July 2, 2025 • 48 mins
Send Me Questions on Attachment
What if shame isn't always toxic? In this thought-provoking conversation, theological scholar Jason Glenn challenges our modern assumptions about shame by exploring its biblical foundations and purpose in the Christian life.
Beginning with Hebrew linguistic roots, Jason traces shame throughout Scripture, revealing how both Old and New Testaments present shame as a necessary component of spiritual formation. From Ezra's collective shame before God to Paul's direct confrontation of the Corinthian church, we see biblical examples where shame serves as a catalyst for repentance and growth rather than destruction.
The discussion takes a fascinating turn as Jason demonstrates how our supposedly "shame-free" American culture hasn't actually abandoned shame—we've simply redirected it. While removing shame from behaviors Scripture identifies as harmful, we've intensified it in political and ideological spheres. This cultural blindspot leaves Christians confused about how to appropriately practice biblical correction and accountability.
Perhaps most valuable is the distinction between destructive identity-based shaming ("you always ruin everything") and redemptive behavior-focused correction ("what you're doing is harmful"). When applied with compassion and hope, biblical shame becomes a powerful tool for transformation rather than condemnation.
This episode is the first in a three-part series exploring shame from biblical, psychological, and theological perspectives. Whether you've experienced harmful shaming in church contexts or wonder how to practice loving accountability, this conversation offers a balanced, scripture-based framework for understanding this complex aspect of Christian life.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
All right, everyone, welcome back to the God
Attachment Healing Podcast.
This is a series that I'm goingto be doing with a friend of
mine, mr Jason Glenn, and we aregoing to be talking about shame
in a three-part series, and ourfirst part is going to be
biblical shame and its role inthe Christian life.
Our topic number two will beshame, guilt and conviction, and
(00:30):
our third one would be thetheological versus
trauma-informed view of shame.
So I'm really excited.
Jason has been working on hisdissertation on shame, on the
biblical perspective of shame,and, um, he's going to share his
expertise with us, uh, thisevening.
So I'm looking forward to it.
Jason, welcome to the show.
(00:50):
I'm happy to have you on man oh, happy to be here, sam.
It was a great pleasure to talkwith you on another show and I
look forward to doing this onewith you yeah, yeah, so jason
was on our podcast minded MindedTimbs, psych and Theo, and that
was a great conversation thatwe had.
And this one, obviously, we'retalking about God attachment
(01:11):
healing, and I don't know if Ishared this with you, jason, but
one of the first versions, Iguess, of the podcast was called
Created to Connect, and thenthat transitioned into the
Genesis of Shame and then,lastly, the last couple of years
it's been God attachmenthealing.
So the genesis of shame is kindof where I was referencing back
.
I was listening to some oldepisodes.
(01:31):
I'm like man, that's wild tojust focus on one element of our
human experience, which isshame, and it's a very common
experience, not just amongChristians but also among people
in general, and we see it inthe mental health field all the
time and again, that's one ofour topics that we'll get to.
But, yeah, well, just so theaudience gets to know you a
(01:53):
little bit, why don't youintroduce yourself, talk a
little bit about your backgroundand just anything that you
would like the audience to knowabout you?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I'm a Southern Baptist preacher's kid kid.
That's where I got my start forsure.
And, um, I went to texas a&muniversity to pursue political
science and had, uh, I I sowedmy wild oats while I was there
and and uh was a prettyrebellious person and and it
came to a place in my life whereI felt a lot of shame and
(02:25):
repented and confessed and gotright with God, and so that put
me on a track to pursuetheological education and ended
up getting a bachelor's ofbiblical studies from
Southeastern Baptist TheologicalSeminary.
And then I got a master of artsand Christianics from
Southeastern Baptist TheologicalSeminary.
And then I taught for a time ata couple of institutions.
(02:50):
One I taught at a communitycollege and I taught at a
Christian liberal arts collegein Tennessee for a while.
And then I started teaching atLiberty online in ethics and in
the middle of that somewhere Istarted my PhD in ethics and
systematic theology at a schoolin Belgium Louvre in Belgium,
(03:13):
called Evangelical TheologicalFaculty is the English term for
it.
But, yeah, I've been married foralmost 26 years to my wife
Ashley.
We have four daughters, acouple of grabs from Liberty
One's, and then the third iscurrently there working on her
degree, and then we've got a13-year-old.
(03:36):
So we will be parents for quitesome time.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, brother, that's
great for quite some time.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, brother, that's great.
I um, one of the cool thingsabout having guests on is just
knowing how much of their storyand their background and, uh,
family life kind of influencesthe work that you do or how it
shows you kind of like adifferent perspective, and I'm
sure your view as a husband andas a father on the topic of
(04:01):
shame probably comes up pretty,pretty often, I'm thinking, or
sure at least in my own mind.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, uh, for sure I.
I remember, uh, the firstethics class I had, uh at
southwestern baptist theologicalseminary, um in 2000 and and,
uh, maybe 2001.
And I remember you know usgoing over, you know, ethics,
(04:31):
christian ethics and sexualityand pornography came up in
dealing with the fact, theshameful fact in my heart, that
(04:51):
I had engaged in a lot ofpornography, of course, up until
my time of repentance in 1998.
And certainly there was alwaysa temptation and struggle to
work against.
And then I had two daughters,like back to back, um, there in
the first part of my educationat southwestern, and shame sure
was like.
(05:11):
I remember going to theprofessor and just saying, hey,
look, um, in this whole ethicsthing and and this whole, um,
pornography thing and this wholesexuality thing, I I've, I'm
compelled, you know, to not bethis guy that has to to answer
to the fact that I'm a father ofdaughters and who are someday
(05:34):
gonna be 18 years old and 25years old.
And here I am and have beenlusting, you know, over the last
several years of my life youknow, lusting over these of
these women who are like, whoshould be like my daughter.
So, yeah, no, that the wholeconcept, especially in ethics
(05:57):
and just sexuality, of course,is such a huge issue.
And you know as well as I dothe complexity of pornography
among Christian men, let aloneall men but Christian.
Know as well as I do thecomplexity of pornography among
christian men, let alone all men, but christian men as well
absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
And even thinking about the level of exposure that
happens, it's becoming muchmore prominent.
I mean, I have three boys.
I think about it all the time,part of my past history as well.
It's just one of those thingsthat just, uh, brings up a lot
of concerns, a lot of shame,like is this a penalty?
And here's a story that I hearda lot of too, especially with
fathers, is is this the penaltyfor my sin?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
right, kind of looking back right, that's right
, and and this.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Oh, you gave me daughters right, right I mean
this speaks so clearly to thataspect of shame, just how the
mind remembers and how the bodyall of these things from our
past, oh, yeah and yeah.
So I guess that sets up thestage for us kind of to dive in.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
We dove in pretty quick there.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
One of the common questions, I guess, that comes
up when we talk about thisaspect of shame is well, what
does the Bible say about it?
Maybe not says about it, butmaybe.
How does it actually define it?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah, it doesn't it uses it.
It speaks to it, it reveals itto you through relationships and
through the use of the terms.
So all you can do is really andI'll look at my notes here but
even starting the Old Testament,you have the term bush, right,
(07:38):
and bush is that term that'sfound in Genesis where they were
naked and they were not booshed, they didn't have boosh, they
didn't have shame, right.
So, yeah, the Bible again justkind of gives you examples
(07:59):
through context andrelationships and word usage and
that genesis you have that wordbush and, um, you know, you get
that same term and say ezra,and, and you'll have to, you
have to remember and maybe I'msure you know, but, uh, the
hebrew culture was a shame honorculture and what we, what we
(08:20):
mean, obviously, is that theyare, they as a culture.
They had set out standards ofconduct and morality and virtue
that were supposed to befollowed and adhered to.
And if you didn't adhere tothose rules and virtues and
examples, then that was shamefuland you were to be shamed, and
(08:41):
sometimes that came with a harshpenalty and sometimes it was a
lesser penalty.
It was just kind of a you know.
You know, don't do that anymoreand you know we're going to put
you outside the camp for alittle while, or or whatever, uh
.
And then, of course, honor.
If you did all these thingsexcellently and were
praiseworthy, then you wouldreceive a lot of honor.
So you see that, all through agood example, ezra is good.
(09:07):
In Ezra 8.22, you know, you'vegot Ezra, who's dealing with, of
course, the people that areseeking to come back to
Jerusalem and seeking to rebuildJerusalem, and you have Ezra
(09:27):
dealing with the people that hadintermarried and had married a
bunch of pagan people with pagangods.
And he, in a repentant momenthe felt.
