Postmodernity’s Shame
I believe the best definition of shame out there comes from Martha Nussbaum. She states that shame is “a painful emotion responding to a sense of failure to attain some ideal state” that “pertains to the whole self, rather than to a specific act of the self.”[1] In other words, shame accuses you of being inadequate as opposed to simply doing something wrong.
Over the last several decades, the complicated social and psychological nature of shame has increasingly become a focus among Christian counselors, pastors, and the general churchgoing population.
This focus has grown, in part, out of the soil of postmodern philosophy in American academic institutions, and in American culture at large. People who no longer saw themselves as tethered to a Christian worldview began to seek within themselves, and their own desires, for a transcendent source of meaning. At the same time, Western scholars were seeking to frame an understanding of morality and human flourishing that could correspond to a post-Christian worldview.
Modernity produced ample material to work with for developmental, therapeutic, and evolutionary psychology, which focused on a naturalistic and individualistic view of human flourishing. American philosophers such as Nussbaum (Upheavals of Thought and Hiding from Humanity) appropriated the qualitative analysis of psychoanalysts such as Donald Winnicott (as well as Erik Erikson) to seek to institutionalize a negative view of shame, especially as it is related to developmental psychology.[2]
The popular blogger and Professor of Social Work, Brené Brown, has greatly influenced the convictional landscape on this issue, as her TED Talk video on YouTube from 2012 has almost 8,000,000 views. Her approach to shame also draws on psychological analysis, especially as it relates to Carl Jung. Philosophical, sociological, and psychological thought leaders, such as Brown and Nussbaum, have framed the emotion of shame in such a way that there is no real healthy space for it to exist, and they often pitch it as a sign of external oppression, narcissistic personality disorder, and toxic beliefs. For most of these writers, shame is always negative.
But as I said at the beginning of this article, the attack on shame is also an internal issue for Christians. In an effort to reconcile Christian theology with the latest scientific understandings about mental health and human development, Christian psychologists and theologians began approaching shame with the definitions and explanations provided by twentieth century developmental and therapeutic psychology.
While early twentieth century European theologians such as Emil Brunner, Karl Barth, and Deitrich Bonhoeffer all had a more “balanced” view of the benefits and dangers of shame, the more contemporary theologians and Christian psychologists categorized shame as inherently detrimental to a healthy human life and thus sought to put forward strategies for overcoming shame rather than confronting or responding to the lie or truth that elicited the feelings of shame in people’s lives.
One such well-known contemporary Christian psychiatrist, Curt Thompson, wrote a whole book, The Soul of Shame, that constructed a novel psychosocial-centric theology of original sin that proposed that the serpent shamed Eve, causing Eve to feel shame, which then caused her to doubt God.[3] Along with the influence of Brené Brown in Christian book clubs, Curt Thompson’s work resonates with countless Christians who don’t want to feel bad about themselves.
The problem is that Thompson’s theology isn’t biblically based or aligned with historical theology. Both Aquinas and Augustine proclaimed pride as the original sin, and the fountainhead of evil in human actions.[4] No early Christian theologian, who I’m aware of, suggests shame is the prelapsarian (pre-fall) tool of Satan or that Eve’s internal response was one of shame in conjunction with her pride and doubt. This is an attempt by Thompson to eisegete a contemporary view of shame into biblical theology in order to support his clinical views of shame, which ignores that there are times that shame is an appropriate emotional response.
Pastors, Christian counselors, and Christians at large should be wary of any clinical proposal that attempts to rewrite Christian theology to support itself.
A Christian Apologetic of Shame
Despite the wave of scholarship against shame, we are not without contemporary resources to confront these undermining views. In 2021, Gregg Ten Elshof (Professor of philosophy at Biola) wrote For Shame, an excellent resource which shows how biased definition framing in clinical survey questions on shame and guilt inherently favored guilt over shame.[5] He reaffirms the fact that like other emotions, “Shame is healthy when it is felt in those circumstances apt for its expression and when it is felt with a degree of intensity and for an amount of time appropriate for the context of its occurrence.”[6]
Another great resource for understanding a positive role of shame is Te-Li Lau’s (Assoc. Prof. of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) book, Defending Shame, which analyzes and develops Paul’s relevant use of shame in his letters. Lau states that, “Pauline shame therefore points believers to have the right sensitivity toward things of which they should and should not be ashamed, guiding them to live lives that are prudent, temperate, disciplined, holy, and honorable.”[7] Indeed, one of shame’s purposes from a Christian standpoint is to serve as a guide to godly living.
Of course, another purpose of shame, be it associated with personal sin or being sinned against, is to drive us to the forgiving and healing grace of God in Christ.
These are just a few resources that help us understand that shame isn’t an innately evil or harmful emotion. Rather, it is another human experience to respond to in a God honoring way, as we discern whether it points to a truth, or to a lie and reminds us of our need for grace.
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