November 20, 2024 • 40 mins
Send Me Questions on Attachment
Can shame exist if you don't believe in a higher power? That's the question we tackle in our latest thought-provoking episode with my good friend Tim from our Psych and Theo podcast. We challenge conventional beliefs by exploring how shame manifests within Christianity and secular societal frameworks alike. With help from experts like Brené Brown, we dissect the intricate relationship between shame and identity, contrasting it with guilt, which is more about our actions. Together, we unravel how personal experiences and cultural norms shape these emotions, examining if and how shame persists without a theological backdrop. Our discussion is enriched by listener-submitted questions, which push us to consider whether societal moral frameworks can independently fuel feelings of shame.
We then take a global perspective, analyzing how shame operates across different cultures and eras, including biblical narratives. We explore the profound impacts of shame on individuals like the woman at the well and the apostle Paul, reflecting on how their stories reveal the complex interplay between shame, personal history, and spiritual beliefs. Additionally, we scrutinize the roles of fear, guilt, and shame in maintaining and challenging societal norms. Movements like LGBT rights and body positivity come under the spotlight, as we ponder whether rejecting shame in these areas is beneficial or detrimental. This episode invites you to rethink the role of shame in modern life, advocating for a nuanced understanding that balances acknowledgment with empathy.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
All right, everyone, welcome back to the God
Attachment Healing Podcast.
I'm glad that you're here andI'm excited to share today's
episode with you because it isone that I did with my good
buddy, tim, on our Psych andTheo podcast.
If you haven't checked that out, you can definitely check it
out on iTunes and Spotify orApple and Spotify.
You can definitely check it outon iTunes and Spotify or Apple
and Spotify.
(00:26):
And yeah, so I chose to sharethat one with you guys because
we talked about shame.
We had a really goodconversation, talked about the
role of shame, talked about howit affects Christianity, how it
affects our culture, and I thinkthat it applies to what we're
talking about here on thispodcast, god Attachment Healing.
So, yeah, so you'll tune intothat in a little bit, as I set
it up for you.
(00:46):
But again, if you've beenfollowing and this is episode 87
, and if you've been followingthis this far along, I thank you
for your support.
I'm so excited to get closer to100 episodes, because that's
really where I wanted to get toand we'll get there.
It's been a busy season of life, as always, but we will.
(01:08):
We will get to episode 100.
But again, thank you forlistening.
I hope you enjoy the show andremember to share, leave a
review, leave some ratings forthe podcast, how much you enjoy
it and I appreciate it.
All right, tune into the show.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
All right soune into the show.
So let's get into this topic ofshame Now.
What brought this on is weopened it up.
We opened up a forum for you,the listeners, to submit
questions, and one of ourlisteners submitted a really
good multi-layered question.
So, sam, why don't you go aheadand read that question?
Yeah, and then we'll justdiscuss it.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah, so we wanted to be good about addressing
concerns that you guys had thatare related to the topic, and
this one ties in very well.
And her question she separatedinto two, one for Syke, one for
Theo Tim.
So I'll start with Tim's.
And the question is can shameexist without the concept of a
(02:06):
higher power or God?
So can it exist without theconcept of a higher power?
You want to read the secondpart of the question too.
The second part of the questionis are there examples of shame
in the Bible that led torepentance?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
So those are good questions, yeah, so let's talk
about what shame is first.
And when we get into this, Iwant to give a shout out to one
of my good buddies, good friendand colleague.
His name is Jason Glenn.
He teaches as an adjunctinstructor at Liberty University
in the philosophy departmentand he's actually working on his
(02:41):
dissertation topic on the issueof shame, on shame Nice.
He's an ethicist, like I am andhe's way smarter than me, and
he's focusing in on there's aparticular feminist ethic and
honing in on the role of shamein society and she's taken a
(03:10):
very critical role to try toremove shame.
Basically her view and Jasonforgive me if I get this wrong,
but basically shame isinherently bad, it's an
oppressive thing and it's a realnegative thing that we need to
work out of our society, and sohe's actually going to be
(03:30):
writing his dissertation on thattopic itself and maybe the
biblical role of shame and whythat's important.
So shame is?
Well, you might have atechnical definition for this in
the mental health world, but myshoot from the hip definition
would be shame is an internalsense of not guilt, but maybe an
(03:56):
internal sense of embarrassmentor internal sense of feeling of
negativity and inferiority oversomething Like a sense of
embarrassment over somethingthat I did or something that was
done to me, and it's a desireto cover up and conceal for fear
(04:18):
of embarrassment in some wayshape or form.
Maybe you have a betterdefinition in the mental health
world, but I think that's justlike.
As I'm thinking about, whatshame is.
That's what I think it is.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, one of the leading experts.
She's done a lot of work inshame.
Actually she's probablyreferenced a lot in the shame
conversation.
But she talks her name is ReneeBrown A lot of you guys, if
you're in mental health field,you'll know about her and she
basically talks about it as anidentity formation.
So she says guilt is I didsomething bad, shame is I am
(04:51):
something bad.
So that internal sense ofembarrassment that you were
referring to is I am that, or Iam damaged goods, or it's I am
statements with whatever it isat the end of that.
So, for example, someone whoexperiences an internal sense of
embarrassment over having adifficult past or maybe having a
(05:13):
really difficult upbringing,they'll say something like I am
those things right.
They'll attach their identityto that thing that happened to
them, that's good.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
That's better than my definition but, yeah, okay, all
right.
So the listener's question wascan you have a sense of shame
without a higher power, withoutthe yeah concept of higher power
.
Yeah, I think it istheoretically and logically
possible to have a sense ofshame and to have some sort of
(05:48):
real feeling of shame without asense of higher power.
And that doesn't mean thathigher power doesn't exist.
It just means that whereverthere is, societies can have
moral frameworks okay, societiescan have moral frameworks okay.
And wherever there's a moralframework in someone, they see
(06:15):
their identity as not conformingto whatever that societal moral
framework is or, let's say, thesocial norms.
Because if we're talking aboutshame as, like, an identity
thing and you don't conform tothis, a person's not conforming
to the social norms andtherefore their identity starts
to get based outside of that orthis feeling of alienation from
society in some way, the group.
That can happen whether or nota society or an individual
believes in some form of higherpower.
(06:37):
Now, I would argue that itdoesn't make sense without the
concept of God or some sort ofhigher power, cause you need a
right or wrong.
Yeah and and uh.
We.
We could make the argument thatultimately, like all, like my,
my family, my group, all thatrolls up into, uh, something
(06:58):
bigger and higher than us fromwhich we all come.
Yeah and uh if, if shame is anidentity crisis or an identity
problem and there's a higherpower that we should, that we,
we could work back logically andthink that our identity is
actually rooted in that thatthing or that person.
(07:20):
Yeah, yeah.
Well then, if I becomealienated from that thing, then
I have experienced a sense ofshame as well yeah, and I was
gonna yeah, I was gonna ask youtoo about that.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
So before I used to have a separate podcast called
the genesis of shame.
That turned into the godattachment healing podcast, and
I talked about the garden ofeden, and one of the things that
I talk about was that you knoweveryone who knows what the
standard is, or knows what thelaw is, or knows what the
requirement is for something.
And if they so, yeah, there isthat feeling of oh no, I messed
(07:53):
up, I did not obey God's command.
But then there was the hidingand the running away from which
(08:14):
is what shame does.
So it's not just that you didsomething bad.
Now we take that to the nextlevel and we hide in and cover
or run away from the person thatwe transgressed against.
So, in that, you can alwaysexperience guilt when you do
something bad, but that doesn'tnecessarily mean that you're
(08:35):
going to experience shame.
However, anytime that youexperience shame, you've
experienced a level of guilt.
You know that you messed up onsomething.
The question is, now you'vemade it your identity, that
thing that you did wrong.
Now you've made it youridentity, which is why I think
me and a couple of other peoplewould have a different view on
the idea of I'm an alcoholic,I'm an addict, because it ties
(08:58):
that identity to you.
Now the AA groups and otherswould argue that no, actually it
gives you a sense of freedombecause you finally accept that
reality.
But I don't know how hopeful itis to everyone.
I think it differs withdifferent people.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, I could see that some people a sense of
despair could set in if they sayI am this Because then they
could say I'm always going to bethat.
Right, right yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And so that's another piece of it, but I wonder what
your thoughts were on that, whenthey hide away, because they
know there's much more to itthan just the running away from
God.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
So that gets into the second part of the question.
