Of this Psalm, Walter Brueggemann says: “This psalm is a complaint about some public crisis wherein the community of Israel has suffered and has been reduced to helpless shame,” (Brueggemann: pp 85-86).

It is worth reminding ourselves that we are only considering one strand in any possible range of interpretations of the different passages of Scripture on which we are reflecting. Nonetheless the theme of ‘shame’ can be signifcant. In this Psalm it is explicit. Verses 9 to 16 make it abundantly clear that Israel believes that she has been shamed by YHWH.

Verses 9 to 14 “[indict] YHWH for infidelity” (Brueggemann: p86). These verses repeat strong accusations against YHWH: “you have rejected; you have abased; you turned back; you made us; you scattered us; you sold your people; you made us; you made us. YHWH has acted as Israel’s enemy. Verses 15 and 16 are a reflection on the outome of YHWH’s savge action: disgrace; shame; taunt; revile; avenge.” (Brueggemann: pp86-87.) The ‘shame’, vocabulary in verses 13 to 16 is strong, and so are the images invoked: we are a byword among the nations; people shake their heads at us; my face is covered with shame.

The psalm forms a petition that YHWH will act. Brueggemann asserts that “the extended repetition of phrases in accusation and innocence [in the psalm as a whole] is in order that the sorry situation of Israel and the sorry failure of YHWH should be given full and in-depth coverage. The purpose of such reiteration is to make the petition all the more demanding. For the community that listened to the entire poem, the imperatives must have come as a surprise. For YHWH who hears the prayer, the verses that precede the petition put YHWH in a poature wherein YHWH musr, if YHWH cares at all, make a new saving initiative. The prayer, in its fullness, forces YHWH’s hand.” (Brueggemann: p88 – his emphasis.)

So, here in this psalm, we see evidence of the writer calling on God in a way that places an obligation on God to act. God’s honour is at stake, if nothing else. God’s reputation as a faithful God requires action if that reputation is not to be lost. Here in this psalm, God is the patron who has failed to meet up to his obligations in the covenant made between God and Israel. Israel believes she has been faithful, but God hass not been faithful. As a result Israel’s shame is God’s shame. God must act.

This is one response to a sense that God has failed to respond to petitions. It is an honest, open and truthful response. It expresses faithful trust, and the deep shame felt when that trust appears not to haavr been honoured. The final petition is trong and clear. God must act: “Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us for ever. Why do you hide your face and forget our misery snd oppression. We are brought down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground. Rise up and help us; redeem us because of your unfailing love.” (Psalm 44: 23-26).

References:

Walter Brueggemann; “Redescribing Reality: What We Do When We Read the Bible;” SCM, London, 2009.

Here we listen to three different witnesses, two of whom attest to the presence and power and shame within the text of Scripture – Walter Brueggemann, Patrick D. Miller and Judith Herman. Brueggemann invites us to consider 1 Samuel 1 as a story in four scenes. It is in the first of these scenes that we come across Hannah who is to be the mother of Samuel. In verses 3 to 8 we hear of Hannah’s shame. Brueggemann says: “The narrator … focuses attention on Hannah who ‘wept and would not eat” shamed, angry, depressed about her barren status.” (Brueggemann: p66.)

Hannah is barren and, for an Israelite woman, this is a state of shame. The resolution to her shame follows as the scenes of the story unfold. Eventually Hannah has her first born son and she dedicates him to the Lord.

Brueggemann then asks us to listen to the testimony of Patrick Miller who in They Cried to the Lord (Miller: pp233-243) has considered the prayers of different women in the Old Testament. Miller suggests that Psalm 6 could appropriately be understood as Hannah’s prayer, or if not Hannah, someone just like her. Psalm 6 is a call for God’s deliverance: “My soul is in anguish. How long, O Lord, how long?” (Psalm 6:3.) “I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.” (Psalm 6:6.).

