Dealing with the Toxic Power of Shame

It’s a part of my heritage that rears its ugly head on occasion. It is still a factor in my life—often an unrecognized factor. In spite of all the work I’ve done to overcome how it has shaped my life, it can still blindside me, knocking me off balance.

Truth be told, it can be found in the heritage that came down to each of us. It is, after all, embedded in our culture. Yet, for most of us, it’s an unrecognized, unacknowledged reality of life. Unrecognized means it is unaddressed. Unaddressed means it still wields power in our lives outside of our awareness.

This sinister power is called shame.

Shame is commonly linked with guilt as in the phrase “guilt and shame.” There is, however, a significant difference in the two.

Guilt is the sense of wrong associated with behavior. It stirs inside us whenever we violate some societal, moral, religious, or legal code. Guilt is the emotional pain we feel that calls us to recognize, acknowledge, and address the violation. Its purpose is not to condemn—although it is frequently used to do so, especially in religious circles. Rather, it calls us to right the wrong—to change the wrong behavior so that we conform to the code that was violated.

Shame operates on a much deeper level. Whereas guilt is about behavior, shame is about who we are at the core of our being. It is about our identity—how we think about ourselves. Shame is the message that we are fundamentally flawed and no good. Its intent is to defeat us by telling us we are incapable of measuring up and never will.

Guilt and shame are commonly linked together because our wrong behavior—our failure to measure up to the societal, moral, religious, or legal code—triggers shame’s message that we are no good. Our conscience uses our failure against us, using it as evidence that we are a flawed person who will never measure up. We are judged—by our own selves—as no good. Deep in the core of our being, we live with the belief that we are worthless. We have no real value.

This internal battle which we wage against ourselves is fueled by our shame-based culture. Our society operates on accepted codes of behavior—cultural, moral, religious, legal. We are judged by how we conform to these established, unquestioned codes. The problem does not lie in the codes themselves. The problem lies in how we deal with the inevitable violation of the codes.

Ideally, the failure to live up to an established code calls us to address the behavior. It is an opportunity to teach and train—a proverbial learning opportunity. It invites us to explore what prompted the behavior so we can address the cause, not just the symptom (the behavior). This way of dealing with wrong behavior requires time, patience, curiosity, self-awareness and self-management, compassion and understanding, interest in the person who is in the wrong. It places a greater priority on the person who is in the wrong—particularly his/her growth and maturity—than on his/her conformity to the societal code.

Not surprisingly, our society has taken the easy way out in dealing with wrong behavior. We use shame to address the wrong, using it to motivate the person to try harder to do better. We shame the behavior and the person who did it. This pattern frequently begins in our families but is reinforced throughout our communities—in our schools, churches, social groups, and friendship circles. Growing up, how often were we told “Shame on you!” (I’ve heard this statement in a worship service!) This shame-based way of confronting wrong behavior had the unintended result—hopefully it was unintended—of communicating “you are no good, worthless. You’ll never amount to anything.” We unconsciously internalize this message, using it to shame ourselves. Until we recognize and address this shame-based message and the deep-seated shame from which it comes, we live out of a shame-based identity. “You are no good—worthless. You’ll never amount to anything.”

How do we deal with this toxic message that is rooted deep in our psyche? Why does it lie outside our awareness, wielding its power?

Any number of reasons contribute to our lack of awareness of this shame-based message and our shame-based identity. A primary reason is we have worked hard to avoid the pain this message causes. Avoiding is how we have dealt with the toxic message of shame.

Many of us have become strict enforcers of a particular code, advocating its importance, doubling down on our efforts to conform to it, attacking those who violate it. (Think of those who function as the moral and religious policemen in our society. They are generally rigid, black-and-white thinkers who wear their conservative identity with pride.) Our conformity allows us to avoid the shame-based message spawned by any violation of the code. At the same time, it also blinds us to ourselves, particularly to our attitudes and spirit—the internal realm which Jesus identified as the real source of our wrongdoings (Mark 7:14-19).

