Shame and Christianity: Navigating Faith, Identity, and Healing with Dr. James Honeycutt

Have you ever felt the weight of shame in your spiritual journey, wondering how it affects your relationship with the divine? Dr. James Honeycutt joins us to navigate the delicate interplay between shame, faith, and identity. Together, we peel back the layers of this complex emotion, from its biblical roots in the Garden of Eden to its impact on our modern lives. Discover how shame can both challenge and deepen your connection with God, and find out why understanding the difference between guilt and shame is crucial for your spiritual well-being.

Embarking on a candid discussion, we share personal stories that reveal how early life experiences and parental relationships cast long shadows over our openness to the Gospel. Dr. Honeycutt, with his profound insights, helps us tread the fine line between healthy self-reflection and the paralyzing effects of shame. We also tackle the sensitive subject of church discipline, balancing the need for accountability with the nurturing of a compassionate community. Learn how to foster an environment where vulnerability meets emotional safety, allowing for genuine transformation.

Wrapping up, we delve into the vital role of social norms like confession and transparency within trusted circles, addressing the psychological underpinnings and potential pitfalls of oversharing in an age of social media. As we ponder the cultural narrative around shame and its place in personal growth, Dr. Honeycutt's expertise shines a light on the importance of discernment and maturity in our faith walk. We close with an invitation for you to join the conversation, welcoming your questions on living an authentic Christian life amidst the challenges of shame.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

All right, welcome back to the God Attachment Healing Podcast everyone. If you have been joining for quite a while, thank you Because you know this podcast. When I first started it actually it was called Create to Connect and then it moved to the Genesis of Shame, which is interestingly, the topic that we're going to discuss today, and then now, obviously, god Attachment Healing, and so it's been great. It's been a really good learning experience and I've been able to interview some great people, like my friend here, dr James Honeycutt, and we're going to talk about the impact of shame on one's relationship with God, the positive and the negative impact of shame on one's relationship with God, the positive and the negative. And I guess, thinking about that, like, what are the positive effects of shame in our relationship with God, or the negative effects of that, and we'll talk a little bit about that. But before we begin, if you have been listening to the podcast, please leave a review, share with your friends, share this episode.

Speaker 1: 1:01

I think this one's going to be one that Christians are going to want to tune into, because there is a lot of shame attached to one's Christian walk, whether that be because of past mistakes, whether it be because of, maybe, something that's currently happening in their lives, or maybe just feeling rejected by God because of the bad things that they have done. So yeah, so we're going to jump into this topic feeling rejected by God because of the bad things that they have done. So, yeah, so we're gonna jump into this topic. The shame the positive impacts and the negative impacts of shame in our relationship with God. Jim, what came to mind you know I presented this is not something we've talked about before. This is something that's new, maybe, to our conversation about this, and I'm wondering what popped into your mind when I talked about the positive and negative impacts of shame.

Speaker 2: 1:49

First of all edit out.

Speaker 1: 1:50

Jim, because I don't go by, jim, you said Jim, did I say Jim what I didn't say James, no, you said Jim, I never call you, jim, I don't Wow. No, it's James. Yeah, please.

Speaker 2: 2:08

If you're going to do that, do it privately not when you're doing a podcast, when everyone's going to start calling you that. So, yeah, so obviously, the idea of shame you're you're mentioning it, like we presume there is a positive as well as a negative aspect to shame as well. So I think that also something else to keep in mind. Mind. It's going to matter based on the person's upbringing, right, cultural christian denominations yep, some of them are going to accent that a little bit more than others. Uh, yeah, it's a big topic and it's one that we see a lot, of course people coming into counseling, uh, struggling with guilt, struggling with whether or not they can embrace a faith, if they're even worthy to have a relationship, or to be a Christian or whatever it may be. That is something we see frequently. So I agree, it is a problem.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Yeah, yeah, definitely a problem. In the Christian life and even outside of Christianity as well. People know what shame feels like. People know what shame feels like. People know what guilt feels like, and the way that I usually distinguish them is guilt is the acknowledgement that I've done something wrong. I did something wrong and I'm feeling bad about that, and shame is saying that you are that thing, whatever it is that you are, so you take it on as an identity. And Brene Brown talks about this. So she's done a lot of research on that aspect of shame and she says basically that those are I am statements, I am this evil action that I did right. So I think, when we talk about shame within our relationship with God, we got to go back to the Garden of Eden and see what happened there. Can you give us a just a brief summary of how sin entered the world and then we can go from there and feedback on what shame looks like.

Speaker 2: 3:57

Well, I think all of us will remember, you know, kind of Christianity 101, the sense of we were created to be in relationship with God and we were given everything available to us. But, as in any relationship, there are boundaries, and God expressed this boundary as far as what our ancestral parents were to do and the things they weren't to do, and as we have struggled throughout our existence, humanity wants to be God without God, right, and so this idea of easily deceived by the serpent in the garden and we read about this in the first chapters of Genesis, when humanity was deceived and essentially brought sin, death, suffering, into the world, but breaking that relationship with God. It looks like you got your Bible pulled up.

Speaker 1: 4:51

Yeah, I wanted to kind of read this passage. So we're made for relationship with God. Then Eve and Adam and Eve eat from the fruit. And then what happens after that?

Speaker 2: 5:05

God seeks them out, they recognize immediately, of course, that something has changed, something ontological has changed within their person, and they recognize their nakedness for one thing. And so there's immediately this sense of things have changed, things have shifted within them as people. We read shortly thereafter that God is seeking them out in the garden, and there's this exchange of course with placing blame, as we're very good at doing, and of course you know, adam blames the woman, the woman blames the serpent, and then, of course, god basically relays to them, as a result of these choices here, the consequences that you've brought upon yourselves. And so that, of course, begins this very long story, which lasts throughout all of scripture, of God working to redeem humanity from choices that they have made, and humanity experiencing the consequences of our actions in various ways, whether it's natural disasters and disease and death, whether it is our own animosity towards our fellow man and then also within ourselves and, of course, the demonic forces as well. So we fight these battles on all these fronts.