The psalmist (or perhaps Hannah) completes her prayer either with thanksgving for what God has done, or by anticipating God’s rescue: “YHWH has heard my supplication; YHWH accepts my prayer. All my enemies shall be ashamed and struck with terror; they shall turn back, and in a moment be put to shame.” (Psalm 6:9-10.)

Those who have despised Hannah have been shamed themselves. They are the disgrace, not Hannah. She has been vindicated by the Lord!

Brueggemann goes on to point to the work of Judith Herman. In Trauma and Recovery she writes: “Survivors who grew up in abusive families have often cooperated for years with a family rule of silence. In preserving the family secret, they carry the weight of a burden that does not belong to them. … In their recovery, survivors may choose to declare to their families that the rule of silence has been irrevocably broken. In so doing they renounce the burden of shame, …” (Herman: p200, my emphasis).

Abuse is part of Hannah’s problem, she has been abused by her ‘sister-wife’, and no doubt also by her community, for her barrenness. In the four scenes of the story in 1 Samuel 1, Hannah finds her voice and she asserts her “existence and legitimacy,” (Brueggemann: p75), just as those shamed by abuse and a conspiracy of silence need to do. In those same four scenes we see God at work removing her shame, her barrenness.

Miller compares Hannah to Mary: “When Mary bears the child and witnesses the human impossibility become possible with God, she sings a song of praise and thanksgiving that is derivative of an earlier song of thanksgiving prayed under similar circumstances, the song of Hannah. In these two songs of thanksgiving by two women of lowly estate … we discover through their experience of God’s marvellous deliverance what those things are that are too wonderful for us, but not for God: lifting up the lowly and putting down the mighty, feeding the hungry and giving sight to the blind, making the barren woman a joyous mother of children, God’s power and intention to reverse those structures and realities of human existence that seem impossible to break.” (Miller: pp242-243.)

The power of shame is broken and those who would shame others are themselves shamed!

References:

Walter Brueggemann; “Redescribing Reality: What We Do When We Read the Bible;” SCM, London, 2009.
Judith Herman; “Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror;” Basic Books, New York, 1992.
Patrick D. Miller; “They Cried to the Lord: The Form and Theology of Biblical Prayer;” Fortress, Minneapolis, 1994.

In Genesis 12, God calls Abram to leave everything and travel to a new land. Werner Mischke points out that this call is not only a departure from one land to another “it is also a departure from one way of thinking to another: From caution to risk … from past to future … from family-based honor to God-given honor. Knowing that the ancient Near East was thoroughly rooted in the culture of honor and shame, it is helpful to understand these verses from that perspective: … (1) God called Abraham to leave his family in the land of Ur and all of the familiar, traditional, family-based honor that went with that—to a life of honor that is of a much greater magnitude: honor bestowed by God himself. (2) While God’s call constituted the risks of a radical departure in geography, faith and worldview, it nevertheless retained as a central motivation for both God and Abraham— the pursuit of honor and glory.” (Mischke: p26.)

Abram is called to leave behind all that he knew, all that mattered, particularly his identity honour and manhood (because these consisted in his place in society, his land and his family). This would have been seen by the early listeners to his story as the most foolhardy and unthinkable risk, not for the dangers of the road ahead, but for the loss of honour and status.  Despite taking this “tremendous risk [which] constituted a huge counter-cultural act of boldness because it violated the traditional way that men accrued and preserved their honor. Despite this great risk, [the story of Abram talks of] seven honor-laden rewards that Abram would receive by believing God’s promise and acting in obedience.” (Mischke: p27.)

Abram would gain great honour in that God would: (1) give him a new land (Gen. 15:18-21; 17:8); make him a great nation (Gen. 15:5; 17:6) to replace his family; (3) bless him (Gen. 17:1) – “in the economy of honor and shame, to be blessed by God … constituted an enormous accrual of ascribed honor;” (Mischke: p27.) (4) make his name great (Gen. 17.1) – a public reputation of great honour; (5) make him a blessing to others – another promise of honour, for in Abram’s world one could only be a blessing if one had the honour and status to bless others; (6) “bless those who bless [Abram] and him who dishonours [Abram, God] will curse” (Gen. 12:3); (7) bless all the families of the earth through him – “this is God’s way of explaining the extent of the honor which is to accrue to Abram … not limited to his own family, local community, or region – a global significance, a global renown.” (Mischke: p28.) A great honour indeed!

