful exploits. The father covered his son’s shame and restored his son’s honor. He covered him with his favorite robe. He gave him a ring signifying his honored place in the family and his authority. He gave him sandals for his feet. With outrageous love, the father restored the honor of his prodigal son.

And then the booklet has a bridge to the gospel of Christ using verses from Scripture like, “He who believes shall not be put to shame” in Romans 10. We show how the work of Christ on the cross demonstrates that God is like a father willing to suffer shame for us that we may be reconciled.

In your book you say, “Shame is more likely to lead to hurtful behavior whereas guilt is more likely to lead to healing behavior. The pathology of shame for individuals can be terrible and impact generations, but when that pathology of shame impacts whole societies and nations it becomes truly horrendous.” What are some examples you’ve seen of how that is played out?

This is an important distinction between guilt and shame. Social science research shows that guilt is more likely to lead to healing behavior because people are motivated to apologize for what they have done. Consider the phrase, I did that horrible thing. For guilt-prone people the emphasis is on the words did and thing—the emphasis is on behavior.[3]

However, with shame-prone people, the emphasis is not on the bad thing I did—but on the bad person I am. So the phrase reads with an emphasis on “I”: “I did that horrible thing.” The research shows that whereas guilt is more likely to lead to healing behavior, shame is more likely to lead to hurtful behavior. And when this is played out on the broad stage of human history, we see horrendous things happen.

For example, in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, Germany was deeply excluded and shamed by the international community. They had to pay back billions in reparations. It was impossible. Consequently, Germany was in a place of profound economic dysfunction and humiliation. My mother had been a teenager in Germany during World War Two. She told me that after the First World War, “We couldn’t even buy a loaf of bread.”

Hitler rose in power because he tapped into that German humiliation and shame. He also found a scapegoat—which of course was the Jews or other non-Aryan people. Hitler rebuilt their military and satisfied the longing of the nation to have their honor restored. The nationalist desire to overcome shame led to evil and violence on a monumental scale.

Another prominent example in the last century and continuing into current events has been the rise of Islamic terrorism, which I believe is large-scale honor competition. The Arab Muslim world has been shamed by the Western world in many different respects—at least that’s how they perceive it—and so their honor must be vindicated.

I was reading about the Al Qaeda representative in Yemen who took responsibility for the
Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. He plainly stated that this attack was a vindication to restore honor. He said they denounce the unbelievers who “insulted the chosen Prophets of Allah” and caused Muslims to “awake and roar out of rage.” The “heroes,” the killers in Paris, were then “assigned” to attack the Charlie Hebdo office in revenge.

“Congratulations to you, O Ummah of Islam, for this vengeance that has soothed our chests. Congratulations to you for these brave men who blew off the dust of disgrace and lit the torch of glory in the darkness of defeat and agony.”

We must understand that honor-shame dynamics are at the very root of what is happening in this clash between East and West—between religious fundamentalism, Islamic extremism, and our own Western culture—or we will not address it effectively. We’ve got to understand the root causes. We’ve got to realize that shame leads to hurtful, sinful behavior for individuals, families, societies, even nations. Christian leaders and missionaries must learn to teach and preach a gospel which speaks to honor-based violence.

You conclude that the gospel is already contextualized for honor-shame cultures. Would you explain that?

I agree with my friend Jackson Wu from China: “The gospel is already contextualized for honor-shame cultures.” This comes from our observations of honor-shame dynamics in the Scriptures that plainly overlap with verses concerning the gospel, salvation, Christ’s atonement, the resurrection, and what it means to follow Jesus.

This is exciting because when we think about the unreached and unengaged peoples of the world, when we think about the multitudes who have yet to receive the blessing of Christ—so many of them are from honor-shame cultures.

We can build on the legal framework of the gospel by including the honor-shame dynamics that are woven into the Scriptures. We can connect with the thought forms and honor-shame motivations of the people who have yet to receive the blessing of the gospel. We can discover that for many in the Majority World, their honor-shame values overlap with the pivotal cultural value of honor and shame in Bible societies—and that this overlap can be used to powerfully communicate the gospel.

This gives us fresh hope as we continue our work in the world Christian community to bless all the peoples of the earth and make disciples of all nations.