If I could sum up the firstpart of that question about can
you have shame without a higherpower?
In short, yeah, like, just asyou can have morality, someone
can be moral, they can have asense of morality.
We can conduct ourselves asmoral beings without
acknowledging a moral lawgiver,but it's really hard to explain
(09:53):
morality.
You can exercise moralitywithout God, but it's really
hard to explain morality withoutGod.
So the same thing with shamewithout God.
So same thing with shame.
Like social norms can driveshame, but it's really hard to
explain the concept of shameultimately, without some sort of
higher power is what I wouldsay.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah, well, I was going to ask about, but isn't?
The reason why we're able tohave a sense of morality is
because we bear the image of God?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah, that's what we would say.
My point is that all societiescan form moral systems, and some
of them are good.
Second part of her question wasare there examples in scripture
where there was shameexperience that led to
(10:52):
repentance.
Yeah, that's an interesting one.
It's kind of put me on the spotof like running my mind is like
running through the entirebiblical corpus to like all
these figures.
So let's go to the Garden ofEden for a minute.
Yeah, I want to focus onsomething that's really
important.
When adam and eve fall, there'sthree, there's kind of three
(11:14):
aspects of the consequences ofthat fall, and I think it was
roland mueller who wrote aboutthis in his book honor and shame
, or it might have been anotherauthor, I might be blanking on
that.
But essentially what happens,roland Mueller pointed out that
(11:35):
cultures throughout the worldeither operate in one of three
paradigms guilt, innocence orright and wrong.
As you might say, honor andshame and then fear and power.
So you have guilt, innocence,honor, shame, fear and power are
the three paradigms anddifferent parts of the world.
That's the dominant paradigmDoesn't mean it's the only one,
but it's the dominant one.
(11:56):
In the Western world we wouldoperate mainly on right and
wrong or guilt and innocence.
So we think in a very strictlylegal mindset.
So a lot of our theology iskind of oriented around the
concept of guilt and innocence,right and wrong, like very
juridical kind of language Inthe Middle East and in Asia it's
(12:18):
honor shame.
So an honor shame has a lot todo with where I fit in in the
collective, where I fit in insociety or my group and the
group norms.
In Latin America and Africa,especially more in indigenous
areas, fear and power is themain paradigm and that has a lot
(12:40):
to do with how they relate tothe spirit world, because you
don't want to live in fear ofthe spirit world, so you need
powerful spirits to protect you,and so they relate to the
spirit world in a sense of fearand power.
They relate to God in a senseof fear and power.
So in the Garden of Eden, whenAdam and Eve fall, they know
(13:05):
they've done something wrong, sothey immediately they
experience guilt by sinning, bydoing what they know they should
not have done.
Then their eyes were opened andthey see their nakedness, as
the Bible says, and theyexperience a sense of shame.
They hide, but it says theywere also afraid.
That's right.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
And they hid.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
And they'd say to God like we were afraid and we hid.
So you see all three aspectsthere Guilt, innocence, honor,
shame, fear and power, all rightthere at the fall.
So all three of those areimportant for understanding
human beings and what sin doesto us, for understanding human
beings and what sin does to us.
So we we shouldn't neglect anyone of those that triad of the
(13:54):
effects of sin in our lives.
If we emphasize one of thosetoo much and neglect another one
, we kind of miss an importantaspect of of the gospel.
Here's an example In ourWestern mindset we tend to focus
a lot on guilt and innocenceand, to be fair, a lot of that,
(14:14):
the New Testament, especiallyPaul's writings, are very much
focused on guilt and innocence,especially in relation to the
law, the Old Testament law.
So when we're dealing with a Godwho is holy and righteous and
just, so when we're dealing witha God who is holy and righteous
and just and a spiritual worldthat is very legal in its
(14:35):
orientation, the spirit world isa lot like a courtroom.
The Bible kind of presents itthat way Satan's called the
accuser of the brethren, jesusis called the propitiation or
the substitute for our sins, godis called the judge and the
lawgiver.
So these are all things thatthe Bible talks about.
So that's a really importantparadigm that we should not
(15:04):
neglect at all.
However, it does also say thatthe gospel removes our shame and
it's a lifter of our Christ isthe lifter of our head.
It also says that we, like Paulsays to Timothy, we've not been
given the spirit of fear, butof power and of love and of a
sound mind.
Paul oftentimes describes hisown ministries Like I didn't, I
(15:24):
didn't come to you with flashyspeech and other things,
corinthians, but I came to youwith a spirit of power, like
with a demonstration of theSpirit's power.
So there's we can go into a lotof different examples of that,
of what fear and power is, butthese aspects are important for
the gospel itself, our identityshifts.
(15:47):
You're talking about shame.
If we're talking about shamebeing an identity problem, the
gospel changes our identity, youknow, and we become something
different.
We become not enemies, we'renot.
We're no longer children ofwrath.
There's an I am statement, likeI'm no longer children of wrath
, I am a child of God, I am ason or daughter of the King.
(16:08):
These are all identity shiftsin us that correspond to a legal
shift from being guilt orinnocent too, and then,
therefore, we don't have to fearthe day of judgment.
So all these things are present, even in the gospel.
Now can I think of an example Inthe scriptures?
(16:29):
I'm having a hard time rightnow.
Maybe you can think of oneoffhand.
I was trying to think of Likewhere shame leads someone.
I mean there's like the womanwho has the bleeding disorder in
the New Testament.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
But that's the woman caught in adultery?
No, yeah, you know that's thewoman cut in adultery.
No.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, you know that's , that's guilt and innocence.
So too, I'm trying to think ofmaybe, um, yeah, I'm sure our
listeners are probably thinkingof one right now.
They're like you dummies, likeoffhand, I'm like I'll think of
one as soon as we stop recordingyou know, but I, I, I can't
really think of one right nowwhere it's like it's a shame,
it's a specifically shame issuewhere I was thinking of Paul or
(17:15):
Saul right at the time.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
You know he had killed so many Christians and
you know that was probably a bigpart of who he was not
necessarily as an individual, asa person, but it was definitely
something that he did.
And when he was confronted byChrist, it didn't come up.
It doesn't come up in the text,but in my head I'm imagining him
(17:38):
thinking about all of thoseactions, all of those murders
against Christians, and feelinga sense of shame and the way
that that shame could have beenreplaced was receiving that love
of Christ and just kind of youknow, this whole 180 shift,
obviously, and now being aChristian serving Christ.
So I don't know if that appliesnecessarily, but I often think
(17:58):
about that because I knowgrowing up, a lot of pastors or
some of the teachings would bereferencing that part of
scripture.
It's slipping my mind right now, but the idea of I've left
everything behind and I push nowforward to what's ahead, and
they'll talk about things likethat, like I left my past life
(18:19):
behind and now I have a new lifein Christ and therefore I
should not be experiencing shame.
But the reality is that people,as people, we just sometimes
remember things from our pastthat were shameful and they
could be reminders of grace.
Like man, the Lord had so muchgrace on me and for others.
They still live in it.
They still experience thatshame again.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Here's two examples from the New Testament that I
just thought of.
One is the woman at the well,who's a Samaritan, and she's
going to the well at middaybecause she's been with like
five men and one of the oneshe's with now isn't her husband
, and so the whole community hasjust shunned her completely and
her and jesus they don't getinto a discussion of the law so
(19:00):
much, but jesus does bring up,he indirectly kind of brings up
why she's there at the wellmidday.
He says go call your husband.
You know she said well, I haveno husband.
He's like you're right, he'slike you've had four or five, I
can't remember the number, youknow.
And so she's like ah, I'mcaught.
Oh, you must be a prophet.
You know, she tries to shift,she tries to change the subject.
(19:21):
You know it's like wow, you'resmart, you're so smart.
Here's another example would bethe roman centurion, who I don't
know for certain I'm stillwatching season four of the
chosen, but I think I, I think Iknow who they're going to
depict, uh, in this particularstory.
But a roman centurion comes tojesus and asks jesus to heal his
(19:44):
servant, uh, at his house, and,and Jesus is, like willing to
go to his house to heal hisservant, and the centurion says
no, no, no, like just say theword and he'll be healed.
You know, he might have notwanted Jesus to come to his
house for like political scandal, but it also might have been
like a sense of like I thegentile, like you know, you
(20:09):
shouldn't be coming to my house.