It says that he felt ashamedbefore God, and it uses the word
(09:47):
shame, humiliation, you know.
So it's covering a lot of baseshere, but he was ashamed
because of the sin of his people.
So there's a collective senseof shame.
So that's one sense that you seeall over the Old Testament the
sense of I'm not meeting up tothe standard.
(10:08):
We've broken the standardcollectively.
You know, I am ashamed beforeyou, god.
He says I can't lift my eyes upto you, god, because I'm so
ashamed.
Um.
And then there's the other wayit's.
It's used uh is in terms of on.
It is directly related to honorin the sense that Ezra says to
the king when they're leadingthe people out of Babylonia to
(10:34):
Jerusalem, to Israel, he'sashamed to ask the king for help
, because he's already told theking that his God would take
care of him.
And so he says I'm ashamed toask for help.
(10:56):
Therefore I'm not going to doit.
I'm just going to trust in God,because I told him that God
would handle it and so because Itold him that God would handle
it, and so if he then went andasked the king for help, it
would dishonor God, it woulddishonor the people of God
(11:16):
because they would be sayingthat their God was inadequate
for the job.
And that's something to reallytake into consideration because
that actually transcends all theway through the New Testament
from the Old Testament.
Yeah, because again, when youlook at terms in the New
Testament, you have iskuno andyou have what's the other one,
(11:44):
you have what's the other one,intrope.
You have these terms and one ofthe terms deals with the fact
that Jesus is saying and John issaying that you're not going to
be ashamed.
You should not be ashamed ofyour God.
He's not going to leave you,he's not going to forsake youul
(12:08):
talks about it, peter talksabout don't.
There's no reason to be ashamedof god.
He's not going to give you anyreason to be ashamed of him.
He's trusting in jesus and thegospel is not going to let you
down.
But but they use the term youwill not be shamed in relying on
your God, your Savior.
(12:31):
So that is a line of consistencyin a shame-honor culture system
in the Old Testament and theNew Testament among Christians.
And that's where you get somepushback and we can get to that
later on.
You get some pushback fromChristians at times that say,
yeah, the shame-honored culturemight be cool in the Old
Testament, but no, that's notreally the way God works in the
(12:54):
New Testament.
And if you read the Biblethoroughly, if you read the New
Testament thoroughly, you findthat nope, nope, that shame is
right there, it's involved.
It's a part of the conversation.
Honor, the honor of God, is apart of the conversation.
So you can't just say, oh,that's an Old Testament way of
(13:14):
looking at things.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
So would it be fair to say that honor and shame is
kind of the they always go handin hand, because you do see a
lot of the honor, the Lord, yourGod, right?
So if you're not honoring,would that also mean?
Would that then mean that maybeyou're living in a shameful way
(13:36):
?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, I mean, we do see glimpses of that.
You have Paul in Corinthians,right talking to the church in
Corinth, and you have him sayingI say this to your shame, you
should have people among youthat can judge between the
(13:58):
disputes, but you don't, and Isay that to your shame.
And then he talks about, thenhe's rebuking them later on in
the book, in the letter, and hesays you need to stop sinning,
you are ignorant of God, andthat is to your shame.
(14:23):
So you have Paul saying look,you're right, the fact that you
don't have the knowledge thatyou should have of God and
maturity that you should have,you don't have the obedience
level among your character as agroup and as individuals, that's
to your shame.
So yeah, to that point you know, sure, the honor, honor is
(14:49):
rarely used in the New Testament, that word, and so that's where
you would see a littledifference.
But shame certainly is used andyou certainly see it.
And if you know, if you readenough in the Old Testament
about God protecting his honorby defending his people, by even
(15:13):
in his disciplining of hispeople, even when he shames them
.
So God shames his people bytaking away their protection and
allowing their enemies to comein and decimate them, that is
him shaming them because oftheir disobedience.
So, even in that, he stillwants to maintain his honor, and
(15:39):
so he says even though I'vedone this to you, I'm not going
to completely destroy youbecause for my name's sake and
my honor and my glory, I'm goingto raise you up again, I'm
going to bring you back tohealth.
So, yes, you see, if you studythe Old Testament, you see that
(16:00):
theme over and over and overagain, and in the New Testament
that is so attached to jesus andand his work, um, and the fact
that he, he, jesus, is allowedto take on our shame and our,
our, our sin, and and he doesn'tdespise it, meaning he doesn't
(16:25):
reject it, he receives it andthen he, like the nation of
Israel, is allowed in afigurative manner to be
destroyed and yet brought backto newness of life in order to
give him all the honor and glorythat is due him.
(16:50):
So it's if you see the themes inthe old testament and you're
reading the new testament andyou're looking at jesus, um yeah
, you see a lot of same shame,honor concepts that you see in
the old testament yeah, you know, as you're sharing that, j.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
One of the things that stood out to me most was
how the shame-honor culture is abig part of that, and I think
this is an important part of theconversation, because, living
in the US, we don't have ashame-honor type of culture.
So do you see a difference inhow we're reading or
interpreting the scripturescompared to maybe other
(17:27):
collectivistic cultures?
Because in a collectivisticculture, everything that you're
saying makes sense.
I mean, I have a Latinobackground.
This idea of shame and honor ispart of it, maybe not as strong
as other cultures, but it'sthere, and I don't see that as
much in our American culture.
So I'm curious how does onewith that lens, how would they
(17:48):
view this?
What's a good way to kind ofpresent this?
Not that we're going tosugarcoat it in any way, but how
do we help someone maybeunderstand that the shame honor
culture is in some ways a partof the Christian life?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, first of all would I would simply help them
to understand and see that it'snot gone, that it actually is
resident in our culture.
Um, and and has been, and wedon't.
We don't talk about it as suchper se.
It's not a ling.
When I was a kid, we used itmore often.
(18:28):
I think the shame.
I'm 49, almost 50, so it was.
I'm a bit older, but, um, Idon't want to get in the weeds
of politics, but it's reallyrelevant.
I've got friends on both sidesof the Trump situation and if
(18:51):
you say a certain thing aboutTrump on both sides of the aisle
, you are shamed.
Yeah, if you're hanging outwith your moderate friends who
didn't vote for Trump, and someactually think he's the
(19:11):
Antichrist and an authoritarianmonster, and you say, yeah, man,
I really appreciate what theRepublican Party's doing right
now, they will go.
What are you talking about?
Who are you?
I thought you were sane, jason.
And if, on the other end,you're talking to your MAGA
(19:33):
buddy and you say, man, I don'tknow what he's doing with these
tariffs, and I think it could bea dangerous thing I've had
people go what?
He knows exactly what he'sdoing with these tariffs and I
think it could be a dangerousthing.
I've I've had people go what heknows exactly what he's doing.
Man, uh, and there, everythingis under control.
You just are, you're being ahater, don't do that right.
And so there is shaming.
(19:55):
Is is resident, um, and we usedto have a stronger shame culture
in relationship to abortion, topornography, and you know, you
and I remember a day, no doubt,when you had to go into a
bookstore and if you wanted towalk out of there with it, you
(20:16):
had to go through the shame oftaking it up to a counter and
buying it, you know, and aperson had to, you had to look
the teller, I to a counter andbuying it, you know, and a
person had to, had to, you hadto look the teller in the.
I mean I, I never did it, Istraight up, never did it.
Because, why?
Because I didn't want to, Ididn't want to have that public
shame, and so you know their umfornication.
(20:37):
You know we used to be a taboo.
What we mean by taboo is ashameful thing.
Yeah, right, and uh, we just ourculture has changed, uh, and so
it's not.
It's not necessarily about thesame exact things as it was 40,
50, 60 years ago, but there arestill taboos culturally, that if
(21:03):
you say or do the wrong thing,it's not just that you are
guilty of a slip up, it's thatyou are.
You are associating yourself,your identity, with a horrible
thing, or if you want to behonored among the culture, you
(21:25):
praise these things online atthe right time and the right
manner, and you say the rightthings and you are now a
virtuous person and trustworthy.
So, man, if that's nothonor-shame culture, culture I'm
not quite sure what is yeah, no, that's a great point.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
It's almost like we are shaming the wrong things.
They're removing shame from thethings that are actually doing
more damage to us yeah, in somecases most definitely so.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah, and some you're exactly right and and I'm not
saying there wasn't good reasonor there wasn't understandable
reasons and I think this playsinto your, of course, counseling
and psychology vocation is thatwe want compassion to have its
day Right.
We want to give room forcompassion, and we got to a
(22:20):
place where compassion and shamewere not allowed to live in the
same space.