1. Jerome H. Neyrey, Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 15.

2. Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (New York: Gotham, 2012), 69.

3. See June Tangney and Ronda Dearing, Shame and Guilt (New York: Guilford Press, 2002).

A great sermon on honor and shame

Gospel of Jesus, Honor and shame, The Global Gospel
The glorious gospel sermon

My friend Sam Winfield (pseudonym) recently preached a sermon on honor and shame for the missions conference of a church in northern Indiana.

I love this sermon. It is some of the finest preaching I have heard concerning honor and shame in Scripture, how this relates to the gospel, and what it means for Christian world missions.

The title of Sam Winfield’s sermon is “The Glorious Gospel”.

Sam preaches on two of the ten key honor/shame dynamics which I describe in my book The Global Gospel. These two dynamics described in his sermon are 1) limited good, and 2) purity.

Sam shows how these dynamics overlap with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Plus, he gives great insight as to why the gospel is more glorious than we may have previously known.

Sam speaks from many years of experience serving in North Africa and Europe as a missionary. You will like his clear teaching from God’s Word, combined with stories, spiritual passion, and practical application.

Thank you, Sam, for granting permission to put this on my blog.

Review of The Global Gospel in IBMR

Honor and shame, The Global Gospel

IBMR page

I am grateful for this review of my book The Global Gospel in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research.

The review was written by Simon Chan, Earnest Lau Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Theological College, Singapore.

Dr. Chan’s review of The Global Gospel is actually the second part of a two-book review. You can access the book review here.

Did shame lead to the Holocaust?

Honor and shame, Shame pathology, Violence
Bergen-Belsen1
Bergen-Belsen was a concentration camp for Jews between 1940 and 1945. According to Wikipedia, “The camp was liberated on April 15, 1945, by the British 11th Armoured Division. The soldiers discovered approximately 60,000 prisoners inside, most of them half-starved and seriously ill, and another 13,000 corpses lying around the camp unburied.”

I did NOT want to go to a concentration camp memorial while on vacation in Germany in early August.

But my wife Daphne insisted. My cousin’s daughter Stephanie said it was a good idea. Onkel Udo especially agreed.

So on Thursday, August 6, 2015, we all drove from Hanover to the memorialized concentration camp in Germany called Bergen-Belsen—all seven of us in my cousin’s VW minivan.

I did much research about honor and shame my book The Global Gospel. One of the insights I gained concerns the pathology of shame. Here’s the principle I learned:

Guilt tends to lead to healing behavior,
whereas shame tends to lead to hurtful behavior.[1]

It is one thing to see the effect of shame on a personal level. But when the pathology of shame impacts whole societies and nations, it becomes truly horrendous. James W. Jones writes,

The two greatest group humiliations of the modern age produced the two greatest movements of genocide and terrorism in the modern world: the collapse of the Ottoman Empire along with the imposition of European colonialism on the Arab world leading to the rise of the jihad; and the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the First World War and the appeal of Nazism in Germany.[2]

So let’s look at the second of these “two greatest group humiliations” in a little more detail. For it is a fact of history that a shamed Germany after the First World War contributed to the rise the Hitler and the Nazi party, which led to the horrors of the Second World War and the Jewish holocaust.

“Hier Ruhen 5000 Tote” — “Here Lie 5000 Dead”, April 1945
Shame as fuel for genocide in Nazi Germany

Concerning the humiliation—the shaming—of Germany following World War One, Jones writes:

The Treaty of Versailles removed all of Germany’s colonies from its control, laid on Germany the worst sanctions that decimated the economy, and demanded its disarmament. All of these had been sources of pride and their loss was a total humiliation for the Germans. These humiliations along with the virtual collapse of the weak Weimar government and the German economy laid the groundwork for Hitler’s rise to power. German veterans returning to a defeated and destabilized nation reported “as a Front-fighter, the collapse of the Fatherland in November 1918 was to me completely incomprehensible,” or “I had believed adamantly in Germany’s invincibility and now I only saw the country in its deepest humiliation—the entire world fell to the ground.”[3]

Jones continues, describing the longing of the German people to regain their honor:

