A broader perspective on the _The Grace of Shame_

The Public Square
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I recently finished reading The Grace of Shame, and I think it has a broader application than to just homosexuality.

Within the past year, I’ve heard two Christians of my acquaintance distinguish guilt from shame. According to the definition they told me, guilt is feeling bad for what you did, whereas shame is feeling bad for who you are. Under this definition, guilt is good to feel and shame is bad to feel. I searched the internet for this idea, and apparently it comes from secular psychology, but it’s getting picked up by Christians. In my view, it parallels the distinction between homosexual acts (what you do, guilt, bad) and homosexual desire (what you are, shame, not a reason to feel bad). In this framework, the Christian comes before God and confesses his sinful acts, words, and thoughts, but not, at a fundamental level, his innate sinfulness that is expressed in sinful desires. He may acknowledge with words that he’s total depraved, but in heart, he thinks he’s basically a good person who does bad things from time to time.

This framework also explains what I’ve sometimes seen concerning forgiveness among Christians. The man who sins against another confesses with an attitude of entitlement rather than penitence. Because Christ forgave the man he sinned against, that man must also forgive him. Lack of forgiveness is treated as one of the biggest sins. The sinner does not come to one sinned against with the acknowledgement that the sinner is a reprehensible person who did a reprehensible thing that is hard to forgive; rather he wants the person he sinned against to treat the sin as a small matter that is not reprehensible so that the sinner is relieved from feeling shame. This again has a parallel to the leveling of homosexual sins and desires with other sins and desires so that the former are treated as small.

The Gospel is transformed from receiving abundant grace and mercy, despite the true shame of sin, into a false gospel that relieves the sinner of the need to feel shame in the first place. This is parallel to the approach to homosexuality in which the worst thing to do is to make the homosexual feel shame. In both cases, deep repentance is not required of the sinner. Of course, this false gospel does not bring true comfort for shame because the depth of sin and sinfulness remains unconfessed and unrepented. Thus, it becomes necessary to externally get rid of the shame by declaring that the sinful acts and desires are not shameful and coercing everyone to go along with the narrative. This happens across the board, and not just with respect to homosexuality.

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True, dear brother. A word search for shame in Scripture seals the matter. Shame is God’s grace. Love,

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This isn’t entirely wrong, nor does it necessarily follow from this that guilt is good and shame is bad. In other words, again, we’re dealing with some true ideas but also some really bad application.

We see both guilt and shame in the garden. Guilt deals with our legal status, and it’s true whether or not we feel it. Adam died as soon as he sinned, in terms of his relationship/status with God. We are aware of guilt intellectually, in our minds. The solution to guilt is justification, a change in our status. Shame, however, deals with our nature. It’s a feeling over who we are, and, as a feeling, it’s located in our affections. Adam sewed fig leaves to cover his shame. His guilt couldn’t be covered (at least not by himself). Shame is the classic sense of defilement, and we can feel shame when we shouldn’t or don’t feel shame when we ought to. As shame flows from our nature, the solution is sanctification or renovation. Shame flows from guilt, but they are not the same thing. This distinction is just classic western theology (think Augustine in The City of God or John Owen in Pneumatologia).

One of the big reasons squishy evangelicalism is drowning in justificationism is that we’ve focused almost exclusively on guilt/status. We’ve been told the solution to our feeling wretched is to look to Christ and remember our justification. But the problem is guilt isn’t something we can feel. Guilt is a fact. What we’re feeling is shame (because of our guilt), and the solution to shame is a transformed nature, in other words, sanctification.

Incessantly looking to Jesus or only reflecting on our justification isn’t only usually a soft form of antinomianism, it’s also not going to fix the problem. It’s like checking the tire pressure for an engine oil leak. When we feel shame, we need to consider why we feel shame. Most of the time, shame flows from our natures. Even when we’re ashamed of our actions we realise that our actions flow from something much deeper in our souls (though in some cases the feeling of shame or defilement comes from another’s actions rather than our own). When we feel a lingering sense of shame, we need to consider what we’ve done and who we are. As believers, those who have been justified, we’ve also been empowered by the Holy Spirit to put sin to death, to be transformed, to participate in the Spirit’s synergistic work of sanctification. The solution to 1 Corinthians 6.9-10 is 1 Corinthians 6.11.

So heartily agreed @Joel, The Grace of Shame has much much wider application than just the issue of homosexuality, precisely because the debates within evangelicalism over homosexuality exposed our sub-biblical and sub-human view of sin and redemption.

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Also shame is almost always tied up with others’ view of us. Asians have it when westerners don’t, which is partly bad for Asians because their ability to feel lit is bound to saving face.

Be aware though that shame is used by God to give us horror at our condition and temptations and that is a wonderful help in fleeing them. So say I in observing my soul. Love

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Operationally, I wonder if this can lead to psychological suppression of feelings of shame rather than true freedom through receiving grace. E.g., exercising faith becomes telling oneself not to feel ashamed–as if you believe hard enough, it will become true.

I wonder if a big part of not escaping from feelings of shame is unwillingness to confess (with sincerity, and not just in words) that we are shameful people with shameful desires. Essentially, we have a shallow view of repentance in which we confess only the guilt of our actions and not the guilt of our desires and motivations. This is not true repentance, so our shame is not removed.

Reportedly, one of the founders of Revoice thought acknowledging the wrongness of same-sex desire would make him feel even greater shame, but once he truly repented of that desire, he was freed from shame and slavery to that sin. He is now married with a child.

This is exactly what happened to me, though it took months for me to discern what I was feeling. In a couple different cases, the feeling of shame and defilement came after I wholeheartedly forgave a person who sinned against me. I realized that by forgiving the person, I took on the earthly burden of guilt and shame for the sin. The atonement of Christ for sin only removes guilt before the eternal throne of God, not on earth (crimes must still be paid for, and debts do not go away). Forgiveness is a transgression of the Law, because the guilty person is acquitted rather than condemned. What finally brought me out of my sense of earthly guilt and defilement was perceiving that the righteousness and holiness of Christ in me was greater than the earthly guilt and defilement imposed on me by the Law when I forgave and reconciled.

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