I think there's a few moreexamples like that I could I
could think of if I had enoughtime where, where god comes to
someone and they're like, oh,why are you talking to me?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
yeah, yeah, no, and I think you know from, uh, at a
personal level with people thatmaybe that we've known growing
up, where, yeah, I mean theytalk about.
I mean one example would belike my dad.
My dad would talk about hispast and he would feel even then
, even when he would share, hewould still feel a lot of shame
attached to it, and I rememberwe'd have conversations around
(20:43):
this like dad, you know, now, asa Christian, you know why does
that still come up Again?
Because that was such a bigpart of his life and he feels
that one way to continuallyreceive God's grace is reminding
himself of that time and to seehow far he's come or how far
the Lord has brought him.
But there's also things thathe's done after being saved.
(21:04):
That also continues to add tothe shame.
I'm a Christian.
How could I do, you know, stillsin against God, and so on.
So there's again.
Shame is such a powerful thingbecause it's experienced in the
body and then it's experiencedalso mentally and emotionally.
Right, your body feels acertain way when you've done
something wrong and you'rearound people that are close to
(21:26):
you.
One of the common factors that'soften discussed around shame is
the fear of being known, whichis why we hide.
It goes back to the Garden ofEden.
I need to hide, I need to pullaway.
So shame.
The way that it impactsrelationships is that it keeps
you away from true intimacy withothers, because if you're known
, you feel that you're going tobe rejected because of that.
(21:46):
So that's kind of the samefeeling is that if God truly
knows me right, there's a commonargument that people would have
If God truly knew my heart andknew who I was, he would not
want to be with me.
But the reason why that'sbelieved is because other people
have treated you that way.
You think that once you sharethis dark secret or this dark
part of your past with someoneelse and they pushed you away
(22:14):
and that's always been yourexperience it makes sense why
you would believe that God wouldtreat you that same way,
because it's all you've everknown, right.
But then you come to know God'sgrace.
You come to know hisunderstanding, his compassion,
his faithfulness and then youstart seeing yourself
differently.
So, with shame, there's a lotof what we would call in the
clinical field likeself-compassion.
How do I have compassiontowards that younger version of
myself that made decisions, thatmade mistakes that were not
(22:34):
aligned with God's word andunderstand that it was a
different stage of life.
And if you can show thatcompassion, then you can accept
God's compassion as well.
And he talks about that.
Paul talks about that in 2Corinthians 1, right, the idea
of accepting God's comfort andhis love.
And that's a big part of it.
You know, a big part of how wemanage or deal with with shame
(22:57):
real quick.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
So the, the or the, the last part of that question?
Oh yes, had to deal with.
The person who was asking thequestion grew up in a
predominantly oh yes, had todeal with.
The person who was asking thequestion grew up in a
predominantly Muslim environment, or Muslim culture.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Muslim country Middle East?
I think yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
And that's definitely , as I mentioned, that is
definitely an area of the worldwhere their major paradigm of
thinking is honor, shame, notguilt or innocence, right and
wrong.
And I think, well, actually,can you read part of the
question?
Speaker 1 (23:27):
again wrong and I think well, actually, can you
read part of the question again?
Yeah, the second part of thatquestion was I grew up in a
Muslim country where it wascommon to describe behaviors as
shameful or people as shameless,usually when their actions
deviated from societal norms.
So culture plays a huge role inhow we experience shame.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah, culture does play a huge role and this is
where I think Christians, weneed to be mindful that a
culture can have a sense ofright and wrong, or honor and
shame, or fear and power that isaligned with the Bible or
misaligned with the Bible.
I had a friend many years agoget mad at me because I said
(24:11):
some cultures are better thanothers and he just couldn't
believe that I would say thatLike as though I just Was he
from a different?
culture?
Yes, he was, but it wasn'tbecause he was from a different
culture that he had a problem.
He was very much informed by aa world of relativism and
(24:31):
wokeness you know so, and we'vedealt with the woke stuff early
in an earlier episode.
But so he had a real problemwhen I said some cultures are
better than others, and he justkind of bulked at that and I I
said, well, yeah, if you don'tbelieve that, then you'd have to
believe you have no ground tostand on to condemn Nazi Germany
(24:52):
.
And then he kind of thoughtabout it for a then I mean, the
only difference is change.
It's just one culture changedand it's different than the
other.
(25:12):
We have to judge it from ahigher standard.
But that was just an argumentabout which culture is better,
like right and wrong.
My point to him was that somecultures can be closer If we
think that the Bible is God'srevelation of the world and how
the world is broken and how theworld can be made right, and
(25:32):
individuals can either alignthemselves or misalign
themselves with that truth.
They can come to the Lord inrepentance and live for him and
with him, or they can choose notto.
If we think that's true ofindividuals individuals does it
not stand to reason thatcultures can also do that to a
greater or lesser extent?
Yeah, yeah, and so somecultures can have a a more
(25:57):
accurate understanding of honorand shame, right and wrong, fear
and power, and some can go wayoff, way off the rocker.
So I don't necessarily thinkthat a culture that is
predicated on honor and shame issomehow less biblical than a
culture that's predicated onguilt and innocence.
(26:19):
I would say Western culture isvery much, has had 2,000 years
of Christian influence.
Most of the world hasn't hadthat, has had 2000 years of
Christian influence.
Most of the world hasn't hadthat.
So we we stand with a, with a,an advantage, let's say, of
biblical revelation, whereas alot of the world doesn't have
that.
And if you travel around theworld, you'll see that.
You will see whoa, okay, like Itake, for I've taken for
(26:44):
granted a lot of things aboutthe West and that I didn't
realize Christianity gave to theWest.
You know that if I go to otherparts of the world where
Christianity did not have suchan outsized influence, it
definitely shows in a lot ofways how they value life, how
(27:04):
they value the treatment ofminorities and women and other
things, like how they view rightand wrong or the role of
government, like how they viewright and wrong and like, or the
role of government, like allthese things, like it definitely
shows.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah, yeah, that's good, that's good.
Um, culture makes a bigdifference, more locally or more
community-based.
The church culture also makes adifference and I think we were
kind of talking about thisbefore the episode is this idea
of shame.
There's a difference betweenexperiencing shame when the
pastor or preacher is talkingabout something that the Bible
(27:39):
is teaching and experiencingshame like you, feeling
embarrassed, feeling like, oh no, that's me, he's talking about
me, that was me, that was mypast, this is me now.
So there's a difference betweenexperiencing shame and then
being in a shaming culture.
So there are some churches thatmay be very shaming towards
something.
So it's not just that theystate what the Bible teaches,
(28:00):
but then they intentionally orat least it seems like they're
shaming people like these peopleare garbage or these people are
this.
That's a shaming type ofculture.
So I think we live in a worldtoday where, if someone says
something that the Bible teaches, like, oh, you're shaming
people like that.
There's again, there's adifference between having a
shaming culture and stating whatthe Bible is teaching.
(28:20):
Just because you experienceshame doesn't mean that the
setting that you're in is ashaming culture.
Yeah, right, and we also talkabout just kind of this not a
movement, but a phrase that wasmentioned and it made a lot of
sense to me when I heard it.
It's like this idea of bringshame back.
What do I mean by bring shameback to our culture, to our
(28:42):
society?
And the point was that thereare things that people do that
are shameful, that they shouldfeel shame for.
Should feel shame for Becausewhen you feel shame, if it ties
to your identity, it's going toprompt you to move in a
different direction so that youdon't keep living in that
identity.
Right, there's shameful thingsthat people do.
We're seeing a lot of stuff inthe media and stuff with a lot
(29:04):
of hip hop stars or with otherpeople that those are shameful
things.
If you actually experience shame, the point is to redirect where
you're going with.
That's telling you somethingabout what you're doing or what
(29:35):
you're seeing in yourself orbelieving.
Right, so it's meant to.
Again, you can't experienceshame without guilt.
So if you have guilt, thatmeans you did something wrong.
Now the question is I'mexperiencing an identity
attachment to this thing that Idid wrong.
What do I need to do now?
And the hope is that youredirect, course, okay, the only
(29:56):
way to move away from somethingthat you identify with, past
behavior or even currentbehavior, is to do the opposite.
So that way, right being you inChrist, our identity in Christ,
is now different than thatthing that we did or are doing
right that thing that we did orare doing right.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Let me answer her question this way, I think it
was can shame have a positiverole in society?