I think and to your point orquestion earlier about how do we
(22:46):
help people understand thingsin our current culture, being a
parent is always a good example.
It's a good example of howshame and compassion can
actually live in at least thesame relationship and even in
the same context.
I've most certainly shamed mychildren for being a particular
way towards their sibling, orbeing a particular way out in
(23:08):
public or relating to me in aparticular way that was not
honoring to me as a parent, andI was trying to teach them, and
so I shamed them, but I did sothen with compassion.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
And to that point, jason, I think one of the things
that stood out to me was alsowhen we're correcting our
children, it feels shameful ontheir end, right?
I wonder if, when you're sayingI shame them, I'm trying to see
if we have the same languagefor people who are listening,
because I could see it as Icorrected my child and they felt
(23:49):
ashamed because of what theydid.
Would you say that correctingand shaming are the same thing,
or is there a difference to make?
Speaker 2 (23:59):
No, there's certainly .
You could certainly make somedifferentials.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Okay, because even in the context, of how you were
using it.
In scripture there was thisaspect of you know, the Lord
shamed them, correct.
It seems more like correctionto me, but I don't know if
there's a difference to make.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, see and this is kind of where it's problematic
and we'll get into it later onwith the discussion with guilt
and conviction, there is a wayfor me to say what you're doing
is wrong or what you did waswrong.
I want you know, come here,let's talk about this, and I
(24:39):
don't.
You know, maybe I'm speakingfrom my own experience and some
people me, in terms of theirconduct, because I wanted them
(25:10):
to understand who they werebeing.
You cannot be like that to yoursister.
You have wronged her, you arebeing horrible to her, you are
not being thoughtful towards herand you are abusing her.
(25:42):
Now there's again.
Sure, some might say well,that's rebuke, that's correction
.
But the, the line between uh,you know how you define those
things, it gets really blurryand, quite honestly, but the the
point is is that there are,there are moments of hey, let's
talk.
I I'd like to you know, are youaware that you're doing this
and that you did this?
And those are instructivemoments.
(26:02):
But there are other momentswhere I want them to feel the
exposure of being someone thatthey should not be, and I've
done that as a parent and thatlooks.
I think that looks differentway different times.
(26:24):
It looks different ways, um,but, and and I'm not saying
that's like that should be yourmodus operandi, uh, you know
it's not like the go-to tool inthe tool chest.
But all that to say, even inthose moments, compassion is
waiting at the very least in thewings, if not informing what
(26:49):
length I go to in that process.
It's good, yeah, and the the?
Of course the difference is andI equate this to the difference
between discipline andpunishment Punishment is you are
just making them pay.
Discipline is I have a goal forthem to grow.
(27:12):
I have a positive goal.
So, even in my shaming of mychild, my intention, my
compassionate intention, is thatthey grow and that they become
spiritually healthy,relationally healthy, you know,
(27:32):
psychologically healthy.
It's just in our day and time,psychology has made such a bad
word out of shame that the onlyend result of shame is some sort
of psychosis, is some some sortof horrible outcome?
Speaker 1 (27:55):
that and and that's simply not true yeah, yeah, no,
and I would agree with you onthat I think we talked about
even on the episode that werecorded with Psych and Theo was
that it has its use, and that'spart of what we're discussing
today, right?
So we know that.
We see it in scripture.
We know that the culture shamescertain things and not other
(28:16):
things.
So in scripture do we alwayssee that whenever God brought
shame onto his people, or whenwe see it in the New Testament
that the people repented, thatit brought them back to
repentance or did it cause morerebellion?
Because I think that's whatwe're going to see a lot,
especially, you know, dealing alot with church culture is that
(28:39):
a lot of people have decided toleave.
I remember when there was thiswhole deconstruction era where
people were leaving theirchurches because they were
feeling convicted and we'll talkabout this later but they were
leaving their churches becausethey felt that the pastor was
teaching against the lifestylethat they were having.
So in some cases it seems thatthe shame pushed people away and
(29:02):
maybe it speaks to them notbeing saved or them just having
a rebellious heart, either one.
But yeah, is the role of shameto bring people to repentance or
are there other multiplereasons for it?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
reasons for it.
Yeah, in terms of the Christianlife and this gets into the
field of ethics, right, you haveplenty of Christians that are
running around beingutilitarians.
The people that voted forDonald Trump, for instance, did
(29:43):
so because they said the endsjustify the means.
My goal of getting thesechanges, of getting abortion
made illegal, of getting theSupreme Court changed that
requires me voting for DonaldTrump, and so I've got to do
(30:04):
what I believe is the bestoption to get the end results
that I want to get.
That's utilitarianism, um, andit's pragmatism.
Utilitarianism and, uh, we do alot of modern psychology does
the with all actions, with allbehaviors, and it says if you
(30:27):
want to have this behavior, it'snecessary for you to do this.
If you want to have a healthyperson with these behaviors,
then it's necessary that youdon't do this and that you do
that.
And so there is thisconsequentialist, pragmatic
approach that psychology takes,in my opinion, in my study, to
(30:50):
do the thing that they thinkwill get the results the best.
And that's not the way Godworks, works with um, with his.
Did israel ever?
Did israel ever fully come backto him?
(31:10):
Well, it kind of depends on howyou define israel, right, um,
did the nation end up, uh,flourishing well for a little
while, and then what happened?
They went down the toilet.
And they did that everystinking time, even though god
disciplined them, shamed themand then brought them back.
And brought them back.
His finality, of course, was inchrist jesus.
Right, we can get it.
(31:32):
That's, you know, as a wholetheological conversation, um,
but we, we don't.
We don't discipline ourchildren based on the 100%
assurance that our discipline isgoing to work.
(31:52):
Great, we discipline thembecause we know it's, uh, what a
good father does, and we alsosee, uh, and it doesn't always
work.
First of all, because they'retheir own human being and we
can't guarantee that they'regoing to respond a particular
way.
Obviously, I mean, you knowthat as well as I do.
(32:13):
Um, we think it's, we thinkit's the most caring way to go
about it, because we'reconsidering the longevity of
their character and not justmomentary feelings.
And that's where, in ourcurrent culture, it's so fixated
on temporal feelings, right,that if it doesn't make a person
feel good in the moment or inthe next two hours or that day,
(32:36):
and feel good in the moment orin the next two hours or that
day, then it's just notsomething that we should do and
we should change our philosophyand our tactics and God's
discipline and our discipline asparents and our discipline as a
church to get to your is notthe same.
(32:57):
So there's a whole shamingmechanism set up in church
discipline.
You go to your brother once.
You say brother, what are youdoing?
You're in sin, you'reunrepentant, please repent.
I don't want to Take a friend,a brother in Christ, and two of
you.
He still doesn't repent.
(33:18):
Take a third and they stilldoesn't repent.
And then, and they still doesrepent.
And then what do you do, sam?
Bring him before the church.
You bring him before the churchand the church screams that
person, that unrepentant person,by the.
The text says by kicking themout of the door and giving them
(33:42):
over to Satan.
That's what the text says aboutchurch discipline.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Which would be seen as extreme in today's modern
culture.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Oh, but here's the point how many people that have
you ever known that have got tothat place in church discipline?
It's true, it's true.
Do you see pastors?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
avoiding it more nowadays.
Have you ever known that I'vegot to that place in church
discipline?
That's true.
That's true.
Do you see pastors avoiding itmore nowadays?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Well, one of two things right, the churches are
not willing to take those stepsand the person leaves on the
first rebuke, yeah, or thesecond rebuke at most.
Right, they're out to see youthese days.
You get a divorce.
The person stops comingimmediately.
Yeah, they go find a differentchurch that doesn't know about
(34:29):
their situation.
Why?
Because they don't want to feelshame.
But the fact of the matter is,if they want to pursue and
continue in unrighteousness, thechurch is going to shame them.
That's just the reality of thetext.
And if we were talking aboutSam, if we were talking about
(34:53):
pedophilia, nobody in listeningto this conversation would have
a problem.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
They wouldn't have a problem Right.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
It just has to do with what we're talking about
and how frequent and howaccepted and how culturally norm
it is.
You know that's what we'retalking about here.
Yeah, no, that's a good point.
When you think about Jesus,this is just.
This is an easy slam dunk.
Low, low hanging fruit example.
(35:21):
The Pharisees are always easyto beat up in.
The Pharisees are thepedophiles of the day.
Right.
Jesus calls them whitewashedtombs with nothing good on the
inside.
Right and he calls themchildren of the devil.
Well, that's not very winsome.
As a matter of fact, that hasnothing to do with making them
(35:47):
feel guilty.