People holding such sentiments became the core of the Nazi movement. National humiliation caused by military defeat, internal political weakness, and economic collapse had at least two disastrous results for Germany and for the rest of the world: it set off a furious search for scapegoats, for someone or some group to blame and to punish for all this suffering; and it unleashed a ferocious drive to undo the humiliation by defeating those who had humiliated Germany. Many citizens were vulnerable to someone who could explain which group was to blame and could offer a way to Bergen-Belsen3overcome the humiliation. That person was obviously Adolf Hitler who pointed the finger of responsibility at Jews and other “non-Aryans” and had a plan to restore German prominence through military conquest.[4]

It is ironic that the national shame that fueled World War Two and the Holocaust ended up giving Germany the reputation as the most barbaric of civilized nations—shaming the German people for generations for their descent into such horrible evil.

My father was a soldier in the German army. He only survived because he was captured by the Allied Forces. He became a prisoner of war in Poland for four-and-a-half years. After he was freed, he came to America with his father, mother and two brothers. I am therefore a second-generation American from a German family. The ‘German guilt and shame’ of which I have written above has touched my life and other members of my extended family in deep and enduring ways.

Of course, what my family experienced is nothing compared to the mammoth, murderous humiliation and shame suffered by the Jews of Germany and Europe—at the hands of the nationalistic honor-seeking Nazis and Germans.

Oh, how we need to understand and overcome the dark and devilish side of honor and shame.

Questions

  1. What can we learn from the anemic response of the German church to the horrors of the nationalistic Nazi political machine? To explore the relationship between so-called “German Christian movement” and the Nazi party, see Susannah Heschel’s The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany.
  2. Consider the campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again”. To what extent does this reflect the longing to recover our national honor in America’s current political climate? How might this be healthy or unhealthy, godly or ungodly?
  3. Does the gospel of Christ cover our sin and shame, and answer the human longing for honor? For a gospel presentation that speaks to these concerns, see The Father’s Love Gospel Booklet. Or, see a more comprehensive treatment of the subject in THE GLOBAL GOSPEL: Achieving Missional Impact in Our Multicultural World.

Note: Portions of this post have been excerpted
from my book, The Global Gospel.

FOOTNOTES

1. See June Tangney and Ronda Dearing, Shame and Guilt (New York: Guilford Press, 2002).

2. James W. Jones, “Shame, Humiliation, and Religious Violence: A Self-Psychological Investigation,” in Jewett, Robert, Wayne L. Alloway, and John G. Lacey, eds. The Shame Factor: How Shame Shapes Society. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011, p. 41.

3. Jones quotes an article by David Redles, “Ordering Chaos: Nazi Millennialism and the Quest for Meaning,” in The Fundamentalist Mindset: Psychological Perspectives on Religion, Violence, and History, ed. Charles B. Strozier et al., (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 156–74.

4. Jones, 41.

The Bible—so close to the culture of India?

Honor and shame

From July 13 to 24, 2015, I taught a class at Hindustan Bible Institute in Chennai, India. Based on my book The Global Gospel, the class was titled, “The Global Gospel: Setting the Gospel Free from Western Assumptions”.

The comments below are from one student’s essay which was part of the final exam. The student’s name is Jaimol Jacob. I have lightly edited her text.

The purpose of this post is to learn from the perspective of a Christian from an Eastern culture … to learn from one who, while living in an Eastern land, has had Christian training exclusively from a Western perspective … and who, for the first time, has now learned of the commonality between her Eastern culture and the Bible’s pivotal cultural value of honor and shame.

While these comments from Jaimol are certainly not intended to be a comprehensive, nuanced treatment on the subject, I am grateful that she has put her thoughts on paper. She has given me permission to share her words with the readers of this blog.  –WM

Version 2
Mrs. Jaimol Jacob comments on the honor/shame values in the Bible—and how these ancient values are closely aligned with the cultural values of India.

“Honor-shame concept is very much deep rooted in Eastern mind. Everyone in the East knows what it means to [have] shame and honor. [The] Bible is also speaking about familial culture and honor-shame dynamics.

“Most of the missionaries who came to India in the past tried to teach people based on Western cultural values. This made a deep wound and separation in the society between East and West. Christians and Bible are considered completely foreign. We [Christians] are also following the same tradition and never looked at the Bible with our own cultural thinking. … So the effective contextualization of the gospel became a failure and India is still largely unreached.