Speaker 1: 6:15

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I wanted to read through this passage in Genesis 3 because that's obviously where this starts. And again, I mentioned this earlier. But the second podcast they started was called the Genesis of Shame and it stemmed from this aspect of what happened at the Garden of Eden, and I'm going to read from verse 8, because that's where this aspect of how shame influences our relationship with God. You know, you mentioned God's softened out. Look what they did in verse 8. And they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and then man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord, god, among the trees of the garden.

Speaker 1: 7:01

So this is essentially what happens when we experience shame. So, for those of us who are believers in Christ, when we experience shame, what it does? It moves us to hide ourselves or to run away from God, because it takes on this aspect of whatever it is that I did. God can't forgive me for that, because it is exactly who I am Right, and this is where a lot of Christians confuse guilt with shame. When we do, when we sin against God, we are convicted by the Holy Spirit, which should lead us to repentance, which means that we have to then seek out God. God's there, he's waiting. He may even come to us, as we see here in the Garden of Eden.

Speaker 1: 7:42

But if we take on this aspect of shame here in the Garden of Eden, but if we take on this aspect of shame where we now say, this is unforgivable, this is who I am. God cannot change me, he cannot forgive me for what I've done, that's going to push you away from God. It says verse 9,. But the Lord, god, called to the man and said to him where are you? And he said I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. Again there's this fear that God's going to respond a certain way and again it kind of moves us into this aspect of hiding and I think that's what shame does. It makes us hide ourselves from the light, because the light exposes something about us.

Speaker 2: 8:22

Yeah, absolutely. I think that you know and of course we read about that in the New Testament this idea of those who live in darkness want to remain in darkness because when they are exposed to the light, then their deeds become revealed before everyone else. So I like how you're categorizing the difference between guilt and shame, and I've heard that expressed before in other podcasts and readings and things like that. Do you think, in light of what you're saying and maybe this is something we're going to get to in a moment, but it sounds like guilt you would understand then is justifiable guilt where we acknowledge and recognize that a breach has occurred in law, relationship something like that secular or spiritual and we feel what would be an appropriate reaction to it and then, as you said, seek to make changes for restitution as a result. That's healthy guilt. Shame is more, as you said, personalized, so kind of keeping that in mind, in the sense of the distinction there, when would you ever say shame would be healthy? Or would you ever say that Good.

Speaker 1: 9:25

So this would be this positive aspect of shame and this negative aspect of shame. So you said you want to know the positive aspect of shame.

Speaker 2: 9:37

Yeah, because based on the way that you categorized it and I've heard that before and I like it. I'm maybe initially kind of wondering where you're going with this as far as how we're going to get around to any potential positive aspects of shame.

Speaker 1: 9:48

Yeah, yeah, no, that's good. So what are some of the common shame messages that people often hear, especially when it comes to our relationship with God? Is this aspect of I am broken or I am not good? And then we include one of probably the most common one that's used not good enough, right? And we had to look at where those messages stem from.

Speaker 1: 10:10

And again, because we're speaking about God attachment, we go back to attachment and we look at how one's relationship with their parents kind of formulated this idea that someone is not good enough, or that they are worthless, or that they're unlovable, right? So that's kind of this idea like if someone disobeys their parents, right, they feel bad because they were disobedient. But then there's other aspect of I'm unlovable because I was disobedient. So they take on this identity of being unlovable because they were disobedient and again, maybe the parents would push them away when they were disobedient. They didn't want to connect with them. So then, as they grow older, they start to see their relationship with God in that same way I did something wrong against God, I committed a sin, sam, I don't deserve to be in God's presence, god doesn't really love. So they take on that aspect. Now, when can it actually be positive? The only time, or probably one of the most crucial times, is when someone is not a believer because they take on that part of their identity where they're saying, because of these things, I'm unlovable. They're in the perfect position to be able to receive the gospel, god's message.

Speaker 1: 11:20

That has been different from anyone else. As Christians we have a different understanding of God, so I don't know if it's going to play to that strength. Like I'm not, I understand God differently than someone who is not a Christian because we're indwelt by the Holy Spirit. But I'm curious to hear kind of your thoughts on is that a clear enough distinction between the two, where only those who are not believers, they take on so many different identities. Right In the sense of I, am this right? One of the things you see, I guess, with AA meetings is I'm an alcoholic or a recovering alcoholic, so kind of this identity piece that matters to them which then moves them towards change. Right, keeps them humble and keeps them humble. So there's this aspect too. Does that keep me humble in my relationship with God, where I don't think of myself as holier than thou?

Speaker 2: 12:16

I appreciate you kind of breaking that down because it reminded me of a story when I was shortly after I became a Christian. There was a young lady that I knew and worked with and I was excited as a new Christian of was a young lady that I knew and worked with and I was excited as a new Christian, of course, sharing my faith and talking about it, and she tolerated me for a little bit and she finally turned around and said I don't need God. My life is good.

Speaker 2: 12:36

And that was shocking because, you know, of course, I was very excited to have found God in my early 20s and, you know, I was having my whole way of conceptualizing things change, and so when she said that, it kind of dawned on me to your point, sometimes we have to be in that place of brokenness before we can humble ourselves and be open to maybe there's more to it, or maybe I need to look outside of myself for this sense of fulfillment. Um, you know, of course, to look outside of myself for this sense of fulfillment. Yeah, Now, you know, of course, to play devil's advocate, a lot of people might say well, that's when you're most vulnerable to being brainwashed by you know other philosophies or something, so you could kind of play both sides on that.