The telling of this part of Abram’s (Abraham’s) story illustrates just how significant the dynamics of honour and shame were to the people who would hear the story. Their understanding of the risks taken by Abram would have carried this overarching sense of risk to his honour. Abram would have been deeply shamed had his faith not proven valid.  Abram’s story is laden throughout with God’s commitment to his honour.

References:

Werner Mischke; “Honor and Shame in Cross-Cultural Relationships;” Mission ONE, May 2010; Web, available through http://beautyofpartnership.org/about/free at http://cdn.assets.sites.launchrocketship.com/a6347111-876c-4337-9f3f-9f712c3494ed/files/34d84729-e146-4502-aa4e-34f0abce8a51/honor-and-shame-in-relationships-3sm.pdf;  21st November 2103.

In his book Redescribing Reality, Walter Brueggemann spends a chapter illustrating his basic method of biblical interpretation using Genesis 50: 15-21. (Brueggemann: pp 53-62.) The passage is set at the end of Genesis just after the death of Jacob, Joseph’s father.

Brueggemann notes that in Joseph’s brothers’ opening speech in this passage we have a combination of Hebrew words which tanslate into English as ‘grudge’ (stm) and ‘payback’ (gml) which eloquently express the brothers’ anxiety that Joseph will seek revenge on them now that their father, Jacob, has died. Brueggemann mentions that “the term ‘gml‘ is a common word for ‘payback’ that exposits the world of quid pro quo calculation in which the brothers lived.” (Brueggemann: p 59.)

Joseph’s brothers had treated him in a demeaning and shameful way earlier in their story (Genesis 37: 12-36). Their assumption of likely retribution and revenge betrays common understandings in their culture. Joseph should seek retribution, his honour demanded it. He clearly now has the power to exact that revenge and is not constrained by Jacob’s opinion.

As this short incident unfolds there are a number of possibikities to consider. First, in verse 20, there is a double use of the word ‘intend’ (hsb). Brueggemann says that this “functions to contrast the ill-intent of the brothers toward Joseph [in the past] and the alternative good purpose of YHWH.” (Brueggemann: p60.) Perhaps this is an example of the story subverting accepted cultural norms. YHWH has brought honour out of shame for Joseph.

Second, the brothers abase themselves before Joseph (in verse 18). Brueggemann says that “the abasement is strategic, in order to secure forgiveness from their powerful brother. … Such subservience is refused by Joseph through every part of his response.” (Brueggemann: pp 60-61.) Two possible interpretations of this section refect the dynamics of honour and shame: (1) Maybe the narrative is again subverting prevailing beliefs. Joseph is demeaned by his failure to respond by taking revenge, yet the narrative suggests that he is honourable in his actions; or (2) Alternatively, the story can be seen to finally confirm Joseph’s status in relation to his brothers. Those of significance and importance do not need to heed a challenge from those of lower status. (Malina: pp28-62.) Joseph had made a claim to great honour, in Genesis 37: 1-11, in dreams which placed him at a higher status than his father, mother and brothers. Genesis 50: 15-21 can be seen as the final vindication of that claim!

References:

Bruce J. Malina; “The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology;” Westminster John Knox Press’, Louisville, 1993.
Walter Brueggemann; “Redescribing Reality: What We Do When We Read the Bible;” SCM, London, 2009.

If we are to begin to accept that honour, shame, and grace are significant themes in Scripture then we need not only to look at words which relate to shame, like disgrace, disgust, embarrassment, etc. where they appear in our Bibles. We need also to look for evidence in the stories, the prophecies, the narrative of God’s dealings with the world.