Others of us run from the old message by seeking to achieve and succeed. We attempt to offset the shame-based message, using our achievements to refute the deep-seated message that we will never amount to anything because we are, at the core of our being, no good. This strategy plays well in our success-oriented society. This strategy, however, carries numerous downsides. Those of us who embrace this strategy live with a deep fear of failure. We avoid it like the plague. We hide our weaknesses, not just from others, but from ourselves as well. Our identity becomes tied to our work as the means of our achievements and success. We become workaholics. We live out of a persona designed to elicit admiration and praise from others. We feed off of attention, recognition, and applause.  

A strategy all of us use to avoid our internalized, shame-based message is judging and condemning others. This common human trait is based upon comparing and competing. Whenever we condemn another for how they have failed, we not-so-subtly imply that we are better than them. Focusing on the other’s wrongdoing keeps the focus off our own weaknesses, struggles, and failures. I believe this strategy explains our society’s use of shame to address wrong behavior. Condemning and shaming another person allows us to support our own fragile identity by saying “I’m not like them. I’m better than them.” In doing so, we boost ourselves at the other’s expense.

Of course, there are some who surrender to this shame-based message. They live out of a no good, never-amount-to-anything identity. They under-function in life, never developing or living up to their potential. They live in dependency upon another—generally a spouse who enables their under-functioning. Many of them numb out their pain with addiction to alcohol, pot, drugs, sports, hunting-fishing, entertainment, shopping-spending-buying, etc.—or a combination of these escape mechanisms. (I’m reminded of a family member who said to me, as he reached for a beer, “I’m just an old drunk.”) Could it be that Christianity’s focus on sin, confession, and repentance is just a religious version of this pattern?

How does the message of Jesus address and resolve this shame-based message and our shame-based identities? That’s the focus of next week’s blog. 

When, Not If, We Fail

It’s another thing we all do. It’s an inherent, unavoidable part of our human condition. No one is exempt.

We fail.

Failure is a part of being human.

Any number of factors—all dimensions of being human—can cause us to fail. We don’t have the knowledge to do what is demanded or the training or the skill or the experience or the strength at the moment. Sometimes we fail because of a lack of interest or motivation, a lack of aptitude or self-confidence, a lack of focus or energy.

Because we are human, we are always in process. We are always facing dimensions of life that are new. Each stage of life brings its own set of experiences which are different from those of the previous stage. These new experiences often translate into challenges—things we are having to learn to do as we do them. As a result, we sometimes—often—fail at doing this thing we’ve never done before. Think about a toddler learning to walk.

Because we are human, we live with limitations. We do not have a limitless capacity of anything. We run out of energy and have to refuel. When we are physically or emotionally or intellectually tired, that is, when our energies are low, we struggle to do what we can normally do with ease. As we struggle, we fail.

Relationships often are the most challenging dimension of life. Inevitably, the emotional needs and expectations found in any relationship lead to failures that cause pain for ourselves and others.

Failure is a part of our relationship with God. We call it sin, an archery term meaning to miss the bullseye. It means we fall short. We fail to measure up. We fail to live the ways of God. This failure is commonly viewed as an act of the will—a choice to follow our own way rather than God’s, to trust our own wisdom rather than the wisdom of God, to disobey God’s directives rather than obey them. Again, we all do it. According to Genesis 2 & 3, it is part of our human story.

Because we are human, failure is inevitable, an unavoidable reality with which we must deal.

The problem we face is not that we fail. The problem lies in how we deal with failure.

In our production-driven, success-oriented culture, failure carries a stigma. It is viewed as an indicator of inadequacy, of weakness, of inability to measure up. It translates into being less than or no good. In short, the way we have been trained to deal with failure is with judgment and condemnation, with guilt and shame. We have been trained to shame ourselves for our failure—particularly for our sins.