Speaker 2: 13:17

My personal experience, it was when I did feel this sense of emptiness in my life, kind of like the wisdom literature talks about. I tried all these things and they're all bad.

Speaker 2: 13:29

It's essentially nothing really panned out to be truly satisfying. That's a little bit more understandable than sometimes when I talk to people who've grown up Christian, not having that experience of them going to the DBS and different churches, growing up and having that consistency. How would shame ever show up in their life in a healthy way, if at all? Because you said really you're thinking more about like the unbeliever, so would. For those who are growing up in the church and pretty much feel like they've been Christian their whole lives, would this even come near to them at all?

Speaker 1: 14:13

a sense of a healthy shame? Yeah, I think it would. I think it would too, because that's all they've ever known Growing up. That's all they've ever known. And what you'll often find is you know the aspect of you're a sinner, right, you don't deserve God's grace. God gives you grace in order for you to be saved, which is true. Right, there's this aspect of we don't deserve it, and I am a sinner. But sometimes the focus becomes so much on that aspect of being a sinner and not so much on being redeemed. And I think, for those of us who grew up in the church, and I think for those of us who grew up in the church, what we feel more is the times that we mess up. Right, because our identity is so much engulfed in. We are to become like Christ. That's our goal.

Speaker 1: 14:55

Anytime that we sin, there's heavy levels of shame, experience Like I am this because I sinned against God. So it's almost like it throws you into a cycle where you can never get out of it. Like you, just, instead of focusing on the aspect that you're still the son of God now, you're just focusing on this other aspect where no, I'm this over here. This is much worse. I don't deserve God's mercy. So I take on the identity of being undeserving. I'm undeserving of God's mercy, so I don't know where I would find the balance there.

Speaker 1: 15:22

I think actually that's one part where I struggle with sometimes is, you know, it's good that I'm reflecting on this aspect of I know that I'm not worthy of God's favor and God's mercy. But not falling into this aspect of that's all of my identity. When I do mess up and I think it goes back to the garden, Does it move you to pull away from God or to push closer to him? I think that's kind of the line that I'm looking at is, if it pushes you away from God, it would be unhealthy shame. If it pushes you toward God, it will be healthy shame, because both of them make you realize something about your relationship with God. Something's off. Guilt is the acknowledgement that I did something wrong. So you're there. But then, when we start to creep into, oh no, this is my identity now, this is who I am and therefore God can't love me because of that right. That message stems from somewhere else, and typically from our upbringing with our parents.

Speaker 2: 16:16

Yeah, and I can't help but to. I know we're talking about God, for example in the church and religion and things like that, but I'm also I can't help to kind of think of examples, maybe from family culture as well, where there might be an aspect of shaming and ostracizing individuals for what the family or the culture or you know, maybe a non-religious element, even though we might say that the moral or the I guess the goal we is, it's a moral, positive thing that the family's trying to preserve some tradition or some um I don't know, some particular teaching or whatever it may be in the sense of you know people being ostracized from different communities and you know that sense of shame.

Speaker 2: 17:01

It's not specifically religious, but wanting that person to feel deprived, yeah, community, wanting them to feel some sense of loss of relationships. Not only from that, maybe their immediate family but other surrounding people can now treat them differently because there's this ripple effect yeah in the hope that that social pressure will convert them and bring them back you know what I mean?

Speaker 1: 17:24

yeah, it, but it does change behavior, I think. So the purpose of shame from a cultural perspective is to change behavior. The question is is change behavior change the heart? And so the the message is I'm going to shame you so you can change your behavior. And if behavior is all you want, then you can get that right. I could shame my kids into doing something that I want, Like, oh you know, you don't love me because you're not going with me to the store, or whatever the case is right. So you shame them for something that they don't want to do, or whatever the case is.

Speaker 1: 18:05

It's not a sin, but that's how we. Shame is used to control people's behavior, but it doesn't change people's heart. So, in that sense, what's the word that's used in Scripture? Godly sorrow brings one to repentance, right, but that's not the same thing as shame, that's conviction. So I think oftentimes we may confuse those two things. So that's why I try to delineate between. Guilt is the acknowledgement you did something wrong. Shame is taking on the identity of you being unlovable or you being not worthy of being forgiven, and so on. But yeah, what are your thoughts on? Are there positive aspects of shame as you conceptualize it and you've thought about shame before or is it just all negative?

Speaker 2: 18:40

Or mostly negative. Again, I like that distinction. You know what brings us closer to God and what drives us away. You know changing behavior versus changing the heart. I think that's a really important distinction as well. And you know, of course, when we were talking about this topic, what kept coming to my mind was from passages in the New Testament where, for example, you know, the Apostle Paul was talking about certain indiscretions. He's hearing about the letters of the church and he's saying you know, this is how you should handle it. I'm thinking of the one specific example I think it was in Corinthians when the guy was having an affair with his mother-in-law, his mother-in-law, his father's wife, and you know he's like.

Speaker 2: 19:17

I've already judged this. You know we're turning him over to Satan in the sense of just dealing with that. Just dealing with that in the sense of you get the sense that, of course, actions like that are meant to draw them to repentance, and so I don't know, based on what we've discussed, if I would say that's just a healthy form of guilt you know, drawing them towards repentance, or if I would say that that would be one category of shame, right, how much of it is semantics and how much of it is based on how a student is choosing to define them.

Speaker 2: 19:47

Based on what you've said, I would say that's probably trying to put an impression of a healthy sense of guilt, to acknowledge this and drive it towards repentance.

Speaker 1: 19:55

And I'm thinking about even the cultural church today. They would look at that and they would say that's shaming, that's not right, he shouldn't have done that. So we start to question the scriptures and we say, oh well, if he's doing that, if you're shaming people, I don't think that's right. So then we just disregard scripture itself. So I think the way that you said it is it to bring that person back to repentance, and it sounds like this guy has probably already received the message. Hey, you know what you shouldn. And it sounds like this guy has probably already received the message. Hey, you know what you shouldn't be doing this and you still continue to.

