Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Shame On You

Shame is a loaded concept. There seems to be more than a few different ways of conceptualizing it. But I like to define it as a response to guilt that creates some degree of self-hate. I define guilt (at least the psychological version, not the legal version) as the belief that you have done something wrong. So shame takes the belief that you have done something wrong and concludes that there is something wrong with you.

I believe that we turn to shame for a reason. Because although we feel bad for what we did, we don't want to do the work to change our actions. Therefore I look at shame as a refusal to learn from what we did and try to change our behavior. Shame works against repentance. Shame is a form of self-punishment that recapitulates the wrong we've done.

Of course we can't discard the place of Christ's death in our shame. The work on the cross means that we are no longer guilty (legally) for our sins. Of course we are still psychologically guilty. But shame returns to the legal guilt and states that we must be punished by calling ourselves names and deprecating ourselves. Shame is therefore a lack of faith in the work of Christ.

Practically shame has the consequence of focusing our efforts on the punishment, rather than a solution. By the time we are done punishing ourselves verbally for something we have done (e.g. I'm such an idiot. Why did I do that again?!?), we have lost all motivation to learn and change. Rather than using our effort to punish, we can accept God's grace then begin the process of clarifying where we went wrong. Asking ourselves questions like: What was I trying to satisfy in myself that led me to do this? What kind of thinking did I have that led me to do this? What emotions led me to do this? Such an approach can allow us to identify problems before we do something wrong.

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