“Christians and Bible are considered completely foreign.”

“This course about the honor/shame dynamics is really making me to feel that [the] Bible is talking about our cultural values. It is an Eastern book. It helps me to look at [the] Bible from the honor/shame dynamics present in the Bible. I [now] understand it is more relevant to talk about sin as shame and impurity/uncleanness than [as] guilt and innocence.

“God is expecting people from all cultures to come to Him and worship Him in their own cultural patterns. Some of the Indian cultures [have] been plucked out, (especially in Northeast India) by the missionaries [who] implanted their Western culture. It is not really mission. God approves of every culture and wants to transform it, not to completely pluck it out. Even Western theology is influenced by its own culture.

“God approves of every culture and wants to transform it, not to completely pluck it out.”

“From this class I understood that [the] Bible is so close to Indian culture and its values, but away from Western cultural values. So it helped me think about new methods to proclaim the Gospel, related to Indian culture which will be free from Western concept with its values—so that every person must clearly understand [and] accept Jesus Christ, the Saviour who removes our shame and gives hope to people who are in hopeless, rejected, and shameful condition.

“Bible is so close to Indian culture and its values…”

“This class helps me to understand the human longing for honor. Eastern [values] are more regal than legal … more familial than individualistic … more local than cosmic … more concrete than abstract. So such people need the Gospel which relates to their life.”

Is the gospel more relevant than we ever imagined?

Book review, Honor and shame
Wu One Gospel book coverBook review: One Gospel for All Nations: A Practical Approach to Biblical Contextualization, by Jackson Wu

Early on in his book, Jackson Wu asks, “Are we biblically faithful if our gospel message is not culturally meaningful?” This sets the tone for the entire book in three ways.

Relentlessly pointing to Scripture

First, Wu constantly refers back to the Bible and the overall testimony of Scripture as the foundation for how we understand the gospel of Jesus Christ; this challenges common evangelical assumptions which reduce the gospel to a series of propositions.

Relatedly, Wu challenges the commonly understood idea that systematic theology is the apex of theology and Christian scholarship; he calls the reader to re-examine the primacy of “biblical theology” (and its more narrative emphasis) over and against systematic theology (and its more propositional emphasis). One result of this is that the gospel is understood more in the light of the Old Testament narrative, and as more than a series of propositions. He proves this from multiple Scripture passages which contain the words “gospel” / “good news”.

Proposing a process for contextualization

Second, Wu offers a practical alternative to contextualization by proposing a systematic process; this is enormously important. Wu shows that contextualization is not simply an add-on for cross-cultural workers. No, contextualization actually begins with interpretation. I believe Wu’s approach may represent a paradigm-shift for the way most Christians and pastors think about theology and the gospel. Wu demonstrates conclusively—the way we think and do theology is unwittingly influenced by our own cultural values. And the fact that this has largely gone unexamined in the world Christian movement implies an urgent need—both to be faithful to Scripture, and to share the gospel in a way that is truly relevant to the host culture.

Note: Regarding Wu’s proposed contextualization process, I agree with Wu that his approach is practical. This does not, however, make it easy, and he says as much. The book includes diagrams and charts which help to make this contextualization process clear. But I think this material is truly innovative, and thus, difficult to follow at times. I want to reread these chapters in order for this to better sink in. Wu suggests that the process be applied in a theological or missional cross-cultural community of believers. Sounds good. But let’s also realize how unusual and difficult this is. This is where the book seems to point the reader to a standard of theological or missiological practice which seems extremely difficult to achieve. Nevertheless, Wu points us in the right direction and for this he is to be commended.

Articulating the gospel for Chinese culture

Third, Wu demonstrates how to meaningfully articulate the gospel for the Chinese cultural context. He uses the honor/shame dynamics common to Scripture and East Asian societies. Wu lovingly and carefully shows how the gospel can beautifully relate to the Chinese context. What is the impact on the reader? I was left with a strange thought: Wu’s contextualization of the gospel for the Chinese culture is actually more closely aligned with the overall testimony of Scripture than any presentation of the gospel I have ever seen before. It is a strange thought, contrary to my Western Christian sensibilities. But it makes sense in light of the fact that the Bible is an Eastern book rooted in the honor/shame cultural values of the Ancient Near East.