Well, again, we've talked aboutfear and power and guilt and
innocence, alongside shame andhonor.
Can guilt have a positiveinfluence in society?
Can fear have a positiveinfluence in society?
(30:34):
Can fear have a positiveinfluence in society?
To answer those questions withan affirmative yes isn't calling
guilt or fear inherently good.
It's simply saying that theyhave a function in society.
They're not inherently good,but they're extrinsically good.
That's simply saying that theyhave a function in society.
They're not inherently good,but they're extrinsically good.
That's what a philosopher wouldsay is that they have some sort
(30:56):
of extrinsic good to them.
It's not healthy to live in aconstant state of fear, but
there are things that you shouldbe afraid of, like if you find
an alligator in your living roomyou have reason to fear going
into your living room until thatalligator is removed.
Okay, I just thought of thatbecause I've been seeing like
(31:17):
gator videos in.
Florida.
If you're walking through acrime infested part of town and
you're unarmed and you'rewalking and you're holding a lot
of money in your hand, you havereason to fear that something
might happen to you you're not,uh, living in fear.
You have a good rational reasonto fear.
(31:38):
Okay, same thing with guilt.
Guilt has a function in oursociety.
If we didn't have guilt, umthen how would you prosecute
criminals?
Speaker 1 (31:48):
yeah okay.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
how would you know right from wrong?
Okay, so, again, if we'redistinguishing guilt as an
objective thing versus thefeeling of shame, there is a
place for guilt in society.
Guilt moves people to act in agood way or a right way by
avoiding the bad things to do.
Okay, so guilt plays a role aswell.
(32:11):
So same thing with shame.
Shame isn't inherently good.
We don't want to live in aconstant state of shame.
We don't celebrate shame.
It's like wow, like I hope Ifeel so much shame today.
But shame plays a function andthat function is there.
There could be healthy forms ofsocial norms that are actually
(32:34):
good for us, yeah, and when yougo against those social norms,
it's not good for you and youshould feel embarrassed by it.
But our society has cast, hasreally rejected this idea that
shame is in any way good, shameis in any way good.
And this gets to the point Imade at the very beginning,
(32:55):
where my friend Jason Glenn iswriting his dissertation on is
that there's been this push,especially with feminist ethics,
to remove shame from ourcategories, of thinking that
it's just so bad we don't needto feel shame anymore.
And what does that lead to?
Well, that leads to peopledoing all kinds of quote-unquote
, shameless acts in society andacting in public ways and very
(33:16):
grotesque and just crazy ways,because we are rejecting any
sense of shame.
When we start to feel that shame, we push it down or we throw it
out and we say that's just anoppressive category that someone
has put on me.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Right right.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Because it's a social construct or whatever.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
No, it's interesting, as youwere mentioning that,
interestingly enough, in thedesire to not point out shameful
acts in other people, youyourself start to experience
shame because you think ofyourself now am I being
judgmental?
Right, it becomes an I amstatement like I'm judgmental.
So in you trying to avoidcalling something that is
(33:57):
shameful shameful, you yourselfstart to experience shame
because you have an objectiveview of what's right or wrong or
what's not.
And this again.
This goes back just becauseit's a blaring example is the
LGBT movement.
You know they do a lot ofshameful things in these parades
and if I were to say somethingabout it, we were to say
(34:18):
something about it.
Oh, you're just.
You know you're shaming them oryou're like this and you know
you're so judgmental.
I'm just pointing out somethingthat is not helpful to the
culture.
You know that's not.
You know kids are watching thisstuff.
Yeah, helpful to the culture.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
You know that's not.
You know kids are watching thisstuff.
Yeah, you're telling me that'sgood, that's an easy example.
It's just like, yeah, like, whywould you?
Why would you dress that wayand dance that way in front of a
child?
Right, that's a very shamefulthing to do, like very shameful.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
But people defend that.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
They say you shouldn't address or you
shouldn't say that about, youcan't judge, so we're going to
shame the shamers exactly.
Another one is the bodypositivity movement oh and this
is not to, like you know, targetanyone who, uh, maybe is is
having weight issues or tryingto lose weight or anything like
that.
I'm not, you know, sayinganything about that, but our
culture has reacted so so muchagainst a prior generation where
(35:12):
supermodels had like justunrealistic expectations of body
types and as, like, thestandard of beauty in our
culture has reacted so faragainst that.
The feminist movementespecially to where they've now
foisted upon everyone the bodypositivity movement, which is
you can't point out when someoneis morbidly obese.
(35:34):
In fact, you can't just notpoint it out, you have to
celebrate it because it's goodand it's objectively not good,
it's objectively unhealthy andit actually makes someone have a
higher chance of morbidity orheart disease or anything like
that.
Yeah, so that'd be an example.
Another example is modesty.
If someone were to point outthat, hey, ladies, maybe we
(35:58):
shouldn't dress a certain waybecause it actually it generates
sexual feelings in men, like it.
Actually, you know, when youflash certain parts of your body
or hint at them with by the wayyou dress, you accentuate
certain parts of your body andI'm going to get canceled for
this.
I know, but if you dress in acertain way that you accentuate
certain parts of your body thatactually draws the attention of
(36:20):
men because men are visualcreatures okay, so just be
careful when you're doing that.
Maybe it's not wise to do that.
You know If you were to saysomething like that, they would
call you a slut shamer.
You do that.
You know.
If you were to say somethinglike that, they would call you a
slut shamer, you're slutshaming.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So well, again I'm gonna getcanceled for saying these things
, but, folks, I'm just talkingabout.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
I'm just talking about what the culture's saying
yeah, you know, and so these are.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
these are examples of our culture rejecting any sense
of shame, and that itself isnot good.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
it, it's not, it's not, it's not good for us
Because it will eventually leadto not being able to think.
The truth about something andagain, I kind of made this point
earlier is that if youexperience shame, and in a
non-shaming environment, that'ssaying something about what
(37:11):
you're doing, right, becausethat means that at some point
you cross some sort of boundary,because you can't experience
shame if you haven't experiencedguilt.
Now, the things that you feelguilty about, those things can
change.
You might say well, you know,it's not bad that I dress this
way, or it's not bad that we dothese provocative dances.
Once you remove the guilt piecefrom it, yeah, it's possible
that you don't experience anyshame, right?
You kind of numb that part ofof your being and that's, that's
(37:35):
doable, right?
I mean, I think, uh, romanstalks about being given over to
one's desires, and one of them,is that right?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
you lose the conscience seared yeah, so yeah,
yeah that.
And let me let me wrap up bysaying this that I think if
you've grown up in a like me andmany others, if you grew up in
a super, super conservativeenvironment that was very
legalistic, you can actuallyhave a great sense of shame.
(38:03):
Yeah, that's not healthy foryou, right?
You talked about shame beingthis identity marker and a lot
of people who grow up in hyperconservative upbringings where
there's a lot of legalism, theycan carry with them a heavy
sense of shame.
That's not good, right, like anover, a too strong sense of
(38:24):
shame, and I know in my own lifeI experienced that yeah where
it's like I just feelembarrassed for things that I
shouldn't be, or I I'mhypersensitive about things, you
know, because I'm like, oh, Idid something wrong, oh, I'm a
terrible person.
Like I make a mistake and I'mlike I start catastrophizing,
like oh, I'm a terrible person.
I'm going to lose my job, I'mprobably going to end up under a
(38:44):
bridge or living in a van downby the river, you know, like
that kind of stuff, you know,yeah, but all that's driven by
shame in the background and alot of people who grew up in
very, very strict environmentscan experience that.
And if you're one of thosepeople listening right now, I
think, for you, just toencourage you that not every
we've been talking about there'sa good role for, like, shame is
(39:06):
good in some sense.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
We're not talking about that kind of shame, that
kind of shame is actually kindof is pretty harmful and
destructive for people, yeah,yeah, and I think what we're
bringing light to is that thereare some things where shame is
experienced because somethingwas broken, a standard or
something was wrong, but there'sthis other.
The flip side to that is theover-attachment of shame to
(39:33):
things that are not necessarilyshameful or they're minor, but
we, as you said, catastrophizeit and make it the worst
possible thing.
So there's this constant cycleof you know, oh, I did something
bad, I'm not going to beaccepted, no one wants me.