Speaker 1: 20:44

Was shame involved in that process? So the question is did it bring the person back to God or did it push them away? So I guess that's what we can look at. Is it healthy if it brings people back to God? And I think the delivery makes a big difference. But sometimes we don't get things unless it's spoken to us in a certain way, you know. But also this aspect of shaming is seen in only a negative light, where certain behaviors and actions that people take are justified. For example, it could be something as like abortion right, don't shame the mother for doing what she thinks is right in her, in her eyes or for her own life. It could be even this aspect of divorce. Like you know, don't shame people who are going through that when sometimes you kind of need to feel that it could be the aspect of parenting or a child's bad behavior. Right, it's not shaming, it's correcting something. So maybe there's that aspect who's applying the discipline or who's addressing the issue and in what spirit are they? Are they doing that?

Speaker 2: 21:48

Well, and I think that's important because it it's like you said, it's not only the individuals who are doing the reprimanding, the, you know, the shaming or whatever.

Speaker 2: 21:55

it is your audience, it's the relationship to that audience in the context and the spirit in which it's done Right, and I'm reminded I believe it was in Paul's letter to the Romans when he was talking about judging those outside the church he said. He said I'm not talking about judging those outside of the church. He's like you know, you'd have to leave the earth entirely if you had to talk about dealing with people who are not in the church and how that, how that dynamic would play out. He's talking about, specifically, individuals who have the same commitments as Christians in Christ, and that that does change things, because it's about having a uniform witness to the world and, whether you call it shame or guilt, this understanding that there is a place for that when, as you said, it moves people back towards God.

Speaker 2: 22:40

That's what it's intended to do and we see examples of that, of course, throughout scripture, where there are times and places where there needs to be boundaries, there needs to be reprimands, there needs to be admonishment, and that's the word you usually see in scriptures, but this sense of admonishing not in this condescending better than you, in a sense of humility and you know Paul talks about that in a spirit of humility and gentleness, moving towards this sort of change because we recognize we ourselves are sinners, but as members of the church we can say we are all bound to the same rules and I'm not going to hold you to a different standard than I myself would be held. And at the same time this, I think, kind of dips into another topic that I think is very much related, of how are we doing church discipline? Well, in that regard, and.

Speaker 2: 23:36

I would honestly say that both my time, you know, in the church as a Christian but also as a pastor, you know, leading church ministries and stuff that has been something I think is so terribly lacking and teaching pastors and parishioners because, like you said, we live in a culture now where any type of healthy admonishment and holding people to standards and that that is, as you said, shame, that's inappropriate.

Speaker 2: 24:04

You shouldn't do that and you know of course that was consistent. I mean, people were excommunicated from the church all the time. You know you commit a public sin and if you want to be back in the church, you make a public confession in front of everyone Usually it was just a house, church or small group of people and then that person was brought back in. And when you live a village life where everyone knows everyone else's business, you can imagine how that might impact your day-to-day if your fellow Christians no longer are engaging.

Speaker 2: 24:32

This of course gets back into the whole shame and guilt piece there. So I think that today because we can say well, I don't care if you're going to try to admonish me because I'm cheating on my taxes or I'm cheating on my wife or whatever the case may be, I'll just go to the church down the road and they'll be happy to have me and to have you know whatever money I throw in their basket. So we've kind of lost that sense of accountability, we've lost what healthy church discipline looks like.

Speaker 2: 25:01

And I specifically say healthy church discipline because we do see lots of examples where there's unhealthy shame, where there is this, you know, almost cultish mentality that can leave people with a lot of spiritual burdens that then people like you and I have to try to work, you know, help them work through later in life. So I'll just pause there because I can really I could go off on a tangent.

Speaker 1: 25:21

No, keep going, Keep going. That's good, because I think we're essentially getting to is that there are these positive impacts of what shame does. But it's the definition, it's how we define it. The way that we're defining it in regards to how the church handles discipline is accountability, but people will call accountability today as shaming. So there is this aspect where I think we need to make that difference, because God does keep us accountable.

Speaker 1: 25:49

So imagine you say to yourself you've tricked yourself into thinking that accountability equals shaming. Then, when God holds you accountable, when your brothers and sisters hold you accountable, when your pastor holds you accountable, whatever the case is, you're going to feel. The natural inclination is to feel ashamed, right, because you're being called on something, the wrong thing, but you've taken it on as an identity, like it's a personal attack to you, when what's being addressed is the behavior. So if we address the behavior, you can be called back to repentance. But we naturally, right, we naturally are inclined to this hiding component, right that when Adam and Eve sinned, they immediately ran and hid. That's our natural instinct.

Speaker 1: 26:28

It's a natural inclination that we have whenever something is wrong in our lives. So we can see that in churches today, or maybe relationships with other brothers and sisters in the church, where, when something's being called out, you will feel ashamed. So we're not talking about feeling ashamed, we're talking about being actually ashamed for something. So, yeah, yeah, I think the way that we describe accountability today has been described as shaming I like how you brought that full circle, by the way, back to jesus exactly oh yeah, it takes me back.

Speaker 1: 27:02

It reminds me of of just how that whole uh process started is, um, yeah, shame is a. It's a natural thing for us to feel. We naturally want to take on the identity of something. Remember, with mental health it was um, there's now the more of a comfort with it. But your diagnosis, you kind of wear it as a little tag right, oh, I'm so-and-so and we were, we're proudly. But when it comes to other things that we do, you know we don't do that you know Well, and you're talking about hiding, you know, in the garden.