Moreover, this gospel-for-the-Chinese context also carries with it additional gravitas for Christians everywhere. Why? Because about 80% of the world’s people are collectivistic (like the Chinese context) rather than individualistic (as in the Western context). Therefore, anyone doing ministry among the collectivistic peoples of the Majority World has much to gain from Wu’s perspective.

Humility and hope

I was left with two impressions—humility and hope. This book challenges many evangelical assumptions about doing theology, presenting the gospel, and preparing for cross-cultural ministry. It has the effect of humbling the reader. “God help us! We have so far to go!”

But I also felt a strong hope. How exciting it is to ponder the fact that the Bible’s own honor/shame dynamics are closely aligned with the world’s least-evangelized peoples and populations. This book puts fuel on the fire of the global church to continue her work of blessing the nations through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

One Gospel for All Nations by Jackson Wu shows how the gospel we present can both be more faithful to Scripture and more relevant—perhaps more relevant than we ever imagined.

Shame is more pathological than guilt—here’s why, and why it matters

Bible study, Contextualization, Global Christian mission, Honor and shame, Shame pathology, The Global Gospel

shame vs guilt pathologyShame is more pathological socially

I was stunned. In my learning journey about honor and shame I knew I had to read extensively. And as I got into the first chapter in the book by Tangney and Dearing, Shame and Guilt, I was not prepared to discover this stunning truth:[1]

Guilt is about what behavior; it’s about what I’ve done.

But shame is about being; it’s about who I am.

Consider, for example, this sentence: I did that horrible thing.

The guilt-prone person says, “I did that horrible thing.” My behavior was bad.

But shame is different. The shame-prone person says, “I did that horrible thing.” The emphasis is not on my behavior, but on my core identity—hence, I am bad. Tangney called this “global devaluation”[2]—the idea is that one’s whole identity is corrupt, not just one’s behavior.

Tangney and Dearing unpack the significance of this in society. It’s based on more than 40 years of university research. Over and over again, the research points to this fact:

Guilt is more likely to lead to healing behavior.

But shame is more likely to lead to hurtful behavior.

With guilt, there is a “desire to confess, apologize, or repair”. But with shame, there is a “desire to hide, escape, or strike back”.[3] This is what the research showed—forty-plus years of research, again and again.

Here’s how Tangney and Dearing describe  the difference.

The tension, remorse, and regret of guilt causes us to stop and rethink, and it offers a way out, pressing us to confess, apologize, and make amends. We become better people, and the world becomes a better place.

In contrast, shame appears to be the less “moral” emotion in several important regards. When people feel ashamed of themselves, they are not particularly motivated to apologize and attempt to repair the situation. This is not an emotion that leads people to responsibly own up to their failures, mistakes, or transgressions and make things right. Instead, they are inclined to engage in all sorts of defensive maneuvers. They may withdraw and avoid the people around them. They may deny responsibility and blame others for the shame-eliciting situation. They may become downright hostile and angry at a world that has made them feel so small. In short, shamed individuals are inclined to assume a defensive posture rather than take a constructive, reparative stance in their relationships.[4]

Shame is more pathological spiritually

From a theological and spiritual perspective, we believe as Christians that our guilt and condemnation before God as sinners is a vitally serious matter (John 3:18). Thus, we offer the gospel of Jesus Christ—forgiveness of our sins and hope of eternal life—as a cure for humanity’s condition of sin and guilt.

But the Bible says much more about sin. Sin is a more expansive and more personal problem than being guilty of breaking God’s laws. Consider just three verses in Romans 1,  2, and 3:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened (Rom 1:21).

Here in Romans 1, sin is not defined as breaking God’s laws, but as dishonoring God’s Person. Therefore, sin is not abstract; it is a personal problem. Consider also …

You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law (Rom 2:23).

In this Romans 2 passage, Paul is addressing Jews and says that, yes, sin is “breaking the law”. But Paul amplifies the seriousness of sin by saying that in breaking the law, they “dishonor God”. God’s people were dishonoring God’s Majesty. Sin is disregarding God’s royal Kingship and regal authority. In an ultimate sense, we can rightly say that sin is shame.

