Shame and Redemption
On the individual level, shame has been recognized as a toxic emotion. People have been encouraged to throw off shame and to accept and embrace themselves. People in the LGBTQ community, tired of living under the banner of shame, reject it with great fanfare at the Pride parades. Pride is the opposite of shame.
On a cultural level, however, shame has never been more popular. Some, like the fallen Weinstein, are justly exposed by the internet vigilantes, and subjected to public disgrace. Others are picked out for the thoughtless comment or for the foolish stunts of youth. Social media delights in pulling huge amounts of attention to the transgressors of modern values and shaming them before the virtual masses. Cancel culture is the modern day hander outer of scarlet letters. The sinners must be punished.
After generations of idealizing American history, more focus has been pulled to it’s darker aspects. From the treatment of black Americans from our inception to the deceptive and damaging relationship between the government and Native Americans, there is a lot in our history that is… shameful. The pendulum, predominately on the left, is swinging from pride in our roots to shame. And because self-righteousness is a favorite of humanity with or without religious undertones, those woke among us are eager that their white countrymen should internalize this shame.
The history of the church could teach us that shame and self-righteousness make few eager converts. Humanity is not inclined to see itself in a negative light, just or not, particularly when that mirror is being held by people across the aisle. And so you have groups that call themselves the Proud Boys. White men who don’t want to be told to be ashamed. Instead of pushing back racism, could this shame strategy may actually help to enliven it?
I believe the gospel holds the key to this conundrum. Here we find that humanity both reflects and thwarts the image of the Divine. That we are both unfathomably beautiful and devastatingly broken at the same time. We are worthy of both great pride and great shame. And so it shouldn’t surprise us that we see that as a nation as well. The same country that liberated thousands of Jews from concentration camps led Native Americans on the Trail of Tears. And so we are faced with two necessities in order to enter into the fullness of what God has in mind for us- as individuals and as a nation- Repentance and Redemption.
Repentance is the process of acknowledging wrong. It’s a long and truthful glance in the mirror, admitting the good and the ugly. It isn’t shame. Shame is a dark and heavy load – it’s shackles. It is the gleeful reminder that you – YOU over there! – are wrong and bad indeed, unlike we, the righteous. Those on the receiving end of shame will either shrink under it for they’ll cast it off and deny any truth in the accusations leveled at them.
Redemption is the process of becoming what you were meant to be. Of being freed from the shackles of our own sin and self made prisons and given the grace to grow into the fullness of potential – love, creativity, ingenuity, unity. It’s not an ignoring of, but a forgiving of, past wrongs. As Dr King wisely acknowledged – “Darkness can’t drive out darkness, only light can do that.”
I hated the images I saw at the storming of the Capitol. I hated seeing the cross desecrated by use as a political symbol and seeing Jesus’ name invoked in vain. I hate seeing the beauty of my faith smeared by Christian Nationalism and I mourn what I see as the idol the religious right has made out of ‘Freedom’. It’s tempting to want to shame them. To feel righteous in my condemnation.
But shame won’t work. We have to paint a beautiful and inviting picture of what could be. We have to acknowledge our own failures instead of pointing fingers at others. We have to acknowledge that the devil is happy to be a republican or a democrat, while Jesus will never be either. We have to inspire each other, by grace, to live into the fullness imagined for us. We have to remind Christians of the gospel.
