Shame and Religion

• PTSD by (No author), 5/24/96
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    • Positive Affect and Religion by Ray Schroeder, DMin, 12/3/96
      
      

I was fascinated in my diss. research to find a near total absence of references to shame in the standard theological reference works or in the index of major theological sources. (None ommitted extensive reference to guilt.) Particularly, since the concept of shame (digrace, dishonor) is more prominent in Christian Scripture than guilt.

But alas, the guilt paradigm of Western thinking has blocked us from seeing shame. Donald Capps book, THE DEPLETED SELF, calls for a rethinking of theology in light of Don's work on shame. It is quite revolutionary to most Christian theology systems to subsume guilt as a type of moral shame and make grace for shame the dominent theological focus. Talk about turning the Western theological world upside down and Augustine over in his grave!

I have been rereading Ernest Becker's work (BIRTH AND DEATH OF MEANING, DENIAL OF DEATH, etc.) and find he was trying to create a unified social science view of the human condition using a shame-paradigm. He did not use shame terminology, but he describes anxiety using shame terminology. I believe his work has important suggestions about the positive/negative values of religion as a source of shame reduction.

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