A universal experience
Students of anthropology are fond of drawing a distinction between “guilt” cultures and “shame” cultures. In the former, you feel bad when you have violated an objective moral standard, while in the latter you are ashamed when you fail to measure up to some norm of family or society. An oversimplified distinction would be that shame results from “failure” while guilt comes from “sin.” Western society is – or used to be – an example of a “guilt” culture, and China is a prime exhibit for the “shame” cultures.
(Much has changed in recent years, of course. In both East and West, words and actions which used to be considered shameful are now flaunted openly and publicly, as if there was nothing wrong with them. But that is another subject.)
Actually, even Westerners know about shame. Many of us have heard our parents say, “Shame on you!” or, “You should be ashamed of yourself!” when we spilled some milk, or our room was messier than usual, or we got bad grades in school. There is a great deal of shame arising from mistakes we have made in public, and even more from private addictions to pornography or alcohol.
Still, most Chinese people really do fear shame more than Westerners, and have a correspondingly less acute sense of actual guilt for offenses against a righteous God.
You see this come out in various ways. Someone has promised to do something for you, but has encountered difficulty or even made another commitment (more on this next time), but doesn’t tell you that he will be late or perhaps won’t even be able to complete the job. He just says nothing, too ashamed to admit failure. Sometimes you don’t find out until it’s too late for you to find alternative, leaving you angry and frustrated. “If only you had told me sooner!” you say, inflicting even more shame upon him.
A sudden injury prevented one of China’s main hopes for a gold-medal to drop out just before the race, provoking loud outcries around the nation, finger-pointing, and – it is reported – deep depression for the athlete himself.
At least in the past, shame played an important role in the educational system. Teachers would employ harsh public rebuke to motivate poor students to do better. I have seen this even in Christian circles.
For traditional Chinese and other “Confucian” societies, there is little belief in a transcendent God, whose holiness and justice demand adherence to immutable moral laws; instead, the opinions of people are supreme. Family members, especially parents; teachers; friends; and society at large are the ones whose opinion matters most. If they do not approve of me, I “die” inside from shame.
Indeed, “death” happens not only subjectively, within me, but can take the very tangible form of public rebuke, failure in school, loss of a job, or even ostracism. We see the terrible potency of this bondage to others’ approval in the number of suicides that took place during the Cultural Revolution, not just from unbearable physical torture, but from being mocked by huge crowds.
A sense of shame arises from two sources: We are finite, and we are fallen. Because of our limitations as creatures, we simply cannot fulfill all the expectations that we or others have towards us. Most Chinese parents want their child to be “Number One” in the class, but only one student can earn that distinction. We are not as fast, or agile, or smart, or good-looking, or rich, or whatever, as some others are, and there is little we can do about it. We just can’t “succeed” all the time!
Too much shame arises from false ideas of “success.” There is nothing shameful in coming in second – or fifth, or fifteenth – if you have trained as well as you could and run with all your strength. A child need not be ashamed of his alcoholic father, or uneducated mother, though that usually happens. Driving an old car, wearing out-of-date clothes, or living in a small house is not a matter for embarrassment, as long as you have worked hard and honestly, and done your best to be a good steward of limited resources.
Complicating matters, however, is that fact that we are fallen, infected with a moral malady that affects all we say or do. So, not only may I have a slender build by birth, but perhaps laziness has kept me from exercising as much as I could have. Or the reverse may be true: God gave me a solid, hefty frame, but I become overweight, even obese, from lack of self-discipline and from sloth. Then, I am ashamed of my appearance, not just because I don’t resemble film stars or models in magazines, but because I haven’t made of myself what I could have. Or maybe I know I am not as intelligent by birth as the next guy, but I am also aware that I could have worked harder to gain knowledge to make up for this deficit in innate aptitude.
Deeper still is the root cause of shame: My own pride. It’s because I care so much about my image in the world, and believe that I should be, or could be, or am, better than either others think or than is really the case, that I am so shocked and shame-faced when I fail to measure up to their image of me, or mine of myself.
Surmounting shame
The Bible speaks of shame in many places. The bottom line is: Those who trust in God do not need to fear the rejection of others, because on the judgment day they will not have to be ashamed (Psalm 25:2, 3; 34:5; 119:6). On the contrary, people who forsake God for idols and unrepentant wickedness will be ultimately covered with shame (Psalm 6:10; 25:3; 35:4, 26; 71:24). God’s opinion matters infinitely more than the evaluations of those around me. No matter what they think, if I am relying on God and seeking to do his will, I do not have to be ashamed of “failure” (Romans 8:31, 34).
Some say that the Christian message of forgiveness of sins should not be preached to people in a shame culture, since it makes no sense to them. That does not seem to be right. After all, as we have seen, real guilt often underlies our sense of shame. And even if others don’t know, or care, about our offenses against the Lord’s holy laws, God does, and he cannot overlook our transgressions.
No, we need to know the righteous requirements of God, by hearing and reading his commandments in the Bible, to be aware of our real reason for shame: Like Adam and Even in the garden, we have disobeyed our Maker and are naked before his all-seeing eyes. We have done wrong, and nothing can hide that awful fact.
What to do, then? Simply admit our moral failure and beg for his mercy. That mercy will surely come, because Jesus, the Son of God and the only man who had no cause for shame, allowed himself to be shamefully treated to an infinite degree, in our place. (Isaiah 53:3-6).