One more verse—it’s one that many Christians are familiar with.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23)

Once again, sin is not defined as breaking God’s laws, but as something more expansive, personal, serious: falling short of God’s glory.

Here’s why this matters

Of course, humanity’s guilt before God is real. But the shamefulness of sin—its dishonor toward God—makes sin worse than we think. It’s not merely a violation of a divine moral code. Sin dishonors the One who is God Most High over all the universe, the holy King of all creation—the very Person who made us to enjoy him and live for his glory.

Moreover, when we consider the fact that shame is more pathological than guilt in society—that is, shame produces more harm, more pain, more moral disease, more violence, more fractured families, more international conflict, more bloodshed—we are left with a compelling need:

Since shame is more pathological than guilt—both socially and spiritually—we must learn to communicate the gospel of Christ as more than a cure for sin-and-guilt, but also as a cure for sin-and-shame.

Yes, the atonement of Jesus Christ is the solution to the problem of guilt and condemnation from God. But what if the atonement was also the covering of our shame and the restoration of our honor before God?{5]

Wouldn’t this be more attractive for persons and peoples who are saturated by the cultural value of honor and shame—including multitudes in the Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim worlds?

Wouldn’t this be a more global gospel?

 This blog post is excerpted in part from my book, THE GLOBAL GOSPEL: Achieving Missional Impact in Our Multicultural World.

1. June Tangney and Ronda Dearing, Shame and Guilt (New York: Guilford Press, 2002), 25.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., p. 180.
5. How the atonement of Christ overlaps with ten different honor/shame dynamics is the subject of Section 3 of my book, The Global Gospel.

We can, we MUST remove the Western blind spot about honor and shame. Here’s how:

Bible study, Gospel of Jesus, Honor and shame, Ministry tools and resources, The Global Gospel

The Bible is loaded with honor and shame. This makes sense since the societies of the Ancient Near East had honor and shame as their pivotal cultural value.

So understanding honor and shame in the Bible is vitally important because 1) it helps us to properly interpret the Bible, and 2) it helps us understand and relate to our multicultural world. This issue is magnified when we realize that the vast majority of the world’s unreached peoples are from honor/shame cultures.

guilt vs shame graphBut we in the West can hardly recognize the honor/shame dynamics in Scripture—even though there are more than twice as many references in the Bible to the word shame and its derivatives than the word guilt and its derivatives (see graph at right).[1]

Why this blind spot? John Forrester writes as a pastor:

We Western pastors have a blind spot. In a word, that blind spot is shame. We don’t learn about shame in seminary. We don’t find it in our theological reading. We don’t recognize it on the pages of Scripture. We don’t see it in our people. Shame is just not part of our pastoral perspective.[2]

Why do so many pastors have this blind spot? Because shame has not been a subject of theological inquiry.

One way to examine the degree of theological importance of a particular word is by looking at theological dictionaries. I went to Phoenix Seminary and did a little research at the library. My question was simple: In the available theological dictionaries, is there an entry for guilt and also an entry for shame?

Here’s what I found. The dictionaries are listed in order of the year they were published.[3]

Bible dictionaries guilt vs shame

This survey shows that it was 1996 when shame appeared as an entry in Elwell’s redo of his 1984 version. Interestingly, neither of the dictionaries published in 2000 had an entry for shame. The massive Global Dictionary of Theology by Dyrness and Kärkkäinen has an extensive entry for shame. But (sadly) the vast majority of Western pastors would not likely use a theological dictionary with a global scope.

What can we do to remove this blind spot in Western theology? Five suggestions:

1. Look for honor/shame as you read the Bible. You must read the Bible extensively in order to see how pervasive is honor and shame in the Bible. Regular reading of Scripture is essential. I started on my own journey of understanding honor/shame in the Bible by simply underlining and highlighting words and verses that included words or dynamics about honor and shame. You, too, can be on this learning journey, whenever you read your Bible.

2. Check out my free resources. You’ll find a variety of free stuff in various media: Gospel booklets, video, PowerPoint, articles, and even a skit—all focused on honor/shame dynamics and how it relates to cross-cultural ministry.