It has everything to do withshaming them for their identity.
So Jesus is shaming thePharisees often in the New
Testament.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Mm-hmm.
So Jesus is shaming thePharisees often in the New
Testament and I think, as I'mprocessing that specific part
about the shaming, I think wherepeople in the church have a
problem is and this could goback, I think you made this
point in the last conversationthat we had is this aspect of
pride, maybe thinking that we'rebetter than we actually are,
(36:24):
because the ones who are havinga problem with this are, I think
everyone in general understands, like if you do something
really bad, right, if it'smurder, adultery, abuse,
whatever the case is like peoplein general Christians in
general feel like, okay, yeah,that's a bad thing, but other
things that are maybe not as bad.
(36:44):
Or it's a person who goes tochurch every Sunday but they
don't live like a Christian therest of the week and they feel a
sense of shame with a messageor a brother or sister confronts
them.
It's those people who aresaying, well, I'm not as bad as
all these other people who aredoing these other things.
So they take shame and theykind of change the definition of
(37:07):
it and say, well, I was shamedand therefore I don't want to be
in that type of church, causeit's not loving.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Yeah, and you get, and you get a.
You get a, a sympatheticChristian who says, wow, well,
that was horrible the way youtreated you.
They should have disagreed withyou in love and still invited
you to stay and listen and letGod work on your heart.
(37:37):
They should have done, and letGod work on your heart.
They should have done.
But that's not what it says inthe text.
When it comes to unrepentantsin, it's not what it says in
the text.
It doesn't say just be coolwith them and let them
participate, take them off thesearch committee or whatever the
case is.
They can't be on the beaconboard anymore.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
That's not what the text says that's clear, clear.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
The unrepentant sin is important.
There they're totally important, totally important.
Yeah, that's correct.
And because there are, therecertainly are preferences,
opinions that are are notinherently sinful, right, uh,
and there are one-time sins andsins.
You're struggling with that,you're trying to stop and you're
going for.
You own it and you're going forhelp.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah, that's a completely different scenario
and that's life of the Christianis to bring them to a place of
repentance and, acknowledgingsin, repenting of it, to be back
to the ship.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah, that's the purpose, that's the ideological
foundation and framework fordoing it.
It's just not, you're just notassured it's going to work Right
.
And that's on God, that's God'sbusiness, if you will.
And prayer, you know that'swhat God calls us to pray for
(39:09):
those people.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Okay, yeah, and I think this will be a good way to
lead into our second topic.
But before going there, isthere a way in which so we're
talking about biblical shame isthere a way in which you would
tell someone here's how it isused, appropriate?
And that's where I'm having ahard time, maybe because it's
correction, but the correctionbrings on this biblical sense of
(39:31):
shame.
So if someone were to implementthis I'm guessing you know,
kind of doing the whole mat,whole Matthew 18 procedure of
anytime someone is anunrepentant sin, that the way to
address it is to go throughthis Matthew 18 process, and
it's obviously going to bringshame to the person.
(39:52):
Or if you go to Corinthians andyou know you've addressed it
multiple times now you have tobring them to in front of the
church and turn them over toSatan, all these things.
So is there like a process thatyou've seen it done in the
church, that it's a biblical wayto do it?
Is it just following thosepassages or what do people get
wrong about that process?
Speaker 2 (40:12):
before we jump into the next topic, I've just so
rarely seen it all the waythrough, that's fair.
I've seen it maybe three timesin my life, um, where it
actually got all the way through, and it normally is because, uh
(40:34):
, the person has such a strongattachment to the community but
has such a strong attachment tothe community but has such a
strong conviction that they'renot wrong and that they're okay
in doing what they're doing, orit's not a tier one issue, like
we just talked about, and sothat's when it gets all the way,
(40:58):
you know, or it's a pastor thathas to go before the church
anyway and doesn't want to losehis credibility for the rest of
his life, and so he goes all theway through the process in
order to save face down the roadand maybe get it and maybe get
another shot at having somecredibility in the community
(41:21):
down the road, right, and insome ways you're like, okay,
well, that's kind of how it'ssupposed to work.
You know, you're supposed to goall the way through this.
You're supposed to respond thefirst time, obviously, and not
go all the way through and thenfinally have the church say
you're done, but it's so hardand this is a completely
(41:44):
different niche conversation butthe pastors.
It really is a thing.
They're stuck in a vocation,they get paid to do their job.
They don't want to lose theirposition.
It's disruptive to their familyand lots of times ends in
divorce, and so they go all theway through this process and
(42:08):
I've seen some that saved theirmarriage by going all the way to
the end, you know, and thenfinally you know kind of
repenting after going throughthat final step.
But I think here's one morenote before we move on about
that process.
The process again is not meantto have immediate gratification.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Yeah, that's a good point it's.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
you know, and this gets to the point where, well,
Jason, you know, if you shamesomebody and your question
earlier have you ever seensomebody respond, you know, to
shame and repentance?
And I heard a sermon recentlywhere that exact point was
brought up Shame.
(42:54):
The exact words wereessentially shame never leads to
repentance.
And, first of all, that'scompletely false, and I can
point to countless situationswhere the spirit of God uses the
shame response in many peopleto eventually lead them to
(43:16):
contrition and repentance.
Um, however, most of the timeit doesn't happen right there,
yeah, and it doesn't happennecessarily in the relationship
with the person that that eithershamed you intentionally or
sought to rebuke you or correctyou or admonish you in the best
(43:38):
way.
They knew how and you felt youwere being shamed and you felt
ashamed and you didn't want tohave anything to do with them.
So you killed the friendship,you walked away from the church,
you walked away from the friendgroup and you said I'm done
with you.
And then, a year later, sixmonths later, two years later,
(44:00):
god's been working on your heartand on your mind yeah, and you
go and what?
who was I?
What have I done?
And I've seen that many times,yeah no delayed, the delayed
fire where you know the personyou know goes, ah yeah, and
(44:20):
they'll come back in.
I've had friends in my own lifethat I rebuked for sexual
immorality and they came back.
One came back a year later.
One came back six years laterand asked and said Jason, I've
repented.
Please forgive me for the way Itreated you.
I've repented to the Lord andturned around.
Thank you for saying what youdid in the moment.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Yeah, no, I agree with that brother.
I think I would say this aboutthis point is that anytime sin
is addressed or there is thisshame component involved, it
should never be this harshapproach to it.
Right?
We want to be truthful, we wantto be honest with our brothers
(45:01):
and sisters.
I mean it's exactly that,whether it be a child, brother,
sister, like I have said truthsto my siblings, to my friends,
with that compassion and youkind of tied those two things
together, right, the compassionmeans that the compassion means
to suffer with.
Right, there's a Latin word forcompassion to suffer with.
And I think, when we're talkingabout this aspect of shame is
(45:21):
that, when we are addressingthese things in our brothers and
sisters, is that you feel thesuffering that they're going
through Again for people whowant to repent.
But you should never do so in aharsh manner.
We want to be firm, we want tobe direct but not harsh, and I
have seen pastors be harsh inthe way that they shame people,
(45:42):
like I mean just degrading themusing this very horrible
language.
I mean, I've seen it and so Iwould say that it the Lord can
still work with that but you asa person don't want to approach
things like that.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Yeah, correct, you're exactly right.
As a father and I think you can.
You know, any father can relateyour temper gets out of control
at times and and you, you saythings in a way that you don't
want to say it.
Yeah, um, and in sometimes thatends that's in the process of
shaming, um, but at the sametime, personalities are always
(46:19):
in play, yep, and people'stempers are slightly different,
and in terms of tone is notalways something you know, and
so I try to allow the scriptureto work on me.
And that's why I've memorizedColossians 4, 5, and 6.
Walk in wisdom toward them thatare without redeeming the time.
(46:40):
Let your speech be always withgrace, seasons with salt, so
that you might know how toanswer every man.
I've been out letting thatverse work on me for the last 20
years.
So, yes, I can try to beintentional, but it's not like
there's a standard of perfectionwhen it comes to approach.
And so, as long as youunderstand and people understand
(47:02):
that, give yourself a littlebit of grace for how you
approach that shamingconversation.
But yeah, no, I completelyagree with you.
You're not.
The example I heard in thesermon that I just heard was
this guy overheard a mom at arestaurant telling her her son
(47:22):
or daughter uh, after they brokea cup of coffee, you did it
again.
You always destroy everything,so that's a shaming, but it is
completely void of compassionand hope and it is saying to
(47:44):
that person this is who you areand that's it.