So it's kind of this, thiscycle, uh, in a van down by the
river and a van down by theriver and I'll die alone, type
(39:54):
of thing, but, um, yeah, greatquestions, really really great
questions.
I'm glad we have thisconversation.
I, you know, I know it.
Um, I think we enjoy doingthese and we literally we
literally shot this one from thehip.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
We did not prepare at all for this one.
We read the question and we'relike let's this episode I think
we could answer these.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
So folks you just got , like what, 40, 40 minutes, 50
minutes of uh about, yeah, yeah,of just shooting from the hip,
yeah, so send us more questionsyeah, we'll do it yeah, thank
you for listening.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
Send us questions, follow us on instagram and we'll
talk to you soon.
All right, everyone, welcome back to the God
Attachment Healing Podcast.
I'm glad that you're here andI'm excited to share today's
episode with you because it isone that I did with my good
buddy, tim, on our Psych andTheo podcast.
If you haven't checked that out, you can definitely check it
out on iTunes and Spotify orApple and Spotify.
You can definitely check it outon iTunes and Spotify or Apple
and Spotify.
(00:26):
And yeah, so I chose to sharethat one with you guys because
we talked about shame.
We had a really goodconversation, talked about the
role of shame, talked about howit affects Christianity, how it
affects our culture, and I thinkthat it applies to what we're
talking about here on thispodcast, god Attachment Healing.
So, yeah, so you'll tune intothat in a little bit, as I set
it up for you.
(00:46):
But again, if you've beenfollowing and this is episode 87
, and if you've been followingthis this far along, I thank you
for your support.
I'm so excited to get closer to100 episodes, because that's
really where I wanted to get toand we'll get there.
It's been a busy season of life, as always, but we will.
(01:08):
We will get to episode 100.
But again, thank you forlistening.
I hope you enjoy the show andremember to share, leave a
review, leave some ratings forthe podcast, how much you enjoy
it and I appreciate it.
All right, tune into the show.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
All right soune into the show.
So let's get into this topic ofshame Now.
What brought this on is weopened it up.
We opened up a forum for you,the listeners, to submit
questions, and one of ourlisteners submitted a really
good multi-layered question.
So, sam, why don't you go aheadand read that question?
Yeah, and then we'll justdiscuss it.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah, so we wanted to be good about addressing
concerns that you guys had thatare related to the topic, and
this one ties in very well.
And her question she separatedinto two, one for Syke, one for
Theo Tim.
So I'll start with Tim's.
And the question is can shameexist without the concept of a
(02:06):
higher power or God?
So can it exist without theconcept of a higher power?
You want to read the secondpart of the question too.
The second part of the questionis are there examples of shame
in the Bible that led torepentance?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
So those are good questions, yeah, so let's talk
about what shame is first.
And when we get into this, Iwant to give a shout out to one
of my good buddies, good friendand colleague.
His name is Jason Glenn.
He teaches as an adjunctinstructor at Liberty University
in the philosophy departmentand he's actually working on his
(02:41):
dissertation topic on the issueof shame, on shame Nice.
He's an ethicist, like I am andhe's way smarter than me, and
he's focusing in on there's aparticular feminist ethic and
honing in on the role of shamein society and she's taken a
(03:10):
very critical role to try toremove shame.
Basically her view and Jasonforgive me if I get this wrong,
but basically shame isinherently bad, it's an
oppressive thing and it's a realnegative thing that we need to
work out of our society, and sohe's actually going to be
(03:30):
writing his dissertation on thattopic itself and maybe the
biblical role of shame and whythat's important.
So shame is?
Well, you might have atechnical definition for this in
the mental health world, but myshoot from the hip definition
would be shame is an internalsense of not guilt, but maybe an
(03:56):
internal sense of embarrassmentor internal sense of feeling of
negativity and inferiority oversomething Like a sense of
embarrassment over somethingthat I did or something that was
done to me, and it's a desireto cover up and conceal for fear
(04:18):
of embarrassment in some wayshape or form.
Maybe you have a betterdefinition in the mental health
world, but I think that's justlike.
As I'm thinking about, whatshame is.
That's what I think it is.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, one of the leading experts.
She's done a lot of work inshame.
Actually she's probablyreferenced a lot in the shame
conversation.
But she talks her name is ReneeBrown A lot of you guys, if
you're in mental health field,you'll know about her and she
basically talks about it as anidentity formation.
So she says guilt is I didsomething bad, shame is I am
(04:51):
something bad.
So that internal sense ofembarrassment that you were
referring to is I am that, or Iam damaged goods, or it's I am
statements with whatever it isat the end of that.
So, for example, someone whoexperiences an internal sense of
embarrassment over having adifficult past or maybe having a
(05:13):
really difficult upbringing,they'll say something like I am
those things right.
They'll attach their identityto that thing that happened to
them, that's good.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
That's better than my definition but, yeah, okay, all
right.
So the listener's question wascan you have a sense of shame
without a higher power, withoutthe yeah concept of higher power
.
Yeah, I think it istheoretically and logically
possible to have a sense ofshame and to have some sort of
(05:48):
real feeling of shame without asense of higher power.
And that doesn't mean thathigher power doesn't exist.
It just means that whereverthere is, societies can have
moral frameworks okay, societiescan have moral frameworks okay.
And wherever there's a moralframework in someone, they see
(06:15):
their identity as not conformingto whatever that societal moral
framework is or, let's say, thesocial norms.
Because if we're talking aboutshame as, like, an identity
thing and you don't conform tothis, a person's not conforming
to the social norms andtherefore their identity starts
to get based outside of that orthis feeling of alienation from
society in some way, the group.
That can happen whether or nota society or an individual
believes in some form of higherpower.
(06:37):
Now, I would argue that itdoesn't make sense without the
concept of God or some sort ofhigher power, cause you need a
right or wrong.
Yeah and and uh.
We.
We could make the argument thatultimately, like all, like my,
my family, my group, all thatrolls up into, uh, something
(06:58):
bigger and higher than us fromwhich we all come.
Yeah and uh if, if shame is anidentity crisis or an identity
problem and there's a higherpower that we should, that we,
we could work back logically andthink that our identity is
actually rooted in that thatthing or that person.
(07:20):
Yeah, yeah.
Well then, if I becomealienated from that thing, then
I have experienced a sense ofshame as well yeah, and I was
gonna yeah, I was gonna ask youtoo about that.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
So before I used to have a separate podcast called
the genesis of shame.
That turned into the godattachment healing podcast, and
I talked about the garden ofeden, and one of the things that
I talk about was that you knoweveryone who knows what the
standard is, or knows what thelaw is, or knows what the
requirement is for something.
And if they so, yeah, there isthat feeling of oh no, I messed
(07:53):
up, I did not obey God's command.
But then there was the hidingand the running away from which
(08:14):
is what shame does.
So it's not just that you didsomething bad.
Now we take that to the nextlevel and we hide in and cover
or run away from the person thatwe transgressed against.
So, in that, you can alwaysexperience guilt when you do
something bad, but that doesn'tnecessarily mean that you're
(08:35):
going to experience shame.
However, anytime that youexperience shame, you've
experienced a level of guilt.
You know that you messed up onsomething.
The question is, now you'vemade it your identity, that
thing that you did wrong.
Now you've made it youridentity, which is why I think
me and a couple of other peoplewould have a different view on
the idea of I'm an alcoholic,I'm an addict, because it ties
(08:58):
that identity to you.
Now the AA groups and otherswould argue that no, actually it
gives you a sense of freedombecause you finally accept that
reality.
But I don't know how hopeful itis to everyone.
I think it differs withdifferent people.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, I could see that some people a sense of
despair could set in if they sayI am this Because then they
could say I'm always going to bethat.
Right, right yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And so that's another piece of it, but I wonder what
your thoughts were on that, whenthey hide away, because they
know there's much more to itthan just the running away from
God.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
So that gets into the second part of the question.
If I could sum up the firstpart of that question about can
you have shame without a higherpower?
In short, yeah, like, just asyou can have morality, someone
can be moral, they can have asense of morality.
We can conduct ourselves asmoral beings without
acknowledging a moral lawgiver,but it's really hard to explain
(09:53):
morality.
You can exercise moralitywithout God, but it's really
hard to explain morality withoutGod.
So the same thing with shamewithout God.
So same thing with shame.
Like social norms can driveshame, but it's really hard to
explain the concept of shameultimately, without some sort of
higher power is what I wouldsay.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah, well, I was going to ask about, but isn't?
