The vocabulary for honor and shame is difficult for Westerners to keep straight, not least because though we still use the terms honor and shame, we use them differently.
First, shame is not negative in honor/shame cultures; shaming is. Technically, in these cultures, shame is a good thing: it indicates that you and your community know the proper way to behave. You have a sense of shame; if you didn’t, you would have no shame. You would be shameless. This is different from being shamed. When an older American asks, “Have you no shame?” they mean, “Don’t you know the proper thing to do?” When one is censured for not having a sense of shame, for being shameless, then one is shamed.
We know that all this can be confusing. But remember that languages tend not to have words for ideas that are not considered important. Since honor/shame isn’t important in English, we are lacking in the words we need. Make no mistake, though: shame is important. It was why the Jewish officials killed Jesus. They didn’t kill him for going around preaching “love one another” or for healing the sick or for performing miracles. They killed him because he had taken their honor—a limited resource.
Actually, the Spirit uses both inner conviction (a sense of guilt) and external conviction (a sense of shame). While the ancient world and most of the non-Western world contain honor/shame cultures and the West is made up of innocence/guilt cultures, God can work effectively in both.
First, shame is not negative in honor/shame cultures; shaming is. Technically, in these cultures, shame is a good thing: it indicates that you and your community know the proper way to behave. You have a sense of shame; if you didn’t, you would have no shame. You would be shameless. This is different from being shamed. When an older American asks, “Have you no shame?” they mean, “Don’t you know the proper thing to do?” When one is censured for not having a sense of shame, for being shameless, then one is shamed.
We know that all this can be confusing. But remember that languages tend not to have words for ideas that are not considered important. Since honor/shame isn’t important in English, we are lacking in the words we need. Make no mistake, though: shame is important. It was why the Jewish officials killed Jesus. They didn’t kill him for going around preaching “love one another” or for healing the sick or for performing miracles. They killed him because he had taken their honor—a limited resource.
Actually, the Spirit uses both inner conviction (a sense of guilt) and external conviction (a sense of shame). While the ancient world and most of the non-Western world contain honor/shame cultures and the West is made up of innocence/guilt cultures, God can work effectively in both.
- E. Richards & Brandon J O'Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes:
Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible, 2012.
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