Sorry, you're a destroyer, yeah, so yeah, sometimes, even if
you say it all nice-'t, you'restill saying this wretched,
horrible thing, it's true.
So there's a difference betweenthat language and saying you
are being an ungodly person.
(48:07):
Right now, you are treatingyour sister in a horrible way.
You are speaking to your motherin a way that's incredibly
harmful.
Yeah, I assure you that thoseare shaming things to say to a
child and they're going to feelshame lots of times, yeah, and
(48:28):
when you say those things.
But I would see those things asstill appropriate things to say
from time to time.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Yeah, it's corrective , definitely corrective.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
Yeah, this is perfect .
Perfect to moving into our nexttopic on shame, guilt and
conviction.
So yeah great conversationbrother.
All right, everyone, welcome back to the God
Attachment Healing Podcast.
This is a series that I'm goingto be doing with a friend of
mine, mr Jason Glenn, and we aregoing to be talking about shame
in a three-part series, and ourfirst part is going to be
biblical shame and its role inthe Christian life.
Our topic number two will beshame, guilt and conviction, and
(00:30):
our third one would be thetheological versus
trauma-informed view of shame.
So I'm really excited.
Jason has been working on hisdissertation on shame, on the
biblical perspective of shame,and, um, he's going to share his
expertise with us, uh, thisevening.
So I'm looking forward to it.
Jason, welcome to the show.
(00:50):
I'm happy to have you on man oh, happy to be here, sam.
It was a great pleasure to talkwith you on another show and I
look forward to doing this onewith you yeah, yeah, so jason
was on our podcast minded MindedTimbs, psych and Theo, and that
was a great conversation thatwe had.
And this one, obviously, we'retalking about God attachment
(01:11):
healing, and I don't know if Ishared this with you, jason, but
one of the first versions, Iguess, of the podcast was called
Created to Connect, and thenthat transitioned into the
Genesis of Shame and then,lastly, the last couple of years
it's been God attachmenthealing.
So the genesis of shame is kindof where I was referencing back
.
I was listening to some oldepisodes.
(01:31):
I'm like man, that's wild tojust focus on one element of our
human experience, which isshame, and it's a very common
experience, not just amongChristians but also among people
in general, and we see it inthe mental health field all the
time and again, that's one ofour topics that we'll get to.
But, yeah, well, just so theaudience gets to know you a
(01:53):
little bit, why don't youintroduce yourself, talk a
little bit about your backgroundand just anything that you
would like the audience to knowabout you?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I'm a Southern Baptist preacher's kid kid.
That's where I got my start forsure.
And, um, I went to texas a&muniversity to pursue political
science and had, uh, I I sowedmy wild oats while I was there
and and uh was a prettyrebellious person and and it
came to a place in my life whereI felt a lot of shame and
(02:25):
repented and confessed and gotright with God, and so that put
me on a track to pursuetheological education and ended
up getting a bachelor's ofbiblical studies from
Southeastern Baptist TheologicalSeminary.
And then I got a master of artsand Christianics from
Southeastern Baptist TheologicalSeminary.
And then I taught for a time ata couple of institutions.
(02:50):
One I taught at a communitycollege and I taught at a
Christian liberal arts collegein Tennessee for a while.
And then I started teaching atLiberty online in ethics and in
the middle of that somewhere Istarted my PhD in ethics and
systematic theology at a schoolin Belgium Louvre in Belgium,
(03:13):
called Evangelical TheologicalFaculty is the English term for
it.
But, yeah, I've been married foralmost 26 years to my wife
Ashley.
We have four daughters, acouple of grabs from Liberty
One's, and then the third iscurrently there working on her
degree, and then we've got a13-year-old.
(03:36):
So we will be parents for quitesome time.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, brother, that's
great for quite some time.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, brother, that's great.
I um, one of the cool thingsabout having guests on is just
knowing how much of their storyand their background and, uh,
family life kind of influencesthe work that you do or how it
shows you kind of like adifferent perspective, and I'm
sure your view as a husband andas a father on the topic of
(04:01):
shame probably comes up pretty,pretty often, I'm thinking, or
sure at least in my own mind.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, uh, for sure I.
I remember, uh, the firstethics class I had, uh at
southwestern baptist theologicalseminary, um in 2000 and and,
uh, maybe 2001.
And I remember you know usgoing over, you know, ethics,
(04:31):
christian ethics and sexualityand pornography came up in
dealing with the fact, theshameful fact in my heart, that
(04:51):
I had engaged in a lot ofpornography, of course, up until
my time of repentance in 1998.
And certainly there was alwaysa temptation and struggle to
work against.
And then I had two daughters,like back to back, um, there in
the first part of my educationat southwestern, and shame sure
was like.
(05:11):
I remember going to theprofessor and just saying, hey,
look, um, in this whole ethicsthing and and this whole, um,
pornography thing and this wholesexuality thing, I I've, I'm
compelled, you know, to not bethis guy that has to to answer
to the fact that I'm a father ofdaughters and who are someday
(05:34):
gonna be 18 years old and 25years old.
And here I am and have beenlusting, you know, over the last
several years of my life youknow, lusting over these of
these women who are like, whoshould be like my daughter.
So, yeah, no, that the wholeconcept, especially in ethics
(05:57):
and just sexuality, of course,is such a huge issue.
And you know as well as I dothe complexity of pornography
among Christian men, let aloneall men but Christian.
Know as well as I do thecomplexity of pornography among
christian men, let alone all men, but christian men as well
absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
And even thinking about the level of exposure that
happens, it's becoming muchmore prominent.
I mean, I have three boys.
I think about it all the time,part of my past history as well.
It's just one of those thingsthat just, uh, brings up a lot
of concerns, a lot of shame,like is this a penalty?
And here's a story that I hearda lot of too, especially with
fathers, is is this the penaltyfor my sin?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
right, kind of looking back right, that's right
, and and this.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Oh, you gave me daughters right, right I mean
this speaks so clearly to thataspect of shame, just how the
mind remembers and how the bodyall of these things from our
past, oh, yeah and yeah.
So I guess that sets up thestage for us kind of to dive in.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
We dove in pretty quick there.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
One of the common questions, I guess, that comes
up when we talk about thisaspect of shame is well, what
does the Bible say about it?
Maybe not says about it, butmaybe.
How does it actually define it?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah, it doesn't it uses it.
It speaks to it, it reveals itto you through relationships and
through the use of the terms.
So all you can do is really andI'll look at my notes here but
even starting the Old Testament,you have the term bush, right,
(07:38):
and bush is that term that'sfound in Genesis where they were
naked and they were not booshed, they didn't have boosh, they
didn't have shame, right.
So, yeah, the Bible again justkind of gives you examples
(07:59):
through context andrelationships and word usage and
that genesis you have that wordbush and, um, you know, you get
that same term and say ezra,and, and you'll have to, you
have to remember and maybe I'msure you know, but, uh, the
hebrew culture was a shame honorculture and what we, what we
(08:20):
mean, obviously, is that theyare, they as a culture.
They had set out standards ofconduct and morality and virtue
that were supposed to befollowed and adhered to.
And if you didn't adhere tothose rules and virtues and
examples, then that was shamefuland you were to be shamed, and
(08:41):
sometimes that came with a harshpenalty and sometimes it was a
lesser penalty.
It was just kind of a you know.
You know, don't do that anymoreand you know we're going to put
you outside the camp for alittle while, or or whatever, uh
.
And then, of course, honor.
If you did all these thingsexcellently and were
praiseworthy, then you wouldreceive a lot of honor.
So you see that, all through agood example, ezra is good.
(09:07):
In Ezra 8.22, you know, you'vegot Ezra, who's dealing with, of
course, the people that areseeking to come back to
Jerusalem and seeking to rebuildJerusalem, and you have Ezra
(09:27):
dealing with the people that hadintermarried and had married a
bunch of pagan people with pagangods.
And he, in a repentant momenthe felt.
It says that he felt ashamedbefore God, and it uses the word
(09:47):
shame, humiliation, you know.
So it's covering a lot of baseshere, but he was ashamed
because of the sin of his people.
So there's a collective senseof shame.
So that's one sense that you seeall over the Old Testament the
sense of I'm not meeting up tothe standard.
(10:08):
We've broken the standardcollectively.
You know, I am ashamed beforeyou, god.
He says I can't lift my eyes upto you, god, because I'm so
ashamed.
Um.
And then there's the other wayit's.
It's used uh is in terms of on.
It is directly related to honorin the sense that Ezra says to
the king when they're leadingthe people out of Babylonia to
(10:34):
Jerusalem, to Israel, he'sashamed to ask the king for help
, because he's already told theking that his God would take
care of him.