So, in this blog we will from time to time look at passages from the Bible, to see where honour and shame at themes represented in what we read. The point in looking at these passages is to show just how prevalent concerns for honour and shame were in the communities that first read these Scriptures.

Today we look at a passage in 1Samuel which, at one level, is a demonstration that David respects the codes of honour in place in his society.

1 Samuel 24

The context of this story is David’s gaining great honour and public acclaim by defeating Goliath (1 Sam. 17). In that story he courageously defends the honour of God and of Israel. David says:

“What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace (this shame) from Israel?        (1 Sam. 17:26) 

As the story unfolds, David’s honour is recognised by the women of all the towns (1 Sam. 18:6-7). Saul’s jealousy is obvious in the story. However, when you add to this the fact that “in an honor and shame culture, honor is a zero-sum game, the power of this value to influence behaviour is raised to another order of magnitude.” (Werner Mischke: p11.)

^{The phrase used by Mischke, ‘honor is a zero-sum game’, equates to a theme developed by Bruce J. Malina and other members of The Context Group. They argue that within ancient Mediterranean culture “everything in the social, economic, natural universe, everything desired in life: land, wealth, respect and status, power and influence exist in finite quantity and are in short supply,” (Neyrey: p11). All things were in limited supply and honour was also be seen this way. The phrase used for this is:  ‘a limited good society.’ Honour was one of things that were in short supply. (This is discussed in full in Malina: pp 90-116.)}

^{King Saul’s honour as king was threatened by David. Saul’s very personhood, his total identity was threatened and this caused him to “rage with jealousy and seek David’s demise. Saul’s honor was at stake, and … [he would] have considered it the equivalent of a mortal threat”(Miscshke: p11). Saul became obsessed with finding a way to kill David. 1 Samuel 18-23 are the story of Saul’s various attempts to kill David. In chapter 24 David and his men are hiding in a cave because Saul’s army is close by. They are about to sneak out of the cave and as they creep toward the entrance of the cave they find that King Saul is there asleep.}

David’s men encourage him to kill Saul, but David refuses, although he does cut off the corner of Saul’s robe.

In this story we see David showing loyalty to the position of the king who had been anointed by God—along with his obedience to the Spirit of God—David could have killed Saul, but didn’t. He was committed to respecting the Saul’s honour (1 Sam. 24:6–7)

References:

Bruce J. Malina; “The New Testament World – Insights from Cultural Anthropology;” Westminster John Knox, Louisville, 1993.
Werner Mischke; “Honor and Shame in Cross-Cultural Relationships;” Mission ONE, May 2010. Web. 21st November 2103. Available from http://beautyofpartnership.org/about/free at http://cdn.assets.sites.launchrocketship.com/a6347111-876c-4337-9f3f-9f712c3494ed/files/34d84729-e146-4502-aa4e-34f0abce8a51/honor-and-shame-in-relationships-3sm.pdf. I am indebted to Werner Mischke for his notes on this passage.
Jerome H. Neyrey: “Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew;” Louisville: Westminster Press, 1

Another book which I have found really illuminating and helpful in my thinking is Recovering the Scandal of the Cross by Joel Green and Mark Baker.

The cross is the defining symbol of the Christian faith. Yet the Roman cross was primarily a shameful instrument of execution. For early Christians, the cross was a scandalous blessing, a mystery which could not be easily defined and understood. As Joel Green and Mark Baker demonstrate, the New Testament has a rich variety of interpretations of the cross. They talked about the ‘scandalous’ cross in the language of everyday realities and relationships. But for many Christians today, the true scandal of the cross has been obscured, the variety New Testament interpretations have been reduced to subpoints in a single, controlling view of the atonement. Tragically, the way in which the atonement is frequently and popularly expressed now poses a new scandal, one that is foreign to the New Testament and poses needless obstacles to twenty-first century peoples and cultures. This book is a challenge to us to see again through new eyes, or different lenses, the death of Christ in the New Testament and to reconsider how we can faithfully communicate with fresh models the atoning significance of the cross for specific contexts today.

