Ours may be a culture that no longer believes in sin. But, clearly, it believes in shame. . . . Andy Crouch analyzes how Western civilization is transitioning from a guilt-based [culture] to a “media-amplified shame culture.” The role that communities play in conferring either honor or shame (in contrast to their more individualistic counterparts, innocence and guilt) provides an opportunity for the church, Crouch argues.
While public outrage is as old as human history, social media shaming is new. In its ability to take shame as far beyond a local community as the entire globe and to wreak effects vastly disproportionate to the precipitating acts, social media shaming may become a form of systemic injustice. It therefore is a phenomenon that Christians need to acknowledge and address intentionally and with principle. We have the opportunity at this moment in our culture to determine to offer a different way than the world [does].
Editor’s Note: On March 12, CT hosted its first live Twitter chat to further discuss issues brought up in “The Return of Shame.” More than 100 participants talked about shame as tied up in relationships of power, Eastern and Western notions of shame, the role of shame in our lives as Christians, and the need for gracious dialogue rather than criticism. The hashtag #CTShame was mentioned 760 times and received 281,646 impressions by the following day.
Critique remembers the imago dei in the recipient, shame forgets that.
Daniel Darling @dandarling
Your question assumes shame is an intent rather than an embedded value. In Eastern culture it isn’t one or the other.
Kathy Khang @mskathykhang
The most menacing dimension of shaming is often the indirect way it mobilizes crowds against persons.
Alastair Roberts @zugzwanged
Speaking up for the voiceless and marginalized isn’t shaming. It’s biblical.
Wende @webbspinner77
We underestimate the power of our words. What we say about another can color the way our followers view a person.
Ekemini Uwan @sista_theology
Having served as an online missionary with Global Media Outreach (GMO), I’m compelled to add a point to your informative article on sharing the Good News online. During my training with GMO, prayer was a key element of the program. Online missionaries are instructed to stop and first pray for the person who has just sent the email. This is my favorite part of connecting with a respondent. This may be the only time in this person’s life that someone has lifted them to the Lord. This step is what lends credibility and validity to online evangelism. Prayer releases the hand of God to move in a person’s life far beyond any email response.
All three responses to this question share a strong theme of avoiding being understood as harsh and unloving. I share that burden too.
But consider that when Jesus came 1,500 years after the giving of the law, he found that the Israelites had perverted its purpose. Does anyone suppose there’s a ghost of a chance that, in the 2,000 years since, he could return and find that many of us had run his revelation into an opposite ditch? After all, it would be consistent with human nature to mess up in more than one way.
If I must be the last man standing who won’t attend a gay wedding, and I must bear the shame and accusation of being seen as a Pharisee by the whole world, God help me.
However, if with tears in our eyes and heavy hearts we refuse to support marriages that Jesus clearly taught were adulterous, we won’t so easily be classified as gay bashers.
Yes, Jesus ate with unrepentant sinners, but we must know the difference between eating with sinners and toasting to them.
Anthony Hess
Boise, Idaho
Over the years I’ve asked similar questions and find my answers changing. It would be equally interesting to ask, “Should I attend the wedding of a friend or family member who cheated on their spouse? Should I attend the wedding if they are marrying the one they cheated with? What if the bride is pregnant?” Sherif Girgis makes the point that nonmarital sex is wrong. Does that go for heterosexual couples as well as gay couples?
For some time now I have had a lot of questions about Genesis, and have not been satisfied with the answers I get from many Christians. Furthermore, I often worry about what people would think of me if they knew I didn’t believe in a “literal” reading of Genesis 1–2. Reading the interview with John Walton encouraged me considerably.
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We Christians often get so hung up on the creation-versus-evolution debate that we alienate some of our own who have serious questions and trouble reconciling Scripture with science. Walton reminded me to look at the big picture of Genesis 1–2 rather than get caught in the details.
Jackson Dame
Greenville, South Carolina
I enjoyed this month’s CT as always but was struck by the juxtaposition of two articles. On the one hand, John Walton talks about interpreting the story of Adam within the context of “information today that most historical interpreters didn’t have,” and new understanding of how the original readers of the text would have interpreted it.
On the other hand, Christian ethicists in Open Question all reject the idea that verses in Leviticus and Romans regarding homosexuality might have nuance. Christians today too easily embrace “context” where it suits our preferences and prejudices, and reject it where it does not.
I feel like I can speak to this interview with Matt Chandler on his book The Mingling of Souls. Anger, frustration, disconnection are not reasons to give up, but a chance to exercise the promise made. That’s why we made the vows we did. We knew the hard stuff would come. If we can stand through the difficulties, we earn the right and privilege to stand through the good times as well.
Some interesting parallels and similarities to my own life, including finding my way to the Anglican Church!
The Uprising @UprisingTulsa
Proof that God can use anything: LSD, Revolution, Buddhism, then Jesus.
Charles Burge @cburge
Net Gain
Responses to our blogs and online articles.
We don’t like the interpretation perhaps because we have been told it means taking care of the poor, and we have been told this over and over, but in context, it simply is not about that. Interpreting this text properly doesn’t mean we have no responsibility for the poor. Other passages tell us that, but we should not read into texts what we want them to say.
Don Fawcett, Facebook “What You Probably Don’t Know about ‘The Least of These,’ ” by Andy Horvath.
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In reading “Contraception Saves Lives,” I asked God: “What happened to Margaret Sanger? Who hurt her and confused her?” This post on Amy Julia Becker’s blog gives a bird’s eye view of the young nurse who was overwhelmed with women’s plight of pain and threat of death in childbirth. Sanger chose the wrong path in her attempts to serve women. She chose what would become millions of deaths by chemical, oral, and surgical contraceptives and abortions, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of women by strokes, heart attacks, breast and cervical cancer, depression, and countless other ills. She chose what would one day lead to the deaths of over 55 million babies by the 21st century.
If only Sanger had been able to pray to Jesus, and not be angry or frightened about the conditions surrounding her, we could have avoided a lot of death and destruction. The scourge of abortion is a curse, a symptom of a sick and dying world. Abortion brings death, not life.
Accepting harmful birth control and abortions as the primary or only salvation for women who need help in understanding and managing their God-given gifts of fertility and motherhood has resulted in years of heartbreak.
While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
A Christian reconciliation group in Israel and Palestine warned that war would come. Now the war threatens their relevance.العربيةFrançais
We must always be people of the Word, but we’ll have to reimagine deep engagement with Scripture.