3. Subscribe to blogs about honor/shame written by evangelical mission leaders. In addition to my site, I especially recommend these two:

These sites have a wonderful growing array of free resources.

4. Read my book, THE GLOBAL GOSPEL: Achieving Missional Impact in Our Multicultural World. I break down nine honor/shame dynamics in the Bible societies—and one motif—and show how these dynamics overlap with verses about the gospel, the atonement of Christ, and salvation. This book attempts a comprehensive understanding of honor/shame in the Bible and what it means for the world Christian movement. It is a book for educators, thought leaders, trainers and key leaders. It is not an easy read, but if you take it slow, it might transform how you read the Bible, how you preach and teach, how you communicate the gospel, and how you collaborate with others in the global church.

5. Check out the Jan/Feb issue of Mission Frontiers magazine. The magazine is devoted to the subject of honor and shame and features a variety of authors and perspectives.

If we want our gospel message to better resonate with honor/shame peoples—so many of whom remain resistant to Christianity and remain unreached—we MUST contextualize that glorious message in the language of honor and shame.

1. Diagram adapted from “Figure 1.05: Words in the Bible derived from ‘guilt’—versus ‘shame’”, The Global Gospel, p. 47. Original research by Bruce Nicholls, “The Role of Shame and Guilt in a Theology of Cross-Cultural Mission,” Evangelical Review of Theology 25, no. 3, (2001): 232; as quoted by Timothy C. Tennent in Theology in the Context of World Christianity: How the Global Church Is Influencing the Way We Think About and Discuss Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), 92–93.
2. John A. Forrester, Grace for Shame: The Forgotten Gospel (Toronto: Pastor’s Attic Press, 2010), 9.
3. This chart is taken from my book, The Global Gospel, p. 46: “Figure 1.04: Entries for “guilt” and “shame” in theological dictionaries”.

Parts of this blog post were excerpted from THE GLOBAL GOSPEL: Achieving Missional Impact in Our Multicultural World.

You CAN contextualize the gospel in the language of honor and shame

Contextualization, Global Christian mission, Gospel of Jesus, Honor and shame, The Global Gospel

I had the privilege of doing a workshop today for ISI (International Students Inc) at Phoenix Seminary. It was a dynamic, electric time of interaction and learning from one another. I am so grateful for the opportunity. Here’s the presentation I used (below).

It was also great to sell numerous copies of The Global Gospel as well as several packs of “The Father’s Love Booklet”.

I am observing a real hunger among people engaged in cross-cultural ministry to understand how the Bible’s pivotal cultural value of honor and shame relates to serving people in our world today.

After the Adam Bomb

Gospel of Jesus, Honor and shame, Shame pathology

By guest blogger, Robert Walter

atom bombIn the early morning predawn of August 6, 1945, a Boeing B-29 bomber named the Enola Gay revved its engines at the end of the airfield. It would need every inch of runway to get aloft with its enormous payload, an atomic bomb code-named Little Boy.

After 6 hours of flight the bomb bay doors opened and Little Boy began its descent towards the target, Hiroshima. The detonation leveled 70% of the buildings in Hiroshima over an area of roughly five square miles. About 70,000 people were killed and another 70,000 were injured that morning. Many continued to suffer the consequences of that blast for months and years to come.

The “Adam” Bomb

As destructive as the atomic blast was, it doesn’t compare to the devastation of another earlier event in human history. Only two lives, Adam’s and Eve’s, were affected that day, but the fallout from their disobedience in the Garden of Eden has affected every person in every generation since.

No one has escaped unscathed.

Pain has visited every woman in childbirth since that time. Work became toil. There was no mushroom cloud, but sin billowed up in an endless variety of self-centeredness, greed, depravity, and violence.

We don’t have to strain to see the impact of sin in our lives, yet some of the fallout from Adam and Eve’s disobedience remains largely unnoticed and unaddressed in Western Christianity. I’m referring to shame.

The Hiddenness of Shame

Before their sinful disobedience, the Bible records that “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” Shame was foreign to Adam and Eve in the Garden before the Fall.

Unfortunately, shame remains a foreign concept to many Western pastors and teachers in the church today. This is not a personal criticism. It is a reflection of a blind spot we have inherited from generations of Western theologians before us.