For me, the additional exciting element of this book was a chapter considering a new model for the atonement which sprang from Japanese culture with its particular emphasis on shame.

I have been enjoying an embarrassment of riches!

One of the books that I have really enjoyed recently is Robert Jewett, St. Paul Returns to the Movies: Truimph Over Shame.  Robert Jewett places passages from the Bible alongside a film and, in a highly readable way, allows each one to comment on the other. When I find a book as good as this, I get quite excited!

What, for me, was even more exciting was that Robert Jewett discovered, in the period before writing this book, that Paul’s dominant concern in much of his writing was the overarching cultural concern with honour and shame. Each of the films he has chosen to place alongside scripture passages helped me to understand better the particular dynamics of shame and honour in the related Scripture passage.

An excellent book (and at the time of writing, available secondhand online for only £0.93 plus postage)!

I promised a while ago to make some comments about different types of shame.  So here is a first stab at doing so. Authors talk about healthy shame being of two different types – discretionary shame and disgrace shame. Most of these notes are available in my MA Dissertation from 1999. You can find the references at the bottom of today’s post in the bibliography on the Dissertation page of this site.

Discretionary-shame “is a fundamentally positive quality.”[1] It “concerns itself with the protection of the private sphere of human activity so that public scrutiny is precluded,”[2] and “recognises what is the proper attitude, the fitting response.”[3] So, for example, it regulates self-disclosure; ensures the proper covering of nakedness; delineates appropriate boundaries in the care of the terminally ill. It protects development and growth:

“For what is sheltered is not something already finished, but something in the process of becoming – a tender shoot. Like a darkroom, shame protects against the premature exposure to light that would destroy the process. It functions like the protective cover during the period of gestation, until the embryo – whether seed or soul – has come to full term and is ready to emerge.”[4]

“Preoccupation with disgrace-shame has left the issue of discretionary-shame forgotten in the shadows.”[5] Most theological/psychological literature has focused on disgrace-shame.[6] Developing any understanding of shame requires both positive and negative aspects to be acknowledged.

Disgrace-shame “is about exposure of some discrediting fact or quality,”[7] “a painful experience of the disintegration of one’s world. A break occurs in the self’s relationship with itself and/or others. An awkward, uncomfortable space opens up in the world. The self is no longer whole, but divided. It feels less than it wants to be, less than at its best it knows itself to be.”[8] “Feelings of failure and violation of pride associated with shame are inhibiting and repressive and shake people’s confidence in themselves, their abilities, and their worth.”[9]

In most cultures disgrace-shame was/is the antithesis of ‘honour’.[10] It operated/operates as a social sanction controlling behaviour[11] – misdemeanours brought/bring shame on the individual/family/social group.[12] It could operate as an internal sanction through fear of disgrace,[13] or externally as a powerful disciplinary measure.[14] We will need to come back to the dynamics of shame and honour later in this book.

In the West disgrace-shame has been a more individual phenomenon[15] often associated with a narcissistic perspective.[16] A self-involving/self-focused anxiety[17] or an attitude of self-contempt.[18] Nonetheless, whatever its dynamics, disgrace-shame is painful and disorienting.[19] It involves contempt, disgust and a sense of inadequacy/failure.[20] It fears and/or results in desertion/ abandonment, dishonour/’loss of face’,[21] and loss of social position.[22]

Although often associated with guilt, disgrace-shame does not always have a moral content.[23] People experience shame within a society for being different/defective (physically, emotionally, socially, or even spiritually),[24] through defilement by others (particularly in cases of incest and rape),[25] and sometimes over other events outside their control.[26]