Because of this shaming, we avoid any appearance of failure. We create a persona that hides our weaknesses or any sense of inadequacy. We seldom let anyone get close enough to know our struggles, much less our failures. We certainly don’t let anyone else know our sins. We often blind ourselves to them—particularly the sins of a critical spirit and judgmental attitude.

How we have been trained to deal with failure produces isolated, lonely lives filled with superficiality. To compensate for the isolation and loneliness, we fill our lives with busyness. To compensate for the superficiality, we pursue status symbols that communicate success. We carry around what Jung called our shadow—those disowned parts of our lives that we view as unacceptable and shameful, that we don’t want others to know.

The way we have been trained to deal with our failure, coupled with our fear of it, has blocked our ability to embrace the way God deals with our humanness, including our failures and sins. God relates to us out of grace. That grace is expressed in the forgiveness of our sins.

God’s grace and forgiveness offer us a different way of viewing and dealing with failure. They treat failure as a normal part of life. Even sins are an expected reality.

The psalmist expressed this understanding: “(The LORD) does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities,” Psalm 103:10. Because the LORD relates to us out of steadfast, faithful love, God forgives our sins, Psalm 103:11. “As far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion for his children, so the LORD has compassion for those who fear him. For he knows how we are made; he remembers that we are dust,” Psalm 103:12-14. God recognizes our in-process, not-yet-mature nature.

God’s grace and forgiveness free us to honestly face our failures, including our sins, rather than hiding them. They allow us to accept the in-process nature of our humanness without shaming it. They grant us the opportunity to learn from our failures and, yes, from our sins. That learning leads to growth. God’s grace and forgiveness remind us that God’s desire for us is emotional-relational-spiritual maturity, not our culture’s demand for productivity and success. As we grow, as we mature, we will naturally live out of our gifts and strengths. We will contribute to the good of others—the kingdom’s definition of productivity and success.  

We readily speak of the grace of God, but we struggle to live out of it. We don’t like to fail.

The Voices in My Head - Discerning the Voice of God

We all have them—these voices in our heads. Not only do we all have them, we all generally listen to them, allowing them to shape our mood in the moment if not our outlook and disposition on life.

Which raises a question: do we ever think to challenge them? Do we ever think to reject what these voices say?

To ask the question a different way: how do we discern the voice of God in our minds (spirit)?

My question is based upon several assumptions.

The first assumption is the Spirit of God speaks to us. The role of the Spirit is to teach us spiritual truth (John 14:25-26; 16:12-15; 1 Corinthians 2:10-16). The Spirit’s role is to guide us in living out that truth (Romans 8:14; Galatians 5:16-18, 25).

This first assumption naturally leads to the next. We can discern the Spirit’s guidance. We can recognize the voice of God speaking to us through the Spirit. Because God speaks to us through the Spirit, we do not normally hear an actual voice with our ear. (While some claim to have heard such a voice, that has not been my experience.) Rather, we discern a movement in our spirit—in the interior realm of the heart.

This second assumption leads to a third: recognizing the voice of God requires discernment. Discernment involves thinking, reflecting, evaluating, and choosing. The Greek word commonly translated as “discern” carries the idea of cutting through. We cut through the surface of what we hear (the content, the message) to the underlying spirit and intent of the message. Discernment goes beyond the surface to the deeper level of spirit and intent. Discernment calls for intentionality. It generally requires being still in order to sense and reflect on the Spirit’s guidance.

Perhaps the most important assumption is that Jesus is the standard we use to discern the guidance of the Spirit and the voice of God. What the voice of God says to us will always align with what Jesus taught and how Jesus lived. Jesus is the in-the-flesh-embodiment of the character of God. He lived and taught the ways of God. Thus, what the Spirit teaches us and how the Spirit guides us will always align with the life and teachings of Jesus.

These assumptions bring us back to the voices in our heads. The voices in our heads are seldom—if ever—the voice of God. A couple of reasons contribute to my confidence in making this statement.