Speaker 2: 27:34

But I mean, even today, like think about how individualistic most of us are in the Western culture. It's so easy to come and go in a church or even certain Christian communities, be there a number for years and no one even know your name. Yeah, certain.

Speaker 2: 27:49

Christian communities, be their member for years and no one even know your name or add to it another level, the sense of like the pastor, and the people around me have no idea what I'm doing in my life. So, how can there be any sense of accountability, discipleship, mentoring, anything like that, when we hold our cards so close to our chest, when we are hiding from other people and you know, of course, we might reveal to a small little segment in our life, maybe our families and even that?

Speaker 2: 28:18

is so limited and people are so masterful in our culture here, maybe not in all the cultures where it's a little bit more communal, you know, and they might be too much in each other's lives. Right, it's the other extreme.

Speaker 2: 28:34

Yeah, the other extreme, but I think you know, especially here in America, Western Europe and other places where it is so easy to just disappear and hide and hiding those aspects of ourselves that either because we're afraid that there's going to be a sense of shaming and I might have a fragile sense of myself to begin with and I don't know that I can handle any type of critique and then also there's maybe this other side of them that we might justify. Well, I'm comparing myself. I'm not, you know, as bad as this person you know, insert here whatever terrible individual you want to insert.

Speaker 2: 29:12

And so I think that we have to recognize that that is not what we're called to. We're called to Christ-likeness. We're called that's what Christian means to be like Christ. So this idea that we, as Christian brothers and sisters, can we, in a spirit of humility and love, walk with each other, you know, admonishing each other, supporting each other, teaching each other, mentoring each other, and that image of the church, which is so clearly spelled out as far as its mission, is still shockingly lacking even in America, which is the most Christian nation by numbers. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:46

Yeah, so we don't get. So it's almost like we've allowed the culture to dictate how we do accountability, which is, don't get involved in people's lives, because people get upset, you're not supposed to mind your own business type of thing, and um. So for me you know, growing up here but also having the latino, latino background like for us it was like the smallest thing, like you do one thing and the whole church knows, and I hated that. Like you just felt the shame, right, you felt it. You're like oh great, you know, pastor knows about this, or now so-and-so knows about this.

Speaker 1: 30:16

So there is that aspect where I desired more independence, like maybe you don't need to know everything about my life, maybe I'll just keep more things to myself. And then there's the other side where that's all they've known. Like why are you getting involved in my life? Like this is not right. But we look at scripture. Oh, maybe it is. Maybe there's a healthy way to actually address these things that's going on in my life. So, depending on where you're coming from, if you're coming from an individualistic culture, you probably want to focus more on what does a community, healthy community look like? And if you're from a collectivistic culture, what does it look like to walk out my faith in Christ on my own. In the sense of that, I'm communicating with God, but he uses people in your life. So I mean it's. I think being a Christian, it's naturally ingrained that you're going to be in community. Would that be a fair statement?

Speaker 2: 31:05

Yeah, we're definitely created for community. That's definitely one of the goals. And you know that's hard for me to say because I'm a fierce introvert, and yet, you know, even if I can say no, no, that's an essential component of what it is to be a Christian. You know, and even you describing your upbringing of being in a very communal spirit, community in the sense of everyone knows your business, and I hear you talk about it with frustration in your voice like this.

Speaker 2: 31:42

It's like that's not a pleasant experience, and yet I have to believe that if everyone has gone through that in that community, that, yeah, you promote a community that would also be very hesitant to become too prideful yeah because everyone can reference mistakes that they know others have made, and say hold on now, I remember last year, or you know that's true yeah, and so it would keep everyone humble I was that's true accountability, true accountability, yeah, and you know there's a there's this lingering record.

Speaker 1: 32:06

You know by the community that no one can like stand above others and say that they're better in some way and and you know, and to that though I think it would it would emphasize more the behaviors, because then it would in some sense at least the way that I experienced it was it helped, help me or moved me to keep some stuff to myself and not share everything because I didn't want that to be known.

Speaker 1: 32:28

Well, my behavior was on Like it was whatever was required of me. I did so in that sense, but that could be more of a heart issue. I don't know if that's necessarily a community issue necessarily, but more of a heart issue, like, should I be open with just things that I'm wrestling with? So, again, going back to the empathy point, do people understand what I'm going to be going through? If I share this struggle, do people understand it and can they guide me in a way that's beneficial, that draws me closer to Christ? And again, those are opportunities where we reflect Christ, all the one another's. This speaks to this aspect of community. You can't love one another if you're not being around one another, right. So there is this aspect like community is ingrained into the Christian walk, and that makes the end of the New Testament.

Speaker 2: 33:14

Yeah, and I think that in that case that you're describing, you do have to have kind of concentric circles of social connectedness. You're going to have those closer to you that are going to be your confidants, your family, you know, people that you can trust. And then you might, you know, in the wider communities, have maybe other peripheral people in the church that you know and but maybe you wouldn't necessarily divulge your deepest secrets to. They haven't earned that level of trust yet. You don't know them that well. Now, of course, those are things that I would say.

Speaker 2: 33:45

In matters where it's personal struggles and sins, then you would just stick with your concentric circles, but still having social support to wrestle with those things. But I'm thinking more like in cases where there's a public sin that, as you said, just kind of gets around the community, and in those cases, of course, I think then you know some sense of public confession, public admonishment, publishing or a public change to where you, because then it's also a model for other people, like you know, look, you make a mistake. We're going gonna hold each other accountable in a sense of spirit, in a spirit of humility and love, as paul talks about, and yet being fully restored and moving on and the next week it'll be someone else.

Speaker 2: 34:22

Yeah that's a good point, that is something that people can see I think that it'll give us an appropriate and healthy sense of transparency when it's appropriate in communal context, but I think also balancing that, like you said, maybe not everything that I struggle with if it's not a public sin it's something I personally struggle with, then I need to prayerfully take that to God.