The reason why we're able tohave a sense of morality is
because we bear the image of God?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah, that's what we would say.
My point is that all societiescan form moral systems, and some
of them are good.
Second part of her question wasare there examples in scripture
where there was shameexperience that led to
(10:52):
repentance.
Yeah, that's an interesting one.
It's kind of put me on the spotof like running my mind is like
running through the entirebiblical corpus to like all
these figures.
So let's go to the Garden ofEden for a minute.
Yeah, I want to focus onsomething that's really
important.
When adam and eve fall, there'sthree, there's kind of three
(11:14):
aspects of the consequences ofthat fall, and I think it was
roland mueller who wrote aboutthis in his book honor and shame
, or it might have been anotherauthor, I might be blanking on
that.
But essentially what happens,roland Mueller pointed out that
(11:35):
cultures throughout the worldeither operate in one of three
paradigms guilt, innocence orright and wrong.
As you might say, honor andshame and then fear and power.
So you have guilt, innocence,honor, shame, fear and power are
the three paradigms anddifferent parts of the world.
That's the dominant paradigmDoesn't mean it's the only one,
but it's the dominant one.
(11:56):
In the Western world we wouldoperate mainly on right and
wrong or guilt and innocence.
So we think in a very strictlylegal mindset.
So a lot of our theology iskind of oriented around the
concept of guilt and innocence,right and wrong, like very
juridical kind of language Inthe Middle East and in Asia it's
(12:18):
honor shame.
So an honor shame has a lot todo with where I fit in in the
collective, where I fit in insociety or my group and the
group norms.
In Latin America and Africa,especially more in indigenous
areas, fear and power is themain paradigm and that has a lot
(12:40):
to do with how they relate tothe spirit world, because you
don't want to live in fear ofthe spirit world, so you need
powerful spirits to protect you,and so they relate to the
spirit world in a sense of fearand power.
They relate to God in a senseof fear and power.
So in the Garden of Eden, whenAdam and Eve fall, they know
(13:05):
they've done something wrong, sothey immediately they
experience guilt by sinning, bydoing what they know they should
not have done.
Then their eyes were opened andthey see their nakedness, as
the Bible says, and theyexperience a sense of shame.
They hide, but it says theywere also afraid.
That's right.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
And they hid.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
And they'd say to God like we were afraid and we hid.
So you see all three aspectsthere Guilt, innocence, honor,
shame, fear and power, all rightthere at the fall.
So all three of those areimportant for understanding
human beings and what sin doesto us, for understanding human
beings and what sin does to us.
So we we shouldn't neglect anyone of those that triad of the
(13:54):
effects of sin in our lives.
If we emphasize one of thosetoo much and neglect another one
, we kind of miss an importantaspect of of the gospel.
Here's an example In ourWestern mindset we tend to focus
a lot on guilt and innocenceand, to be fair, a lot of that,
(14:14):
the New Testament, especiallyPaul's writings, are very much
focused on guilt and innocence,especially in relation to the
law, the Old Testament law.
So when we're dealing with a Godwho is holy and righteous and
just, so when we're dealing witha God who is holy and righteous
and just and a spiritual worldthat is very legal in its
(14:35):
orientation, the spirit world isa lot like a courtroom.
The Bible kind of presents itthat way Satan's called the
accuser of the brethren, jesusis called the propitiation or
the substitute for our sins, godis called the judge and the
lawgiver.
So these are all things thatthe Bible talks about.
So that's a really importantparadigm that we should not
(15:04):
neglect at all.
However, it does also say thatthe gospel removes our shame and
it's a lifter of our Christ isthe lifter of our head.
It also says that we, like Paulsays to Timothy, we've not been
given the spirit of fear, butof power and of love and of a
sound mind.
Paul oftentimes describes hisown ministries Like I didn't, I
(15:24):
didn't come to you with flashyspeech and other things,
corinthians, but I came to youwith a spirit of power, like
with a demonstration of theSpirit's power.
So there's we can go into a lotof different examples of that,
of what fear and power is, butthese aspects are important for
the gospel itself, our identityshifts.
(15:47):
You're talking about shame.
If we're talking about shamebeing an identity problem, the
gospel changes our identity, youknow, and we become something
different.
We become not enemies, we'renot.
We're no longer children ofwrath.
There's an I am statement, likeI'm no longer children of wrath
, I am a child of God, I am ason or daughter of the King.
(16:08):
These are all identity shiftsin us that correspond to a legal
shift from being guilt orinnocent too, and then,
therefore, we don't have to fearthe day of judgment.
So all these things are present, even in the gospel.
Now can I think of an example Inthe scriptures?
(16:29):
I'm having a hard time rightnow.
Maybe you can think of oneoffhand.
I was trying to think of Likewhere shame leads someone.
I mean there's like the womanwho has the bleeding disorder in
the New Testament.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
But that's the woman caught in adultery?
No, yeah, you know that's thewoman cut in adultery.
No.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, you know that's , that's guilt and innocence.
So too, I'm trying to think ofmaybe, um, yeah, I'm sure our
listeners are probably thinkingof one right now.
They're like you dummies, likeoffhand, I'm like I'll think of
one as soon as we stop recordingyou know, but I, I, I can't
really think of one right nowwhere it's like it's a shame,
it's a specifically shame issuewhere I was thinking of Paul or
(17:15):
Saul right at the time.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
You know he had killed so many Christians and
you know that was probably a bigpart of who he was not
necessarily as an individual, asa person, but it was definitely
something that he did.
And when he was confronted byChrist, it didn't come up.
It doesn't come up in the text,but in my head I'm imagining him
(17:38):
thinking about all of thoseactions, all of those murders
against Christians, and feelinga sense of shame and the way
that that shame could have beenreplaced was receiving that love
of Christ and just kind of youknow, this whole 180 shift,
obviously, and now being aChristian serving Christ.
So I don't know if that appliesnecessarily, but I often think
(17:58):
about that because I knowgrowing up, a lot of pastors or
some of the teachings would bereferencing that part of
scripture.
It's slipping my mind right now, but the idea of I've left
everything behind and I push nowforward to what's ahead, and
they'll talk about things likethat, like I left my past life
(18:19):
behind and now I have a new lifein Christ and therefore I
should not be experiencing shame.
But the reality is that people,as people, we just sometimes
remember things from our pastthat were shameful and they
could be reminders of grace.
Like man, the Lord had so muchgrace on me and for others.
They still live in it.
They still experience thatshame again.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Here's two examples from the New Testament that I
just thought of.
One is the woman at the well,who's a Samaritan, and she's
going to the well at middaybecause she's been with like
five men and one of the oneshe's with now isn't her husband
, and so the whole community hasjust shunned her completely and
her and jesus they don't getinto a discussion of the law so
(19:00):
much, but jesus does bring up,he indirectly kind of brings up
why she's there at the wellmidday.
He says go call your husband.
You know she said well, I haveno husband.
He's like you're right, he'slike you've had four or five, I
can't remember the number, youknow.
And so she's like ah, I'mcaught.
Oh, you must be a prophet.
You know, she tries to shift,she tries to change the subject.
(19:21):
You know it's like wow, you'resmart, you're so smart.
Here's another example would bethe roman centurion, who I don't
know for certain I'm stillwatching season four of the
chosen, but I think I, I think Iknow who they're going to
depict, uh, in this particularstory.
But a roman centurion comes tojesus and asks jesus to heal his
(19:44):
servant, uh, at his house, and,and Jesus is, like willing to
go to his house to heal hisservant, and the centurion says
no, no, no, like just say theword and he'll be healed.
You know, he might have notwanted Jesus to come to his
house for like political scandal, but it also might have been
like a sense of like I thegentile, like you know, you
(20:09):
shouldn't be coming to my house.
I think there's a few moreexamples like that I could I
could think of if I had enoughtime where, where god comes to
someone and they're like, oh,why are you talking to me?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
yeah, yeah, no, and I think you know from, uh, at a
personal level with people thatmaybe that we've known growing
up, where, yeah, I mean theytalk about.
I mean one example would belike my dad.
My dad would talk about hispast and he would feel even then
, even when he would share, hewould still feel a lot of shame
attached to it, and I rememberwe'd have conversations around
(20:43):
this like dad, you know, now, asa Christian, you know why does
that still come up Again?
