If you take my class on Christianity in the Context of Culture, you will learn there are three dominant characteristics in certain cultures: FEAR looking for PEACE, GUILT seeking FORGIVENESS and SHAME searching for restoration of HONOR.
For the most part Americans are a Guilt/Forgiveness culture. Our laws are set up in a way that an offense is generally dealt with by a fine, community service or a jail sentence. Most American Christians seek forgiveness by confessing their guilt to a priest or direct prayer to God.
In many parts of the world, where the society is held together by religion, clan or caste, Shame is the dominant emotional cultural framework. In Shame/Honor societies, mostly in countries of east and south Asia, to break a code of honor can result in excommunication from the family and even death. “Honor killings” are not uncommon if a young man/woman marry outside their group without permission. To become a follower of Christ from a Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist background is to bring dishonor to the family, village and/or tribe, punishable by losing inheritance and decried as blasphemy, another offense worthy of death.
Americans are certainly NOT a shame culture. I would go so far to say that the twenty-first American culture is actually “shameless.” Whether it’s movies, television sitcoms, foul language in public, advertisement, music or just the way Americans dress to go to Walmart, we have become a shameless brazen population.
Not only are we shamelessness we have become a “shaming” society.” Pick the topic…politics, race relations, sexual orientation, religion - the debate ends where shaming begins. The “Karen’s” (my definition - a person who feels they are entitled to point out or report another who they feel is being inappropriate based on their own standards) are everywhere on social media.
Let’s take the issue of people wearing a mask, which the medical experts can’t decide if it’s a good idea or not. There was a person on my FaceBook page who said if you don’t wear a mask you are being disrespectful and, in his words, “an idiot.” Message? Shame on you if you don’t agree with his position on mitigating the virus.
Shaming is when you call out someone for being a conservative or liberal, that you are a homophobe if you believe marriage should be only be between a man and a woman, that you are narrow minded if you believe that there is no salvation under any other name than Christ (Acts 4:12) or that you are a bigot if you don’t feel the need to apologize that you were born white and "privileged". Because we are a guilt culture, the way to make us feel guilty is shaming. I am assuming that most of the protestors in the streets last week did so with proper indignation, but many others marched because they were shamed into it by their peers and those with a political agenda. Some felt compelled to kneel before the demands of BLM protestors. Such behavior is not showing respect to the protestors but cowering and pandering engendered by ridicule.
Shaming is a form of informal control and used by preachers (if you don’t tithe, come to church, etc., you are a weak Christian), by parents (you will never amount to anything because you are lazy and stupid kid), and politicians (if you don’t stay in your house and wear a mask you may be responsible for killing grandma).
Shaming others for their behavior are the way of the proud and arrogant. The religious rulers in the days of our Lord was big on shaming. They tried to shame Him for eating with “sinners,” (Levi the tax collector - Mark 2:16), and humiliated sinners caught in sin (the woman caught in adultery brought to Jesus - John 8:1-11). The Savior, though, did not condemn, in fact He said “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:17).
The lesson for me looking at these three characteristics of culture and Scripture is that I am guilty, but through Christ I have forgiveness (1 John 1;9). I can feel shame for my sins, but through Christ, He has raised me to a position of honor (Colossians 3:1). No longer must I fear, because of Christ I have peace that is beyond human understanding (Philippians 4:7). Through the cross man is redeemed from shaming and shamelessness.
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