Speaker 2: 34:45

I'm going to have people in my life that you know are my confessors and that I take to. You know, like we talked about before, maybe older men in my life and I would say you know, for a male it would need to be a man. You know you don't want things like that to grow into some type of emotional connection. That's unhealthy. But you know, having those mentors and hopefully they have mentors and so on and so forth, we can pass that on, and hopefully they have mentors and so on and so forth we can pass that

Speaker 1: 35:10

on. Yeah, I'm curious to how people should interpret I want to say it's in James or Peter this aspect of confessing your sins one to another, and you kind of touched on it right now. Like there was a time, I would say maybe four or five years ago, where a lot of people would go on their social media and they would share the most vulnerable things about their lives like super vulnerable. And I was, I was thinking to myself I'm like this is not healthy because you're sharing deep personal things with people who don't know you. So there's a sense of of catharsis in that process, like I'm releasing all of this information but at the same time, you don't know these people.

Speaker 1: 35:50

And to your point about kind of keeping within the concentric circles, is you have to have people that you trust? If those people that you trust, what you're also trusting is that they're not going to share that information with everyone else, right. But if you're sharing it, this aspect of confessing your sins one to another, I think some people have misinterpreted that and feel like they need to share with everyone. So they take that approach and say, well, you know, I'm wrestling with this and again, it could be something that you can talk with those people who are actually involved in your life, like I don't feel comfortable sharing something that I'm wrestling with with someone that's not involved in my life. That doesn't make sense either, right? So the shame can grow in those circles where you don't feel safe. You don't feel like you can trust the people that you're talking to. That's why that circle is always smaller.

Speaker 2: 36:36

Yeah, and people who would share things on social media like you described. From a psychological perspective, we would say those people have loose boundaries. It's the individual who gets into an elevator or sits next to you on the bus and, before you get off, another whole life story and you're like I did not ask you this and yet they want to tell you everything about them. Yeah, that's someone who but?

Speaker 2: 36:54

why? Why? I wonder why they do that. I think it comes from a desperate need. All people desire to know and be known. I think you know, as you said earlier, we are created for community, and when people have a desperate lacking of that in their lives, or maybe they have a history where they don't feel seen, in some ways, there is an aspect of their personality that will sometimes grab the wheel of you know, control and do things like that, I'm going to throw caution to the wind.

Speaker 2: 37:25

I'm going to put the most vulnerable things about myself out there for the whole world to see. That, I would say, is even more extreme than, of course, the person in the elevator, the person on the bus, and you don't know how that ripple effect is going to come back around to harm them. I think they could be setting themselves up to be hurt because typically someone who would do that now I realize I'm making a sweeping generalization here If someone wants to be known that badly that they're going to put such a bunch of stuff out there.

Speaker 2: 37:51

I would imagine they're also quite sensitive to feedback and someone using that against them.

Speaker 1: 37:58

And increased shame.

Speaker 2: 37:59

Exactly, they're not going to have the resilience to deal with the blowback on them. So I would say that, first of all, in action in itself is not healthy, but also what it could reap will be unhealthy as well. The ideal you know. Getting back to what we're saying about, if you have personal struggles, if you have things in your life, as we all do, that are going to be chronic sins, things that you know to use a metaphor from early church they talk about. You know early sins and things that we commit kind of like a spider web. You know early sins and things that we commit kind of like a spider web.

Speaker 2: 38:32

You know start to wrap around us and they're easily broken. But if we don't address them, then over time it becomes like twine and it becomes like rope, and then it becomes like chains, and before long we realize that it's very difficult to break these bindings, because it's become so chronic in our habitual nature that we do have to find something outside of ourselves, of course with God. But it requires that vulnerability of confessing our sins to other people, and so I think that's why, when we read about that in the New Testament, it is really uncomfortable to go to someone else and say well, my brother or sister in Christ, here is where I am falling short, here's where I'm missing the mark.

Speaker 2: 39:13

And to be able to do that in a spirit of transparency with someone you trust and someone you know will use that information to your benefit and help keep you accountable, but also recognize that what you know, what you're sharing with them, is sacred. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 39:31

And being able to hold that confidence, but I think that that I have seen is not something that we are necessarily doing as well as I would like because, and I only say that based on our anecdotal evidence of working with college students. As you said before, they have all this access to social media and yet no other generation has expressed feelings alone as they do. Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 1: 39:59

It's a really good point. I think it just feels good to your point. I think that was wanting to be known, so they share everything out there and only the people who latch onto the hook are the ones that make it into that circle and even then it's still such a big circle that you still don't feel known Like that's the that. I think that's the reality of social media is that you think you're being known or you want to be known by all of these people, whatever 500,000 friends that you have. That you think and then really only two people respond. Three people respond and you're thinking to yourself even more lonely than what you initially thought would draw people in to ask you about you, to do these things. And yeah, it's really sad. You're right, the feeling of loneliness is due to not being known.

Speaker 1: 40:45

But we have our churches and we have our communities. I'm a big fan of picking one, two or three people, just three people that you can trust, keep them in that circle and share with them. Right, and obviously there's a history behind that. You've seen them be there for you through numerous times. So we're not saying completely close up so you don't feel shame, and we're not saying just open up to increase your shame. We're saying be selective about this process, be wise about this process and choosing people who can help you manage that Right.

Speaker 2: 41:14

Yeah, and I would add to it, because this is something I see a lot as well, is don't give up on the concept because someone has let you down. Yeah. Right. I mean, how many people have uh, I, I mean, I personally know a lot of people who would say, well, I've, I've written off that idea of community and I don't attend church anymore because this one instance occurred.

Speaker 2: 41:35

And this one person said or did this and it upset me, so I don't go to church anymore. And the same thing on a more individualistic level. You know I confided in this person and they broke my confidence. So I don't tell people about this stuff anymore.