And so he says I'm ashamed toask for help.
(10:56):
Therefore I'm not going to doit.
I'm just going to trust in God,because I told him that God
would handle it and so because Itold him that God would handle
it, and so if he then went andasked the king for help, it
would dishonor God, it woulddishonor the people of God
(11:16):
because they would be sayingthat their God was inadequate
for the job.
And that's something to reallytake into consideration because
that actually transcends all theway through the New Testament
from the Old Testament.
Yeah, because again, when youlook at terms in the New
Testament, you have iskuno andyou have what's the other one,
(11:44):
you have what's the other one,intrope.
You have these terms and one ofthe terms deals with the fact
that Jesus is saying and John issaying that you're not going to
be ashamed.
You should not be ashamed ofyour God.
He's not going to leave you,he's not going to forsake youul
(12:08):
talks about it, peter talksabout don't.
There's no reason to be ashamedof god.
He's not going to give you anyreason to be ashamed of him.
He's trusting in jesus and thegospel is not going to let you
down.
But but they use the term youwill not be shamed in relying on
your God, your Savior.
(12:31):
So that is a line of consistencyin a shame-honor culture system
in the Old Testament and theNew Testament among Christians.
And that's where you get somepushback and we can get to that
later on.
You get some pushback fromChristians at times that say,
yeah, the shame-honored culturemight be cool in the Old
Testament, but no, that's notreally the way God works in the
(12:54):
New Testament.
And if you read the Biblethoroughly, if you read the New
Testament thoroughly, you findthat nope, nope, that shame is
right there, it's involved.
It's a part of the conversation.
Honor, the honor of God, is apart of the conversation.
So you can't just say, oh,that's an Old Testament way of
(13:14):
looking at things.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
So would it be fair to say that honor and shame is
kind of the they always go handin hand, because you do see a
lot of the honor, the Lord, yourGod, right?
So if you're not honoring,would that also mean?
Would that then mean that maybeyou're living in a shameful way
(13:36):
?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, I mean, we do see glimpses of that.
You have Paul in Corinthians,right talking to the church in
Corinth, and you have him sayingI say this to your shame, you
should have people among youthat can judge between the
(13:58):
disputes, but you don't, and Isay that to your shame.
And then he talks about, thenhe's rebuking them later on in
the book, in the letter, and hesays you need to stop sinning,
you are ignorant of God, andthat is to your shame.
(14:23):
So you have Paul saying look,you're right, the fact that you
don't have the knowledge thatyou should have of God and
maturity that you should have,you don't have the obedience
level among your character as agroup and as individuals, that's
to your shame.
So yeah, to that point you know, sure, the honor, honor is
(14:49):
rarely used in the New Testament, that word, and so that's where
you would see a littledifference.
But shame certainly is used andyou certainly see it.
And if you know, if you readenough in the Old Testament
about God protecting his honorby defending his people, by even
(15:13):
in his disciplining of hispeople, even when he shames them
.
So God shames his people bytaking away their protection and
allowing their enemies to comein and decimate them, that is
him shaming them because oftheir disobedience.
So, even in that, he stillwants to maintain his honor, and
(15:39):
so he says even though I'vedone this to you, I'm not going
to completely destroy youbecause for my name's sake and
my honor and my glory, I'm goingto raise you up again, I'm
going to bring you back tohealth.
So, yes, you see, if you studythe Old Testament, you see that
(16:00):
theme over and over and overagain, and in the New Testament
that is so attached to jesus andand his work, um, and the fact
that he, he, jesus, is allowedto take on our shame and our,
our, our sin, and and he doesn'tdespise it, meaning he doesn't
(16:25):
reject it, he receives it andthen he, like the nation of
Israel, is allowed in afigurative manner to be
destroyed and yet brought backto newness of life in order to
give him all the honor and glorythat is due him.
(16:50):
So it's if you see the themes inthe old testament and you're
reading the new testament andyou're looking at jesus, um yeah
, you see a lot of same shame,honor concepts that you see in
the old testament yeah, you know, as you're sharing that, j.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
One of the things that stood out to me most was
how the shame-honor culture is abig part of that, and I think
this is an important part of theconversation, because, living
in the US, we don't have ashame-honor type of culture.
So do you see a difference inhow we're reading or
interpreting the scripturescompared to maybe other
(17:27):
collectivistic cultures?
Because in a collectivisticculture, everything that you're
saying makes sense.
I mean, I have a Latinobackground.
This idea of shame and honor ispart of it, maybe not as strong
as other cultures, but it'sthere, and I don't see that as
much in our American culture.
So I'm curious how does onewith that lens, how would they
(17:48):
view this?
What's a good way to kind ofpresent this?
Not that we're going tosugarcoat it in any way, but how
do we help someone maybeunderstand that the shame honor
culture is in some ways a partof the Christian life?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, first of all would I would simply help them
to understand and see that it'snot gone, that it actually is
resident in our culture.
Um, and and has been, and wedon't.
We don't talk about it as suchper se.
It's not a ling.
When I was a kid, we used itmore often.
(18:28):
I think the shame.
I'm 49, almost 50, so it was.
I'm a bit older, but, um, Idon't want to get in the weeds
of politics, but it's reallyrelevant.
I've got friends on both sidesof the Trump situation and if
(18:51):
you say a certain thing aboutTrump on both sides of the aisle
, you are shamed.
Yeah, if you're hanging outwith your moderate friends who
didn't vote for Trump, and someactually think he's the
(19:11):
Antichrist and an authoritarianmonster, and you say, yeah, man,
I really appreciate what theRepublican Party's doing right
now, they will go.
What are you talking about?
Who are you?
I thought you were sane, jason.
And if, on the other end,you're talking to your MAGA
(19:33):
buddy and you say, man, I don'tknow what he's doing with these
tariffs, and I think it could bea dangerous thing I've had
people go what?
He knows exactly what he'sdoing with these tariffs and I
think it could be a dangerousthing.
I've I've had people go what heknows exactly what he's doing.
Man, uh, and there, everythingis under control.
You just are, you're being ahater, don't do that right.
And so there is shaming.
(19:55):
Is is resident, um, and we usedto have a stronger shame culture
in relationship to abortion, topornography, and you know, you
and I remember a day, no doubt,when you had to go into a
bookstore and if you wanted towalk out of there with it, you
(20:16):
had to go through the shame oftaking it up to a counter and
buying it, you know, and aperson had to, you had to look
the teller, I to a counter andbuying it, you know, and a
person had to, had to, you hadto look the teller in the.
I mean I, I never did it, Istraight up, never did it.
Because, why?
Because I didn't want to, Ididn't want to have that public
shame, and so you know their umfornication.
(20:37):
You know we used to be a taboo.
What we mean by taboo is ashameful thing.
Yeah, right, and uh, we just ourculture has changed, uh, and so
it's not.
It's not necessarily about thesame exact things as it was 40,
50, 60 years ago, but there arestill taboos culturally, that if
(21:03):
you say or do the wrong thing,it's not just that you are
guilty of a slip up, it's thatyou are.
You are associating yourself,your identity, with a horrible
thing, or if you want to behonored among the culture, you
(21:25):
praise these things online atthe right time and the right
manner, and you say the rightthings and you are now a
virtuous person and trustworthy.
So, man, if that's nothonor-shame culture, culture I'm
not quite sure what is yeah, no, that's a great point.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
It's almost like we are shaming the wrong things.
They're removing shame from thethings that are actually doing
more damage to us yeah, in somecases most definitely so.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah, and some you're exactly right and and I'm not
saying there wasn't good reasonor there wasn't understandable
reasons and I think this playsinto your, of course, counseling
and psychology vocation is thatwe want compassion to have its
day Right.
We want to give room forcompassion, and we got to a
(22:20):
place where compassion and shamewere not allowed to live in the
same space.
I think and to your point orquestion earlier about how do we
(22:46):
help people understand thingsin our current culture, being a
parent is always a good example.
It's a good example of howshame and compassion can
actually live in at least thesame relationship and even in
the same context.
I've most certainly shamed mychildren for being a particular
way towards their sibling, orbeing a particular way out in
(23:08):
public or relating to me in aparticular way that was not
honoring to me as a parent, andI was trying to teach them, and
so I shamed them, but I did sothen with compassion.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
And to that point, jason, I think one of the things
that stood out to me was alsowhen we're correcting our
children, it feels shameful ontheir end, right?
I wonder if, when you're sayingI shame them, I'm trying to see
if we have the same languagefor people who are listening,
because I could see it as Icorrected my child and they felt
(23:49):
ashamed because of what theydid.