The social shaming that Lewis Smedes talked about in yesterday’s blog, produces a culture of shame in some social groups. It takes on a life that is beyond the control of an individual, or even the social group to which she belongs. It can become in-built in generations that follow. James W. Fowler talks of Shame Due to Enforced Minority Status,[1]a form of shame which he suggests has largely been ignored in contemporary literature.[2] The capacity for experiencing shame develops as a child’s self-awareness increases and as the child begins to be aware of its social setting.[3] At around this time:

“parents [and carers] transmit the qualities of their own self-esteem as they nurture the children in their care. Sadly, where social discriminations based on minority status have become part of a child’s familial identity, even before venturing forth into the world beyond the family the child will be impacted and will embrace a measure of shame due to enforced minority status.” [4]

“This transmission of parent and familial shame to children is a form of ascribed[5]shame. It has little to do with the personal qualities of the family or their children. It has everything to do with the social environment’s disvaluing of some qualities over which they have little or no control. Most potent among the forms of this type of ascribed shame are the distortions due to socio-economic  class, race, ethnic background, sometimes religion, and – most commonly – gender.”[6]

Fowler goes on to recount a story from the first of Maya Angelou’s autobiographical books, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, to illustrate this point. It “Discloses shame that combines childhood vulnerability with shame due to enforced minority status in terms of race, gender, and social class:”[7]

““What you looking at me for? I didn’t come to stay …”

I hadn’t so much forgot as I couldn’t bring myself to remember. Other things were more important.

“What you looking at me for? I didn’t come to stay …”

Whether I could remember the rest of the poem or not was immaterial. The truth of the statement was like a wadded-up handkerchief, sopping wet in my fists, and the sooner they accepted it the quicker I could let my hands open and the air would cool my palms.

“What you looking at me for?  …”

The children’s section of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church was wiggling and giggling over my well-known forgetfulness. The dress I wore was lavender taffeta, and each time I breathed it rustled, and now that I was sucking air to breathe out shame it sounded like crepe paper on the back of hearses.

As I watched Momma put ruffles on the hem and cute little tucks around the waist, I knew that once I put it on I’d look like a movie star. (It was silk and that made up for the awful color.) I was going to look like one of the sweet little white girls who were everybody’s dream of what was right with the world. Hanging softly over the black Singer sewing machine, it looked like magic, and when people saw me wearing it they were going to run up to me and say, “Marguerite [sometimes it was ‘dear Marguerite’], forgive us, please, we didn’t know who you were,” and I would answer generously, “No, you couldn’t have known. Of course I forgive you.”

Just thinking about it made me go around with angel’s dust sprinkled over my face for days. But Easter’s early morning sun had shown the dress to be a plain ugly cut-down from a white woman’s once-was-purple throwaway. It was old-lady-long too, but it didn’t hide my skinny legs, which had been greased with Blue Seal Vaseline and powdered with the Arkansas red clay. The age-faded color made my skin look dirty like mud, and everyone in the church was looking at my skinny legs.

Wouldn’t they be surprised when one day I woke up out of my black ugly dream, and my real hair, which was long and blond, would take the place of the kinky mass that Momma wouldn’t let me straighten? My light blue eyes were going to hypnotize them, after all the things they said about “my daddy must of been a Chinaman” (I thought they meant made out of china, like a cup) because my eyes were so small and squinty. Then they would understand why I had never picked up a Southern accent, or spoke the common slang, and why I had to be forced to eat pigs’ tails and snouts. Because I was really white and because a cruel fairy stepmother, who was understandably jealous of my beauty, had turned me into a too-big Negro girl, with nappy black hair, broad feet and a space between her teeth that would hold a number-two pencil.