Speaker 2: 41:47

I don't tell people about this stuff anymore, Don't let the exception, change what has been an honored and important teaching of the church that have been passed down to us over the centuries, and this idea of healthy, vulnerable transparency with people who can be trusted. Every single person that we select as mentors and confessors in our lives are not going to turn around and try to inflict unhealthy shame on us or that they're not going to break our confidence.

Speaker 2: 42:16

No, sadly that's going to happen occasionally and you know we just we kind of live and learn and move on and hopefully God can use that difficult event to bring something positive out of it. And you know it helps us grow in resilience as well to face those kinds of challenges. But you know that whole expression of throwing the baby out with the bathwater the concept itself is solid and it's necessary and the alternative is isolation.

Speaker 1: 42:41

Yeah, yeah, which which with time will increase one's shame, because now you start to believe that you're not really wanted by other people or by God. So we usually, I guess, filter our relationship with God through the people in our lives who call themselves Christians. Right, we say, well, this person's a Christian, they don't treat me that way, this person's a Christian. The pastor says this or so-and-so, and they're not the same. God is not us, he's perfect, he is present, he is good. So he desires those things for us and he provides that through, oftentimes through the church.

Speaker 1: 43:18

So I do feel sad for those who have experienced negative or had negative experiences in the church, but don't let that push you away from God Again. The healthy shame is going to be this acknowledgement of I've taken on a wrong identity, that's not who I am in Christ. So that should draw you back to God, back to his word, back to prayer, back to community, in order to restore that relationship, anything that pushes you in the opposite direction. And again, look at your, not just your behaviors, but also your heart. Where is it leading you towards? Because you can numb shame, there could be something that you should feel ashamed, and you can numb that and then feel nothing. And then now, when you sin, you're just like, oh, it's nothing. We slowly numb ourselves to the impact of sin in our lives.

Speaker 2: 44:05

Yeah, we can certainly inoculate ourselves and, like you said, to the point that we are not shaken in the way that we should about certain behaviors. And you know I should probably mention this. We're talking about confession and we're talking about shame and things like that, and I acknowledge that it's going to be based on somebody's upbringing or culture, which we already kind of talked about as well, but also their particular denomination, because if someone's coming from, like an Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic or Lutheran Anglican, all those traditions that I just named, there is historically in those traditions the understanding that someone should confess to their pastor, and I think that if that someone feels that they have a good relationship with their pastor or like, depending on the size of the church, they even have access to a pastor.

Speaker 2: 44:50

I know many people you know over here, here at the university. They go to these parishes or these you know different non-denominational churches. There's thousands of people and it's like well, I'm lucky to get like the assistant pastor's assistant.

Speaker 2: 45:02

Yeah, it's really not going to get to the pastor yeah and so you have to kind of gauge that and keep that in mind If you have a good relationship with your pastor, as the individual who is the God-ordained shepherd of that community and, just like a father of a household, has a sense of responsibility to God and will be answerable to God on the day of judgment for how he led his flock. And so I think, if that is a possibility, I would certainly encourage someone to have their pastor as a confessor, and I also recognize that that can make it even more difficult because they don't want their pastors seeing them in a negative light. And now would I say that you should be your only confessor?

Speaker 2: 45:44

No, of course not. And would I say that there's examples of pastors who will use unhealthy shame on the members of their community, absolutely, and I would say, if that's the case, then that person should not be within that concentric circle closest to you. They have to, you know they have to by their rank and by how they've earned it warrant us going to them to disclose those things. And when I say rank, I don't mean just because someone is a pastor or a priest or a bishop or something like that. That in itself ideally puts them in a place where they have been trained and experienced to do this well, but it's not always the case and I have found that some of the most gentle, loving, wonderful people to be confessors in our lives are individuals who have little to no formal education in religion, but they've got experience and they have taken their sanctification process seriously and how they've grown as Christians themselves.

Speaker 2: 46:46

Essentially, you want to have someone that you can go to confess to, someone that you want to grow into. Someone that you say, like Paul says follow me, as I follow Christ. Yeah, yeah. And so we want to seek out those people.

Speaker 1: 46:59

And I know I know we talked about this in an earlier episode but how they um the people that you're wanting to to learn how to trust is how they handle suffering too.

Speaker 1: 47:11

Right. I think that's a big part of it, because part of the christian life is that you will have tribulation. So how did those people that you're wanting to connect with, how did they handle suffering? Because that then gives you the opportunity to see okay, they handled that in a way that I want to reflect Christ. That's one. But secondly, it's going to remove the shame from knowing that you feel like you've messed up or feel like you've done something wrong, and still you see people pushing forward and I think that's been encouragement to me of people in tough times that they realize or accept. You know I could have done things different or I did mess up, and I'm moving forward in this direction and that, for me, has been an encouragement too. So, seeing people suffer, as painful as it is to go through that process, seeing them, it's always good to see how God is able to restore that relationship.

Speaker 2: 48:07

Yeah, you know, there's a quote that I remember from when I was in the military and I tell the interns and even clients sometimes, you know, and I I remember it because it's just, it's something that I have found later in life applies to the spiritual life as well and it was written on the dorms of, you know, military barracks. It was written on the wall. They said sweat more in peace, bleed less in war I love that quote.

Speaker 2: 48:28

Yep, oh yeah, I love it more in peace bleed, less in war and so kind of. On this topic you're talking about of suffering and other things and shame individuals who are, as I mentioned before, really taking that sanctification process seriously. They've experienced loss. They've experienced you know their own struggles. They they've had both good and bad confessors. They've talked about these things and know what it is to experience healthy guilt, and maybe you know shame unhealthy shame or positive shame as well and by their practicing these things, when struggles, when suffering, when these things come, they're well prepared for it, just like a soldier who would train hard, or an athlete, a musician when you practice hard, you're training hard so that when the time for to put it to the test, you're ready and I think that gets you know. We've talked about spiritual disciplines. We've talked about these us in the way that god intended for us to have mentors admonish us and keep us honest and aware, but also, at the same time, not to break us down yeah, yeah, I think you referenced that earlier.