Because that was such a bigpart of his life and he feels
that one way to continuallyreceive God's grace is reminding
himself of that time and to seehow far he's come or how far
the Lord has brought him.
But there's also things thathe's done after being saved.
(21:04):
That also continues to add tothe shame.
I'm a Christian.
How could I do, you know, stillsin against God, and so on.
So there's again.
Shame is such a powerful thingbecause it's experienced in the
body and then it's experiencedalso mentally and emotionally.
Right, your body feels acertain way when you've done
something wrong and you'rearound people that are close to
(21:26):
you.
One of the common factors that'soften discussed around shame is
the fear of being known, whichis why we hide.
It goes back to the Garden ofEden.
I need to hide, I need to pullaway.
So shame.
The way that it impactsrelationships is that it keeps
you away from true intimacy withothers, because if you're known
, you feel that you're going tobe rejected because of that.
(21:46):
So that's kind of the samefeeling is that if God truly
knows me right, there's a commonargument that people would have
If God truly knew my heart andknew who I was, he would not
want to be with me.
But the reason why that'sbelieved is because other people
have treated you that way.
You think that once you sharethis dark secret or this dark
part of your past with someoneelse and they pushed you away
(22:14):
and that's always been yourexperience it makes sense why
you would believe that God wouldtreat you that same way,
because it's all you've everknown, right.
But then you come to know God'sgrace.
You come to know hisunderstanding, his compassion,
his faithfulness and then youstart seeing yourself
differently.
So, with shame, there's a lotof what we would call in the
clinical field likeself-compassion.
How do I have compassiontowards that younger version of
myself that made decisions, thatmade mistakes that were not
(22:34):
aligned with God's word andunderstand that it was a
different stage of life.
And if you can show thatcompassion, then you can accept
God's compassion as well.
And he talks about that.
Paul talks about that in 2Corinthians 1, right, the idea
of accepting God's comfort andhis love.
And that's a big part of it.
You know, a big part of how wemanage or deal with with shame
(22:57):
real quick.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
So the, the or the, the last part of that question?
Oh yes, had to deal with.
The person who was asking thequestion grew up in a
predominantly oh yes, had todeal with.
The person who was asking thequestion grew up in a
predominantly Muslim environment, or Muslim culture.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Muslim country Middle East?
I think yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
And that's definitely , as I mentioned, that is
definitely an area of the worldwhere their major paradigm of
thinking is honor, shame, notguilt or innocence, right and
wrong.
And I think, well, actually,can you read part of the
question?
Speaker 1 (23:27):
again wrong and I think well, actually, can you
read part of the question again?
Yeah, the second part of thatquestion was I grew up in a
Muslim country where it wascommon to describe behaviors as
shameful or people as shameless,usually when their actions
deviated from societal norms.
So culture plays a huge role inhow we experience shame.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah, culture does play a huge role and this is
where I think Christians, weneed to be mindful that a
culture can have a sense ofright and wrong, or honor and
shame, or fear and power that isaligned with the Bible or
misaligned with the Bible.
I had a friend many years agoget mad at me because I said
(24:11):
some cultures are better thanothers and he just couldn't
believe that I would say thatLike as though I just Was he
from a different?
culture?
Yes, he was, but it wasn'tbecause he was from a different
culture that he had a problem.
He was very much informed by aa world of relativism and
(24:31):
wokeness you know so, and we'vedealt with the woke stuff early
in an earlier episode.
But so he had a real problemwhen I said some cultures are
better than others, and he justkind of bulked at that and I I
said, well, yeah, if you don'tbelieve that, then you'd have to
believe you have no ground tostand on to condemn Nazi Germany
(24:52):
.
And then he kind of thoughtabout it for a then I mean, the
only difference is change.
It's just one culture changedand it's different than the
other.
(25:12):
We have to judge it from ahigher standard.
But that was just an argumentabout which culture is better,
like right and wrong.
My point to him was that somecultures can be closer If we
think that the Bible is God'srevelation of the world and how
the world is broken and how theworld can be made right, and
(25:32):
individuals can either alignthemselves or misalign
themselves with that truth.
They can come to the Lord inrepentance and live for him and
with him, or they can choose notto.
If we think that's true ofindividuals individuals does it
not stand to reason thatcultures can also do that to a
greater or lesser extent?
Yeah, yeah, and so somecultures can have a a more
(25:57):
accurate understanding of honorand shame, right and wrong, fear
and power, and some can go wayoff, way off the rocker.
So I don't necessarily thinkthat a culture that is
predicated on honor and shame issomehow less biblical than a
culture that's predicated onguilt and innocence.
(26:19):
I would say Western culture isvery much, has had 2,000 years
of Christian influence.
Most of the world hasn't hadthat, has had 2000 years of
Christian influence.
Most of the world hasn't hadthat.
So we we stand with a, with a,an advantage, let's say, of
biblical revelation, whereas alot of the world doesn't have
that.
And if you travel around theworld, you'll see that.
You will see whoa, okay, like Itake, for I've taken for
(26:44):
granted a lot of things aboutthe West and that I didn't
realize Christianity gave to theWest.
You know that if I go to otherparts of the world where
Christianity did not have suchan outsized influence, it
definitely shows in a lot ofways how they value life, how
(27:04):
they value the treatment ofminorities and women and other
things, like how they view rightand wrong or the role of
government, like how they viewright and wrong and like, or the
role of government, like allthese things, like it definitely
shows.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah, yeah, that's good, that's good.
Um, culture makes a bigdifference, more locally or more
community-based.
The church culture also makes adifference and I think we were
kind of talking about thisbefore the episode is this idea
of shame.
There's a difference betweenexperiencing shame when the
pastor or preacher is talkingabout something that the Bible
(27:39):
is teaching and experiencingshame like you, feeling
embarrassed, feeling like, oh no, that's me, he's talking about
me, that was me, that was mypast, this is me now.
So there's a difference betweenexperiencing shame and then
being in a shaming culture.
So there are some churches thatmay be very shaming towards
something.
So it's not just that theystate what the Bible teaches,
(28:00):
but then they intentionally orat least it seems like they're
shaming people like these peopleare garbage or these people are
this.
That's a shaming type ofculture.
So I think we live in a worldtoday where, if someone says
something that the Bible teaches, like, oh, you're shaming
people like that.
There's again, there's adifference between having a
shaming culture and stating whatthe Bible is teaching.
(28:20):
Just because you experienceshame doesn't mean that the
setting that you're in is ashaming culture.
Yeah, right, and we also talkabout just kind of this not a
movement, but a phrase that wasmentioned and it made a lot of
sense to me when I heard it.
It's like this idea of bringshame back.
What do I mean by bring shameback to our culture, to our
(28:42):
society?
And the point was that thereare things that people do that
are shameful, that they shouldfeel shame for.
Should feel shame for Becausewhen you feel shame, if it ties
to your identity, it's going toprompt you to move in a
different direction so that youdon't keep living in that
identity.
Right, there's shameful thingsthat people do.
We're seeing a lot of stuff inthe media and stuff with a lot
(29:04):
of hip hop stars or with otherpeople that those are shameful
things.
If you actually experience shame, the point is to redirect where
you're going with.
That's telling you somethingabout what you're doing or what
(29:35):
you're seeing in yourself orbelieving.
Right, so it's meant to.
Again, you can't experienceshame without guilt.
So if you have guilt, thatmeans you did something wrong.
Now the question is I'mexperiencing an identity
attachment to this thing that Idid wrong.
What do I need to do now?
And the hope is that youredirect, course, okay, the only
(29:56):
way to move away from somethingthat you identify with, past
behavior or even currentbehavior, is to do the opposite.
So that way, right being you inChrist, our identity in Christ,
is now different than thatthing that we did or are doing
right that thing that we did orare doing right.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Let me answer her question this way, I think it
was can shame have a positiverole in society?
Well, again, we've talked aboutfear and power and guilt and
innocence, alongside shame andhonor.
Can guilt have a positiveinfluence in society?
Can fear have a positiveinfluence in society?
(30:34):
Can fear have a positiveinfluence in society?
To answer those questions withan affirmative yes isn't calling
guilt or fear inherently good.
It's simply saying that theyhave a function in society.
They're not inherently good,but they're extrinsically good.
That's simply saying that theyhave a function in society.
They're not inherently good,but they're extrinsically good.
That's what a philosopher wouldsay is that they have some sort
(30:56):
of extrinsic good to them.