The voices in our heads are rooted in our formative years. Their messages reflect the training we received from our family and the society in which we grew up. They are the internalized voices of the authority figures who shaped our lives. Their voices continue to tell us what we need to do and be if we want to be accepted and valued. They communicate the expectations of culture, not the ways of God. Thus, they seldom echo the voice of God.

In addition, the messages these voices speak to us invariably communicate condemnation and judgment. They are shame-based and shame-inducing messages. They are about our failure to measure up to or conform to social, moral, or religious expectations. They are about how we didn’t do it right—our behavior.

The voice of God never speaks condemnation, judgment, or shame. John 3:17 explicitly says “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world.” The apostle Paul, in Romans 8:1, proclaimed, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Grace and forgiveness, not condemnation and judgment, are the way God deals with the failures inherent to our human condition.

Condemnation and judgment are the ways of the adversary, the one the Bible calls Satan and the devil. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the being called “Satan” was a member of the heavenly court (Job 1:6-7). His role was to identify how people failed. Although it is commonly translated as a name, the word in the original is a noun with the article “the.” A more accurate translation is “the accuser.” The word carries the idea of adversary or opponent—the one who is against us, the one who accuses us. The Greek word translated as “devil” means “to throw against” as in throwing accusations against another.

Thus, the voices that communicate condemnation and judgment—whether the voices in our head or in our churches or in our culture—reflect the spirit of Satan, not the Spirit of God. Their intent is to shame us into trying harder to do better, through self-effort.

In contrast to these voices, the voice of God—the guidance of the Spirit—will always speak grace and forgiveness. God’s grace and forgiveness free us to face, acknowledge, and deal with how we fail to measure up. They allow us to learn from our failures and thereby to grow from them. The intent underlying the Spirit’s guidance is the transformation of our lives—our growth in Christlikeness. The Spirit always leads us into deep, inner peace—the peace of Christ (John 14:27)—that frees us to love as Jesus loved (Galatians 5:21-22).

So how do we deal with the voices in our heads? We follow the example of Jesus. In the temptation experience in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11), Jesus recognized the voice that was speaking to him was not the voice of God. It did not reflect the spirit or the intent of God. What it said went against the teachings of scripture. Consequently, Jesus challenged the voice and rejected its message.

Like Jesus, we recognize the voices, acknowledging the messages they communicate. Rather than letting their messages create our mood in the moment or the outlook of our lives, we allow them to point us back to the grace and forgiveness of God where we find peace. Recognizing them, we turn to God, seeking to discern the guidance of the Spirit.

“Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit,” Galatians 5:22 (NIV).

Where We Go Wrong in Discerning the Will of God

 During the past year, The UMC has splintered as members who identify themselves as conservative have chosen to disaffiliate from The UMC. (Disaffiliation is a fancy term meaning “leave.”)

I use the term “splinter” as it reflects the reality of what has happened. The UMC did not split, as into two opposing groups. It splintered. Those who chose to leave did not all chose to become Global Methodists (the new denomination created by those who spearheaded the conservative position in the conflict). Some became independent. Others associated with other Methodist groups. Others started new Wesleyan coalitions.

The identified issue that has fueled this fifty-year conflict and current division is the place and rights of LGBTQ+ people in the church. Every group involved—those who chose to leave as well as those who chose to remain United Methodist—believes they have discerned the will of God regarding the issue.

Here’s the thing about this conflict and splintering (as well as every other conflict that has resulted in division in the church): they can’t all be right! Both sides cannot have discerned the will of God about this issue. Which of the opposing views accurately reflects the will of God?

The answer depends on who you ask. Each side believes they know the will of God regarding the issue.

This controversy and splintering illustrate where—I believe—we go wrong in seeking to discern the will of God. What we identify as the will of God is determined by the standard we use to consider the issue.

In this controversy—as well as in most religious controversies—those of us involved used two primary standards. Those two standards determined the conclusions we reached. (Read that again.) In choosing to use these two standards, we chose their predetermined conclusion. Ironically, we used these standards without stopping to identify them or discuss if they were the appropriate standards to use. They were merely our default standards—the ones we always use in dealing with such issues.