“What you looking …”

The minister’s wife leaned toward me, her long yellow face full of sorry. She whispered, “I just come to tell you, it’s Easter Day.” I repeated, jamming the words together, “ljustcometotellyouit’sEasterDay,” as low as possible. The giggles hung in the air like melting clouds that were waiting to rain on me. I held up two fingers, close to my chest, which meant that I had to go to the toilet, and tiptoed toward the rear of the church. Dimly, somewhere over my head, I heard ladies saying, “Lord bless the child,” and “Praise God.” My head was up and my eyes were open, but I didn’t see anything. Halfway down the aisle, the church exploded with “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” and I tripped over a foot stuck out from the children’s pew. I stumbled and started to say something, or maybe to scream, but a green persimmon, or it could have been a lemon, caught me between the legs and squeezed. I tasted the sour on my tongue and felt it in the back of my mouth. Then before I reached the door, the sting was burning down my legs and into my Sunday socks. I tried to hold, to squeeze it back, to keep it from speeding, but when I reached the church porch I knew I’d have to let it go, or it would probably run right back up to- my head and my poor head would burst like a dropped watermelon, and all the brains and spit and tongue and eyes would roll all over the place. So I ran down into the yard and let it go. I ran, peeing and crying, not toward the toilet out back but to our house. I’d get a whipping for it, to be sure, and the nasty children would have something new to tease me about. I laughed anyway, partially for the sweet release; still, the greater joy came not only from being liberated from the silly church but from the knowledge that I wouldn’t die from a busted head.

If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat.

It is an unnecessary insult.”[8]

‘Shameful’ can become the underlying self-assessment that holds people in prison. Shame of this nature runs so very deep and ultimately “cannot be healed without attention to issues of economic and political justice, equality, and the effective affirmation of inclusiveness in societies.”[9]

Can we, in any way, talk of the cross, the death of Jesus’, engaging with this sense of a group’s shame which may have become deeply engrained through the generations?

As Christians we believe that the Incarnation of Christ, the Cross and the Resurrection are the central acts of God’s redeeming love. We have found ways to speak about those essential elements of our faith that have brought hope to millions of people over the years. Until recently, we have had little to say about shame, beyond seeing it as something that is allied to guilt, and follows when we know we have done something wrong. What can we say to those who are shamed? What can we say to people who perceive the human condition in very different ways to those our theologians have engaged with in the West? What can we point to in the life and death of Jesus Christ that will assure the shamed of healing and salvation?

Today we hear from Lewis B. Smedes and then in my next blog from James W. Fowler. At the end of yesterday’s blog about Lucy Grealy the last few words hinted that shame could have a strong social dimension.  Both Lewis Smedes and James Fowler have something to say about this. Shame is not just an individual thing. We’ve already noticed how one person’s shame can affect a family or a group in society. But shame can run even deeper than this and it can deeply affect the people of a particular group and propagate through the generations. Shame is a social phenomenon.

Lewis B. Smedes states that “we feel shame when our families are scorned by other families, our race by other races, our communities by other communities.”[1] The end result of this kind of despising is that “we are tempted to treat as despicable and disposable creatures [those who we despise]. If my ‘superior’ group believes that your ‘inferior’ group is the cause of our group’s troubles, we may exterminate you, as the German’s exterminated the Jews. If your ‘inferior’ group stands in the way of our ‘superior’ group’s manifest destiny, we may destroy you, as European Americans destroyed Native Americans. If your ethnic group is weak and we need you, we may make slaves of you, as Americans did to Africans. If your group is hungry and your very existence challenges the selfishness of our rich group, we will turn our eyes from you and treat you as if you did not exist. If your ethnic group threatens to corrupt the purity of our ethnic group, we will, one way or another, purify ourselves of your presence.”[2]

So, Smedes contends, slavery is the logic of social shame: “When I, in the pride of my group, despise another person simply because she is a member of a group that my group despises, I shame her. If I will not fellowship with you simply because you belong to a group that my group considers inferior, I shame you. When I will not allow you to have the same rights that I have simply because you belong to a group that I think threatens the privileges of my group, I shame you, I have reduced you; I have turned you into a non-person with no identity but the name of the group that my group despises. I have taken the first step that, in other days, could have made you a slave.”[3]

This social shaming produces a culture of shame in some social groups. It takes on a life that is beyond the control of an individual, or even the social group to which she belongs. It becomes in-built in generations that follow.