Would you say that correctingand shaming are the same thing,
or is there a difference to make?
Speaker 2 (23:59):
No, there's certainly .
You could certainly make somedifferentials.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Okay, because even in the context, of how you were
using it.
In scripture there was thisaspect of you know, the Lord
shamed them, correct.
It seems more like correctionto me, but I don't know if
there's a difference to make.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, see and this is kind of where it's problematic
and we'll get into it later onwith the discussion with guilt
and conviction, there is a wayfor me to say what you're doing
is wrong or what you did waswrong.
I want you know, come here,let's talk about this, and I
(24:39):
don't.
You know, maybe I'm speakingfrom my own experience and some
people me, in terms of theirconduct, because I wanted them
(25:10):
to understand who they werebeing.
You cannot be like that to yoursister.
You have wronged her, you arebeing horrible to her, you are
not being thoughtful towards herand you are abusing her.
(25:42):
Now there's again.
Sure, some might say well,that's rebuke, that's correction
.
But the, the line between uh,you know how you define those
things, it gets really blurryand, quite honestly, but the the
point is is that there are,there are moments of hey, let's
talk.
I I'd like to you know, are youaware that you're doing this
and that you did this?
And those are instructivemoments.
(26:02):
But there are other momentswhere I want them to feel the
exposure of being someone thatthey should not be, and I've
done that as a parent and thatlooks.
I think that looks differentway different times.
(26:24):
It looks different ways, um,but, and and I'm not saying
that's like that should be yourmodus operandi, uh, you know
it's not like the go-to tool inthe tool chest.
But all that to say, even inthose moments, compassion is
waiting at the very least in thewings, if not informing what
(26:49):
length I go to in that process.
It's good, yeah, and the the?
Of course the difference is andI equate this to the difference
between discipline andpunishment Punishment is you are
just making them pay.
Discipline is I have a goal forthem to grow.
(27:12):
I have a positive goal.
So, even in my shaming of mychild, my intention, my
compassionate intention, is thatthey grow and that they become
spiritually healthy,relationally healthy, you know,
(27:32):
psychologically healthy.
It's just in our day and time,psychology has made such a bad
word out of shame that the onlyend result of shame is some sort
of psychosis, is some some sortof horrible outcome?
Speaker 1 (27:55):
that and and that's simply not true yeah, yeah, no,
and I would agree with you onthat I think we talked about
even on the episode that werecorded with Psych and Theo was
that it has its use, and that'spart of what we're discussing
today, right?
So we know that.
We see it in scripture.
We know that the culture shamescertain things and not other
(28:16):
things.
So in scripture do we alwayssee that whenever God brought
shame onto his people, or whenwe see it in the New Testament
that the people repented, thatit brought them back to
repentance or did it cause morerebellion?
Because I think that's whatwe're going to see a lot,
especially, you know, dealing alot with church culture is that
(28:39):
a lot of people have decided toleave.
I remember when there was thiswhole deconstruction era where
people were leaving theirchurches because they were
feeling convicted and we'll talkabout this later but they were
leaving their churches becausethey felt that the pastor was
teaching against the lifestylethat they were having.
So in some cases it seems thatthe shame pushed people away and
(29:02):
maybe it speaks to them notbeing saved or them just having
a rebellious heart, either one.
But yeah, is the role of shameto bring people to repentance or
are there other multiplereasons for it?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
reasons for it.
Yeah, in terms of the Christianlife and this gets into the
field of ethics, right, you haveplenty of Christians that are
running around beingutilitarians.
The people that voted forDonald Trump, for instance, did
(29:43):
so because they said the endsjustify the means.
My goal of getting thesechanges, of getting abortion
made illegal, of getting theSupreme Court changed that
requires me voting for DonaldTrump, and so I've got to do
(30:04):
what I believe is the bestoption to get the end results
that I want to get.
That's utilitarianism, um, andit's pragmatism.
Utilitarianism and, uh, we do alot of modern psychology does
the with all actions, with allbehaviors, and it says if you
(30:27):
want to have this behavior, it'snecessary for you to do this.
If you want to have a healthyperson with these behaviors,
then it's necessary that youdon't do this and that you do
that.
And so there is thisconsequentialist, pragmatic
approach that psychology takes,in my opinion, in my study, to
(30:50):
do the thing that they thinkwill get the results the best.
And that's not the way Godworks, works with um, with his.
Did israel ever?
Did israel ever fully come backto him?
(31:10):
Well, it kind of depends on howyou define israel, right, um,
did the nation end up, uh,flourishing well for a little
while, and then what happened?
They went down the toilet.
And they did that everystinking time, even though god
disciplined them, shamed themand then brought them back.
And brought them back.
His finality, of course, was inchrist jesus.
Right, we can get it.
(31:32):
That's, you know, as a wholetheological conversation, um,
but we, we don't.
We don't discipline ourchildren based on the 100%
assurance that our discipline isgoing to work.
(31:52):
Great, we discipline thembecause we know it's, uh, what a
good father does, and we alsosee, uh, and it doesn't always
work.
First of all, because they'retheir own human being and we
can't guarantee that they'regoing to respond a particular
way.
Obviously, I mean, you knowthat as well as I do.
(32:13):
Um, we think it's, we thinkit's the most caring way to go
about it, because we'reconsidering the longevity of
their character and not justmomentary feelings.
And that's where, in ourcurrent culture, it's so fixated
on temporal feelings, right,that if it doesn't make a person
feel good in the moment or inthe next two hours or that day,
(32:36):
and feel good in the moment orin the next two hours or that
day, then it's just notsomething that we should do and
we should change our philosophyand our tactics and God's
discipline and our discipline asparents and our discipline as a
church to get to your is notthe same.
(32:57):
So there's a whole shamingmechanism set up in church
discipline.
You go to your brother once.
You say brother, what are youdoing?
You're in sin, you'reunrepentant, please repent.
I don't want to Take a friend,a brother in Christ, and two of
you.
He still doesn't repent.
(33:18):
Take a third and they stilldoesn't repent.
And then, and they still doesrepent.
And then what do you do, sam?
Bring him before the church.
You bring him before the churchand the church screams that
person, that unrepentant person,by the.
The text says by kicking themout of the door and giving them
(33:42):
over to Satan.
That's what the text says aboutchurch discipline.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Which would be seen as extreme in today's modern
culture.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Oh, but here's the point how many people that have
you ever known that have got tothat place in church discipline?
It's true, it's true.
Do you see pastors?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
avoiding it more nowadays.
Have you ever known that I'vegot to that place in church
discipline?
That's true.
That's true.
Do you see pastors avoiding itmore nowadays?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Well, one of two things right, the churches are
not willing to take those stepsand the person leaves on the
first rebuke, yeah, or thesecond rebuke at most.
Right, they're out to see youthese days.
You get a divorce.
The person stops comingimmediately.
Yeah, they go find a differentchurch that doesn't know about
(34:29):
their situation.
Why?
Because they don't want to feelshame.
But the fact of the matter is,if they want to pursue and
continue in unrighteousness, thechurch is going to shame them.
That's just the reality of thetext.
And if we were talking aboutSam, if we were talking about
(34:53):
pedophilia, nobody in listeningto this conversation would have
a problem.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
They wouldn't have a problem Right.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
It just has to do with what we're talking about
and how frequent and howaccepted and how culturally norm
it is.
You know that's what we'retalking about here.
Yeah, no, that's a good point.
When you think about Jesus,this is just.
This is an easy slam dunk.
Low, low hanging fruit example.
(35:21):
The Pharisees are always easyto beat up in.
The Pharisees are thepedophiles of the day.
Right.
Jesus calls them whitewashedtombs with nothing good on the
inside.
Right and he calls themchildren of the devil.
Well, that's not very winsome.
As a matter of fact, that hasnothing to do with making them
(35:47):
feel guilty.
It has everything to do withshaming them for their identity.
So Jesus is shaming thePharisees often in the New
Testament.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Mm-hmm.
So Jesus is shaming thePharisees often in the New
Testament and I think, as I'mprocessing that specific part
about the shaming, I think wherepeople in the church have a
problem is and this could goback, I think you made this
point in the last conversationthat we had is this aspect of
pride, maybe thinking that we'rebetter than we actually are,
(36:24):
because the ones who are havinga problem with this are, I think
everyone in general understands, like if you do something
really bad, right, if it'smurder, adultery, abuse,
whatever the case is like peoplein general Christians in
general feel like, okay, yeah,that's a bad thing, but other
things that are maybe not as bad.