It's not healthy to live in aconstant state of fear, but
there are things that you shouldbe afraid of, like if you find
an alligator in your living roomyou have reason to fear going
into your living room until thatalligator is removed.
Okay, I just thought of thatbecause I've been seeing like
(31:17):
gator videos in.
Florida.
If you're walking through acrime infested part of town and
you're unarmed and you'rewalking and you're holding a lot
of money in your hand, you havereason to fear that something
might happen to you you're not,uh, living in fear.
You have a good rational reasonto fear.
(31:38):
Okay, same thing with guilt.
Guilt has a function in oursociety.
If we didn't have guilt, umthen how would you prosecute
criminals?
Speaker 1 (31:48):
yeah okay.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
how would you know right from wrong?
Okay, so, again, if we'redistinguishing guilt as an
objective thing versus thefeeling of shame, there is a
place for guilt in society.
Guilt moves people to act in agood way or a right way by
avoiding the bad things to do.
Okay, so guilt plays a role aswell.
(32:11):
So same thing with shame.
Shame isn't inherently good.
We don't want to live in aconstant state of shame.
We don't celebrate shame.
It's like wow, like I hope Ifeel so much shame today.
But shame plays a function andthat function is there.
There could be healthy forms ofsocial norms that are actually
(32:34):
good for us, yeah, and when yougo against those social norms,
it's not good for you and youshould feel embarrassed by it.
But our society has cast, hasreally rejected this idea that
shame is in any way good, shameis in any way good.
And this gets to the point Imade at the very beginning,
(32:55):
where my friend Jason Glenn iswriting his dissertation on is
that there's been this push,especially with feminist ethics,
to remove shame from ourcategories, of thinking that
it's just so bad we don't needto feel shame anymore.
And what does that lead to?
Well, that leads to peopledoing all kinds of quote-unquote
, shameless acts in society andacting in public ways and very
(33:16):
grotesque and just crazy ways,because we are rejecting any
sense of shame.
When we start to feel that shame, we push it down or we throw it
out and we say that's just anoppressive category that someone
has put on me.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Right right.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Because it's a social construct or whatever.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
No, it's interesting, as youwere mentioning that,
interestingly enough, in thedesire to not point out shameful
acts in other people, youyourself start to experience
shame because you think ofyourself now am I being
judgmental?
Right, it becomes an I amstatement like I'm judgmental.
So in you trying to avoidcalling something that is
(33:57):
shameful shameful, you yourselfstart to experience shame
because you have an objectiveview of what's right or wrong or
what's not.
And this again.
This goes back just becauseit's a blaring example is the
LGBT movement.
You know they do a lot ofshameful things in these parades
and if I were to say somethingabout it, we were to say
(34:18):
something about it.
Oh, you're just.
You know you're shaming them oryou're like this and you know
you're so judgmental.
I'm just pointing out somethingthat is not helpful to the
culture.
You know that's not.
You know kids are watching thisstuff.
Yeah, helpful to the culture.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
You know that's not.
You know kids are watching thisstuff.
Yeah, you're telling me that'sgood, that's an easy example.
It's just like, yeah, like, whywould you?
Why would you dress that wayand dance that way in front of a
child?
Right, that's a very shamefulthing to do, like very shameful.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
But people defend that.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
They say you shouldn't address or you
shouldn't say that about, youcan't judge, so we're going to
shame the shamers exactly.
Another one is the bodypositivity movement oh and this
is not to, like you know, targetanyone who, uh, maybe is is
having weight issues or tryingto lose weight or anything like
that.
I'm not, you know, sayinganything about that, but our
culture has reacted so so muchagainst a prior generation where
(35:12):
supermodels had like justunrealistic expectations of body
types and as, like, thestandard of beauty in our
culture has reacted so faragainst that.
The feminist movementespecially to where they've now
foisted upon everyone the bodypositivity movement, which is
you can't point out when someoneis morbidly obese.
(35:34):
In fact, you can't just notpoint it out, you have to
celebrate it because it's goodand it's objectively not good,
it's objectively unhealthy andit actually makes someone have a
higher chance of morbidity orheart disease or anything like
that.
Yeah, so that'd be an example.
Another example is modesty.
If someone were to point outthat, hey, ladies, maybe we
(35:58):
shouldn't dress a certain waybecause it actually it generates
sexual feelings in men, like it.
Actually, you know, when youflash certain parts of your body
or hint at them with by the wayyou dress, you accentuate
certain parts of your body andI'm going to get canceled for
this.
I know, but if you dress in acertain way that you accentuate
certain parts of your body thatactually draws the attention of
(36:20):
men because men are visualcreatures okay, so just be
careful when you're doing that.
Maybe it's not wise to do that.
You know If you were to saysomething like that, they would
call you a slut shamer.
You do that.
You know.
If you were to say somethinglike that, they would call you a
slut shamer, you're slutshaming.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So well, again I'm gonna getcanceled for saying these things
, but, folks, I'm just talkingabout.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
I'm just talking about what the culture's saying
yeah, you know, and so these are.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
these are examples of our culture rejecting any sense
of shame, and that itself isnot good.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
it, it's not, it's not, it's not good for us
Because it will eventually leadto not being able to think.
The truth about something andagain, I kind of made this point
earlier is that if youexperience shame, and in a
non-shaming environment, that'ssaying something about what
(37:11):
you're doing, right, becausethat means that at some point
you cross some sort of boundary,because you can't experience
shame if you haven't experiencedguilt.
Now, the things that you feelguilty about, those things can
change.
You might say well, you know,it's not bad that I dress this
way, or it's not bad that we dothese provocative dances.
Once you remove the guilt piecefrom it, yeah, it's possible
that you don't experience anyshame, right?
You kind of numb that part ofof your being and that's, that's
(37:35):
doable, right?
I mean, I think, uh, romanstalks about being given over to
one's desires, and one of them,is that right?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
you lose the conscience seared yeah, so yeah,
yeah that.
And let me let me wrap up bysaying this that I think if
you've grown up in a like me andmany others, if you grew up in
a super, super conservativeenvironment that was very
legalistic, you can actuallyhave a great sense of shame.
(38:03):
Yeah, that's not healthy foryou, right?
You talked about shame beingthis identity marker and a lot
of people who grow up in hyperconservative upbringings where
there's a lot of legalism, theycan carry with them a heavy
sense of shame.
That's not good, right, like anover, a too strong sense of
(38:24):
shame, and I know in my own lifeI experienced that yeah where
it's like I just feelembarrassed for things that I
shouldn't be, or I I'mhypersensitive about things, you
know, because I'm like, oh, Idid something wrong, oh, I'm a
terrible person.
Like I make a mistake and I'mlike I start catastrophizing,
like oh, I'm a terrible person.
I'm going to lose my job, I'mprobably going to end up under a
(38:44):
bridge or living in a van downby the river, you know, like
that kind of stuff, you know,yeah, but all that's driven by
shame in the background and alot of people who grew up in
very, very strict environmentscan experience that.
And if you're one of thosepeople listening right now, I
think, for you, just toencourage you that not every
we've been talking about there'sa good role for, like, shame is
(39:06):
good in some sense.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
We're not talking about that kind of shame, that
kind of shame is actually kindof is pretty harmful and
destructive for people, yeah,yeah, and I think what we're
bringing light to is that thereare some things where shame is
experienced because somethingwas broken, a standard or
something was wrong, but there'sthis other.
The flip side to that is theover-attachment of shame to
(39:33):
things that are not necessarilyshameful or they're minor, but
we, as you said, catastrophizeit and make it the worst
possible thing.
So there's this constant cycleof you know, oh, I did something
bad, I'm not going to beaccepted, no one wants me.
So it's kind of this, thiscycle, uh, in a van down by the
river and a van down by theriver and I'll die alone, type
(39:54):
of thing, but, um, yeah, greatquestions, really really great
questions.
I'm glad we have thisconversation.
I, you know, I know it.
Um, I think we enjoy doingthese and we literally we
literally shot this one from thehip.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
We did not prepare at all for this one.
We read the question and we'relike let's this episode I think
we could answer these.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
So folks you just got , like what, 40, 40 minutes, 50
minutes of uh about, yeah, yeah,of just shooting from the hip,
yeah, so send us more questionsyeah, we'll do it yeah, thank
you for listening.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
Send us questions, follow us on instagram and we'll
talk to you soon.
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