In his wonderful new book, The Global Gospel, Werner Mischke notes that since the Bible grew out of a culture defined by the values of honor and shame, it is no surprise to find that the values of honor and shame feature prominently in the Bible. Yet that emphasis has largely remained hidden from the eyes of Westerners who are only conditioned to look for the pivotal values of guilt and forgiveness.

Werner Mischke illustrates this blind spot well by noting that the word shame is only listed in the index of two out of seven theological dictionaries published by Western scholars. This is a striking omission given that the word shame and its derivatives occurs 4–5 times as often in the New Testament compared to the word guilt and its derivatives.

The Epidemic of Shame

Shame may often be hidden from the eyes of Western theologians, but that doesn’t mean it is absent in the lives of Westerners. Not at all. Shame’s impact is broad and deep.

I first became aware of shame’s impact while working with survivors of sexual abuse during my years as a pastor. We are not surprised to learn that people who have been scarred by childhood sexual abuse suffer from shame – a gnawing sense that they don’t measure up and will never be worthy of love – but we may surprised to discover how wide this epidemic of shame has spread. Let’s look at some other examples of populations who are struggling with shame:

  1. The Unemployed
    Richard Wilton was a successful real estate developer who dedicated his work to God’s glory. However, when the economy tanked in 2008 he took it on the chin. Properties that once secured loans worth millions now were worth only dimes on the dollar. Unable to refinance, the bank took the opportunity to repossess everything. Richard not only lost his collateral, but he also lost his house and his sense of identity with it. You may like to think we are not defined by our net worth, but it’s tough to shake the idea that you are a loser when you are 55 and no one will hire you.
  2. The Disabled
    9501297964_67e1e8f62d_b    Tammy Thompson, a blind woman, shares how she’s struggled with her disability: “I’ve spent many years on a mission to cancel out my disability by frantically stacking up achievements, hoping that someday I would find that final, magic accomplishment which would absolve me of the sin of being disabled. … I guess I thought that if I were successful enough, I’d escape from the ‘less than’ feeling that quivers in my guts.”
  3. The Depressed
    Teaching and preaching on the wonders of God’s love actually makes Jean Sorrento feel worse. “What’s wrong with me?!” she asks, “I should feel better.” She has confessed every sin she can think of but still can’t shake her shame or the depression that comes with it. Eventually she concludes she is spiritually dead and without hope.

Just as guilt affects every one of Adam and Eve’s descendants, so does shame. No one is immune. So far I’ve identified as many as 40 populations like the three above who are prone to struggling with shame: the divorced, the obese, the adopted, and the addicted are just a few of these. At some point shame touches us all.

PrescriptionsCure for the Epidemic

Prescriptions for shame tend to follow the pattern of prescriptions for guilt. However, failure to see the shame problem as a unique problem prevents us from seeing the unique solution.

Matt was born out of wedlock to parents who were not ready to marry or take on the responsibility of raising a child. In the heat of an argument his father tells Matt, “You ruined my life.” Matt learns beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is a bastard and a burden. This identity mars his outlook throughout his life.  How does the repentance and forgiveness formula fit? While Matt can confess many sins of commission and omission, how does he confess the sin of being born out of wedlock?

If we don’t have anything but forgiveness to offer, we offer a deficient Gospel. But the Gospel itself is not deficient. Jesus took both our guilt and shame on the cross.

Two Arms of the Cross

The author of Hebrews writes this about Jesus, “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (12:2)

In an honor and shame culture, the cross – designed to maximize both pain and shame – was the worst punishment. Yet Jesus willingly and joyfully took on our shame in order that we might share in his honor at the right hand of the Father.

So often we reduce the Gospel to a work of forgiveness only. When we do, we are guilty of preaching a one-armed cross. God’s forgiveness is clearly the only solution for our problem of guilt, but forgiveness has little to say to shame.

Fortunately, the cross has two arms. With one we are embraced by God’s forgiveness removing our guilt; with the other we are embraced by His love removing our shame.

Forgiven feel badFor more on the healing of shame get the free eBook by Robert Walter, If I’ve Been Forgiven, Why Do I Still Feel Bad?

Robert Walter is the training director for Leader Source, an organization that works with Christian leaders around the world to help them rise up the next generation of healthy leaders.