The first standard we use to determine the will of God is a moral standard.

Moral standards identify what behavior society or some group has identifies as right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable. They are passed down from one generation to the next, taught by families, schools, churches, and community organizations.

Moral standards are part of the lifeblood of religious groups like churches. They are the means by which church members identify themselves, the means by which they evaluate themselves and others. They are often the basis for acceptance or rejection, for praise or condemnation and judgment. Moral standards are such a natural part of the life of a religious group that they are seldom questioned. They are accepted as “what we believe.”

Moral standards are a simple way to determine the will of God. The will of God is clear—whatever the moral standard identifies as right and acceptable behavior.

The simplicity associated with using moral standards to discern the will of God often masks the problems associated with them.

Moral standards call for black-and-white, right-and-wrong, either-or thinking. They do not allow room for the complexities that are an inherent part of any moral issue—what are commonly called “the gray areas.” (A friend suggested that “prism areas” is a better descriptor than “gray areas.” Prisms refract the light, showing the many spectrums that create the light.) Black-and-white, right-and-wrong, either-or thinking fosters the rigidity associated with a closed mind. This kind of thinking does not allow for questions, exceptions, exploration, learning, or growth.

Moral standards primarily focus on behavior, ignoring the interior realm of the heart. Jesus identified the heart as the real source of moral issues. “For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within” (Mark 7:17-23). The way to deal with wrong behavior is to address what is in the heart. Moral standards almost universally ignore this reality.

Those choosing to use a moral standard to determine the will of God did not have to discern the will of God. It was predetermined by the moral standard they chose to use.

The second standard that was used to determine the will of God in this controversy was the Bible. People on both (all) sides of the issue quoted the Bible to support their position. Because they could quote the Bible in support of their position, they viewed their position as the “biblical” position and, thus, the will of God.

As with moral standards, using the Bible to identify the will of God creates its own set of problems.

The Bible is an ancient book (actually, a compilation of books), written from a Near Eastern, prescientific perspective. It reflects the understanding of God and the ways of God by numerous individuals. It reflects the work of editors who compiled and refined materials that span a period of twenty-five hundred years. Some materials challenge and refute the understanding offered in other books. (The book of Job, for instance, challenges the theology that runs through the wisdom literature, particularly Proverbs and some of the psalms.) A variety of progressions in understanding can be identified in the Bible.

All of these factors—and more—mean we can’t just quote what the Bible says to support our position. The Bible must be interpreted using the best resources available to us, using our best thinking.

One of the factors in this controversy was how the Bible was viewed and used. Some gave equal weight or authority to every verse of the Bible as though every verse reflected the will of God. They failed to recognize the differing levels of revelation and spiritual understanding that are found in the different parts of the Bible. In doing so, they often exalted the teachings of the Levitical law over the teachings of Jesus. They used the Bible as though it, not Jesus, was the fullest revelation of God and of God’s will.

Using the Bible is an important part of discerning the will of God, but it is not the primary standard to be used.

I believe these standards that were used to determine the will of God regarding the LGBTQ+ issue is where we went astray in seeking to discern the will of God. They allowed us to confuse our will with God's will. A different, more reliable standard is needed.

I believe the character of God and the ways of God that grow out of that character are the standard that we are to use in discerning the will of God. The will of God will always be an expression of and align with the character of God. It will always reflect the ways of God.

Jesus is the in-the-flesh embodiment of the character of God. Jesus lived and taught the ways of God. Thus, the will of God will always reflect and align with the teachings, life, and ministry of Jesus. Jesus—not the Bible, not any moral standard—is the fullest and final revelation of the will of God.

Note that using the character of God and the ways of God alongside the life and teachings of Jesus calls of thinking. Discernment involves thinking—thinking shaped by the character of God and the ways of God, under the guidance of the Spirit.