Speaker 1: 49:47

I think, uh, I think galatians 6, where it talks about those of you who are more mature in the faith, something to the effect of confront those who are weaker in the faith and build them up, but then after that it says bear you one of those burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. So there is that aspect is that when something is confronted, that person is also willing to walk with you as you reach restoration. So those are good things to keep in mind. Shame is a very real thing and it's a very deep, deep feeling. It's a bad feeling, but one of the ways that you want to distinguish from it is is it pushing you closer to God or is it pulling you away? And when people implement certain practices to shame you about something, see, is this conviction or is this me wanting to pull away from God, wanting to hide? So it takes a lot of self-awareness and self-reflection to be able to know that. So if you haven't done that, it's going to be more difficult.

Speaker 2: 50:46

I think.

Speaker 1: 50:46

But if you have a good sense of awareness, if you're allowing the spirit to lead you, I think you'll be able to tell the difference between those two. You can't experience shame unless you've experienced guilt. Right Guilt says something was wrong. Shame is I am or I become that thing and therefore God can't love me, he can't reach me or others can't be around.

Speaker 2: 51:06

So yeah, and to jump off of what you said about this idea even if people say things that prompt a strong reaction within us, do we have the wherewithal to say is there any truth to what they say?

Speaker 1: 51:19

Yeah, good point.

Speaker 2: 51:20

Yeah, and that can be difficult to do. I think it takes an emotionally mature, spiritually mature person to say, oh, that really triggered me at the same time, maybe the things are triggering me. Triggering in me are the very things that I need to work on and you know this idea of kind of looking at that and I hope, if the listeners take nothing away from today, just this idea that we've come back around again and again, is we live in a culture that says any form, any feelings of guilt, any sense? Of shame is negative.

Speaker 2: 51:49

It's all couched in this kind of negative light and that is often the message that we hear. And yet we see the Christian witness and in scriptures and throughout the history of the church, is this, you know, idea that no, there is a place for it.

Speaker 2: 52:02

You know there is a healthy way that that can look in our lives and, in a sense, as long as it's coming from people who love us and it's coming from a place within ourselves that we can say this is going to help me grow and I have an accountability, not just to myself, my relationship to God, but to my Christian community, what I represent in the world and you know, no man is an island in the sense that, like people look at me and they're going to think of the church because I proclaim that I'm a Christian, and so in that sense, my actions bear witness to the faith in general, and so I have an obligation to reflect that in my life, and so other people in the community who share the same beliefs as I do.

Speaker 2: 52:44

We have accountability to one another and a responsibility to one another. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 52:49

To build each other up and encourage each other yes. One another yeah. To build each other up and encourage each other yes, but also to call each other yeah on our failures and to say hey, that's not what we're about, that's not what we represent, and to be there to walk with us through that transition yeah, you, us feeling bad about something that someone says to us is not a good indicator of whether or not it was healthy or not right, because we feel bad about, you know, dumb things.

Speaker 1: 53:16

Sometimes Someone could look at us a certain way and we feel rejected, you know. So the way that we feel is not a good indicator of whether or not it's healthy or unhealthy. It's what is it pushing you towards? Right? You're coping right. If you have a situation that made you feel bad and you turn to a vice, then that's probably not a good, healthy way of coping. But if it pushes you to talk to a friend or a close brother or sister in Christ, then that's a better way of coping. So, kind of, look for those things as you think about shame. Right, you're going to feel bad. It's a natural inclination when someone says something that we don't agree with or that we don't like. But the actual measure of it is is it drawing you closer to Christ, closer to the Christian community, or is it pulling you away from that? And I think if we do that, we will be able to deal with shame in a healthier way.

Speaker 1: 54:07

This was a good conversation. Yeah, way, this was a good conversation. Yeah, I didn't know, not scripted. We didn't know where we're going. We just ended up here and it sounded like a great job, so we'll see. Oh, so I shouldn't have been reading that off the wall.

Speaker 2: 54:16

No, I had no idea where you were going with this tonight, but I think we got into a lot of very uh adjacent topics that very much inform the topic of guilt and shame. You know whether it's uh. You know church discipline or how we deal with our own personal lives and mentors and people. We seek out.

Speaker 1: 54:32

Yeah, and I think that's what you mentioned about the cultural piece too. Oh yeah, that was important.

Speaker 2: 54:36

Yeah, because I think that a lot of people, even outside the church, will experience a sense of shame and what that looks like, even if they're not religious necessarily.

Speaker 2: 54:44

But I do agree with you that the penultimate experience of what that's meant to be is most beautifully seen in the church, in the sense that God might use these things to draw us back to him, and whether that's suffering in a community that's, you know, exiled us, because we are doing something that's outside of the pale of what it is to be a Christian, or because, you know, we recognize within ourselves that we're struggling with certain things and, instead of hiding and come back again to the genesis example, uh, that we have to be transparent with the right people, yeah, who will help get us back on the path no, I think.

Speaker 1: 55:23

Um, I think we covered all the questions that came up and I hope that this is a blessing to you guys. Thank you for tuning in. You know I want to do an episode where you guys can send in some questions. I haven't done that yet, but send in some questions and try to answer them and I'll say hey, you know, here's a question that's come up. Shame is one that often we see in counseling, especially for those who grew up in the church, but yeah, so I think that's where this whole episode is going to go. Brother, appreciate you, thanks for doing the episode and we look forward to seeing you next time. Take care, guys.