(36:44):
Or it's a person who goes tochurch every Sunday but they
don't live like a Christian therest of the week and they feel a
sense of shame with a messageor a brother or sister confronts
them.
It's those people who aresaying, well, I'm not as bad as
all these other people who aredoing these other things.
So they take shame and theykind of change the definition of
(37:07):
it and say, well, I was shamedand therefore I don't want to be
in that type of church, causeit's not loving.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Yeah, and you get, and you get a.
You get a, a sympatheticChristian who says, wow, well,
that was horrible the way youtreated you.
They should have disagreed withyou in love and still invited
you to stay and listen and letGod work on your heart.
(37:37):
They should have done, and letGod work on your heart.
They should have done.
But that's not what it says inthe text.
When it comes to unrepentantsin, it's not what it says in
the text.
It doesn't say just be coolwith them and let them
participate, take them off thesearch committee or whatever the
case is.
They can't be on the beaconboard anymore.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
That's not what the text says that's clear, clear.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
The unrepentant sin is important.
There they're totally important, totally important.
Yeah, that's correct.
And because there are, therecertainly are preferences,
opinions that are are notinherently sinful, right, uh,
and there are one-time sins andsins.
You're struggling with that,you're trying to stop and you're
going for.
You own it and you're going forhelp.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah, that's a completely different scenario
and that's life of the Christianis to bring them to a place of
repentance and, acknowledgingsin, repenting of it, to be back
to the ship.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah, that's the purpose, that's the ideological
foundation and framework fordoing it.
It's just not, you're just notassured it's going to work Right
.
And that's on God, that's God'sbusiness, if you will.
And prayer, you know that'swhat God calls us to pray for
(39:09):
those people.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Okay, yeah, and I think this will be a good way to
lead into our second topic.
But before going there, isthere a way in which so we're
talking about biblical shame isthere a way in which you would
tell someone here's how it isused, appropriate?
And that's where I'm having ahard time, maybe because it's
correction, but the correctionbrings on this biblical sense of
(39:31):
shame.
So if someone were to implementthis I'm guessing you know,
kind of doing the whole mat,whole Matthew 18 procedure of
anytime someone is anunrepentant sin, that the way to
address it is to go throughthis Matthew 18 process, and
it's obviously going to bringshame to the person.
(39:52):
Or if you go to Corinthians andyou know you've addressed it
multiple times now you have tobring them to in front of the
church and turn them over toSatan, all these things.
So is there like a process thatyou've seen it done in the
church, that it's a biblical wayto do it?
Is it just following thosepassages or what do people get
wrong about that process?
Speaker 2 (40:12):
before we jump into the next topic, I've just so
rarely seen it all the waythrough, that's fair.
I've seen it maybe three timesin my life, um, where it
actually got all the way through, and it normally is because, uh
(40:34):
, the person has such a strongattachment to the community but
has such a strong attachment tothe community but has such a
strong conviction that they'renot wrong and that they're okay
in doing what they're doing, orit's not a tier one issue, like
we just talked about, and sothat's when it gets all the way,
(40:58):
you know, or it's a pastor thathas to go before the church
anyway and doesn't want to losehis credibility for the rest of
his life, and so he goes all theway through the process in
order to save face down the roadand maybe get it and maybe get
another shot at having somecredibility in the community
(41:21):
down the road, right, and insome ways you're like, okay,
well, that's kind of how it'ssupposed to work.
You know, you're supposed to goall the way through this.
You're supposed to respond thefirst time, obviously, and not
go all the way through and thenfinally have the church say
you're done, but it's so hardand this is a completely
(41:44):
different niche conversation butthe pastors.
It really is a thing.
They're stuck in a vocation,they get paid to do their job.
They don't want to lose theirposition.
It's disruptive to their familyand lots of times ends in
divorce, and so they go all theway through this process and
(42:08):
I've seen some that saved theirmarriage by going all the way to
the end, you know, and thenfinally you know kind of
repenting after going throughthat final step.
But I think here's one morenote before we move on about
that process.
The process again is not meantto have immediate gratification.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Yeah, that's a good point it's.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
you know, and this gets to the point where, well,
Jason, you know, if you shamesomebody and your question
earlier have you ever seensomebody respond, you know, to
shame and repentance?
And I heard a sermon recentlywhere that exact point was
brought up Shame.
(42:54):
The exact words wereessentially shame never leads to
repentance.
And, first of all, that'scompletely false, and I can
point to countless situationswhere the spirit of God uses the
shame response in many peopleto eventually lead them to
(43:16):
contrition and repentance.
Um, however, most of the timeit doesn't happen right there,
yeah, and it doesn't happennecessarily in the relationship
with the person that that eithershamed you intentionally or
sought to rebuke you or correctyou or admonish you in the best
(43:38):
way.
They knew how and you felt youwere being shamed and you felt
ashamed and you didn't want tohave anything to do with them.
So you killed the friendship,you walked away from the church,
you walked away from the friendgroup and you said I'm done
with you.
And then, a year later, sixmonths later, two years later,
(44:00):
god's been working on your heartand on your mind yeah, and you
go and what?
who was I?
What have I done?
And I've seen that many times,yeah no delayed, the delayed
fire where you know the personyou know goes, ah yeah, and
(44:20):
they'll come back in.
I've had friends in my own lifethat I rebuked for sexual
immorality and they came back.
One came back a year later.
One came back six years laterand asked and said Jason, I've
repented.
Please forgive me for the way Itreated you.
I've repented to the Lord andturned around.
Thank you for saying what youdid in the moment.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Yeah, no, I agree with that brother.
I think I would say this aboutthis point is that anytime sin
is addressed or there is thisshame component involved, it
should never be this harshapproach to it.
Right?
We want to be truthful, we wantto be honest with our brothers
(45:01):
and sisters.
I mean it's exactly that,whether it be a child, brother,
sister, like I have said truthsto my siblings, to my friends,
with that compassion and youkind of tied those two things
together, right, the compassionmeans that the compassion means
to suffer with.
Right, there's a Latin word forcompassion to suffer with.
And I think, when we're talkingabout this aspect of shame is
(45:21):
that, when we are addressingthese things in our brothers and
sisters, is that you feel thesuffering that they're going
through Again for people whowant to repent.
But you should never do so in aharsh manner.
We want to be firm, we want tobe direct but not harsh, and I
have seen pastors be harsh inthe way that they shame people,
(45:42):
like I mean just degrading themusing this very horrible
language.
I mean, I've seen it and so Iwould say that it the Lord can
still work with that but you asa person don't want to approach
things like that.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Yeah, correct, you're exactly right.
As a father and I think you can.
You know, any father can relateyour temper gets out of control
at times and and you, you saythings in a way that you don't
want to say it.
Yeah, um, and in sometimes thatends that's in the process of
shaming, um, but at the sametime, personalities are always
(46:19):
in play, yep, and people'stempers are slightly different,
and in terms of tone is notalways something you know, and
so I try to allow the scriptureto work on me.
And that's why I've memorizedColossians 4, 5, and 6.
Walk in wisdom toward them thatare without redeeming the time.
(46:40):
Let your speech be always withgrace, seasons with salt, so
that you might know how toanswer every man.
I've been out letting thatverse work on me for the last 20
years.
So, yes, I can try to beintentional, but it's not like
there's a standard of perfectionwhen it comes to approach.
And so, as long as youunderstand and people understand
(47:02):
that, give yourself a littlebit of grace for how you
approach that shamingconversation.
But yeah, no, I completelyagree with you.
You're not.
The example I heard in thesermon that I just heard was
this guy overheard a mom at arestaurant telling her her son
(47:22):
or daughter uh, after they brokea cup of coffee, you did it
again.
You always destroy everything,so that's a shaming, but it is
completely void of compassionand hope and it is saying to
(47:44):
that person this is who you areand that's it.
Sorry, you're a destroyer, yeah, so yeah, sometimes, even if
you say it all nice-'t, you'restill saying this wretched,
horrible thing, it's true.
So there's a difference betweenthat language and saying you
are being an ungodly person.
(48:07):
Right now, you are treatingyour sister in a horrible way.
You are speaking to your motherin a way that's incredibly
harmful.
Yeah, I assure you that thoseare shaming things to say to a
child and they're going to feelshame lots of times, yeah, and
(48:28):
when you say those things.
But I would see those things asstill appropriate things to say
from time to time.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Yeah, it's corrective , definitely corrective.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
Yeah, this is perfect .
Perfect to moving into our nexttopic on shame, guilt and
conviction.
So yeah great conversationbrother.
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