#574: Overcoming Shame

+ a new essay on Mary and questioning drops at The Gospel Coalition.

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“My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague, and my nearest kin stand far off.” — Psalm 38:11

As the paradigmatic prayer of contrition, Psalm 51 has been justly afforded the honor of being read on Ash Wednesday. In it, David globalizes his sinfulness in ways that leave no part of his life exempt: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,” he says (v. 5).

Despite its merits, though, I think Psalm 51 does not capture the psychological torment of the shame that happens when we realize we are sinners in the hands of an angry God nearly as well as Psalm 38: 

There is no soundness in my flesh

because of your indignation;

there is no health in my bones

because of my sin.

For my iniquities have gone over my head;

like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.

While David reaches backwards to his origins in Psalm 51 to name the scope of his sinfulness, he here turns inward to his experience of his flesh: “My heart throbs; my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.” “I have become like a man who does not hear, and in whose mouth are no rebukes.” His vision, ears, tongue, and muscles have all become impotent: he has brought down death and destruction on his head through his iniquity, and his body has rebelled accordingly. 

David’s profoundly interior experience of shame is matched by a shift in his social circumstances, though, as noted by the verse quoted above: “My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague, and my nearest kin stand far off.” There are external foes as well, to be sure: some people lay in wait with snares to trap him and “speak ruin” all the day long. But such attacks are more easily borne if surrounded by a people, and David’s shame has intensified his isolation. He has become a social liability to them, someone who is ‘unclean’ because they have been touched by the “plague” of some grave moral transgression. 

It is tempting to try to escape the phenomenology of shame at work in this Psalm, as though it no longer mattered to us today. Christ has, after all, covered both our sin and shame on the cross, ensuring that we need need never feel what David articulates here.

This would be a mistake. The moral pedagogy of shame is not one we should or even can induce, I think. But I think it unlikely that we can experience a full and complete conversion without it. The sensation that we have become intolerable to ourselves and those around us is among the most potent, dangerous moral emotions we can have. But deep, substantive moral transformation depends upon it.

That is not to say that our experience of shame beneath the cross will be identical to David’s, though. In his weird and wonderful book Descent into Hell, Charles Williams describes what he calls the “doctrine of substituted love.” Drawing on Galatians 6:2’s admonition that we are to “bear one another’s burdens,” Williams depicts a character (Stanhope) taking on someone else’s fear so that they no longer have to suffer it. As he writes, “To bear a burden is precisely to carry it instead of. If you’re still carrying yours, I’m not carrying it for you—however sympathetic I may be.” There is no escaping both the task of giving up our burdens to others so we can carry others: “You must give your burden up to someone else, and you must carry someone else's burden. I haven't made the universe and it isn't my fault.” 

Something like the ‘doctrine of substituted love’ lies at the heart of how we can overcome the shame we experience at our wrongdoing. Only Christ can atone for our sins, to be sure: but he does so precisely by drawing near to us in them, reversing the alienation and isolation that David depicts in Psalm 38:11. As the author of Hebrews observes, Jesus “despised the shame” of the cross for our sake. In willingly accepting the shame of the cross, he identifies with those who are shamed and shameful: he is “not ashamed to call [us] brothers,” even though we be touched within by the “plague” of sin. 

The knowledge that Christ identifies with us, that He is with us, in the midst of our shame empowers us to go and do likewise with our neighbors. The church might at points need to ostracize the unrepentant, to “not even eat” with the person who takes the name of “brother” but who is profligate and persistent in their rebellion (1 Cor. 5:11). Yet we can trust a community to undertake that difficult work well only if they regularly practice the opposite impulse by gladly and freely associating with those who are contrite and shameful. If Christ is not ashamed to call us brothers, we ought not be ashamed to call others the same. 

Shame destroys our interiors, causing our bones to melt and our faces to hide from the gaze of others. We escape its oppressive force not through self-talk or self-willing, but from the outside-in. As we behold in our mind’s eye and heart the gaze of God looking at us, accepting us as one who is not ashamed to be affiliated with us, the light will rise to our eyes and our strength will return. And as our friends and neighbors risk their good names and reputation by affiliating with the shameful, we will regain the social esteem that is so central to our flourishing. 

The only thing we can do with our shame, then, is feel it to the very bottom before we give it away and allow others to carry it for us—lest it consume us in the end.

Called into Questions Updates

I have a new essay up at The Gospel Coalition this morning on the differences between Zechariah’s question and Mary’s question in Luke 1. I am bold enough to think it one of the better “takes” on the matter available. An excerpt:

How we discern fidelity in questioning is a hard question. Paradoxically, Zechariah’s sophisticated display of his vast learning gets him into trouble: his fearful anxiety moves him to reach deep into Scripture for what he thinks will be the right response, even though it is not. By contrast, Mary tries to find her way through a strange moment: she speaks her question in her own voice and words, and in doing so reveals the burning fire of her love for God. Questions aimed at understanding are rarely, if ever, the wrong kinds of questions to ask.

I had a terrific time talking with Keith Plummer about CiQ. He is a great reader and had unique questions about the book.

And this might be my favorite reader review so far (from Goodreads):

I purchased this book for an upcoming Seminary class on Spiritual Formation. The first chapter asserts that "God has called us into the questioning life" and that "questioning well... can make us more more awake -- more alive and discerning -- in the spheres to which God has called us."

In subsequent chapters, we are drawn into how God calls us into a questioning life and how we might consider when and how to ask questions. There is no prescriptive formula provided as there are many nuances to a given circumstance. Instead, several examples are shared for consideration, drawing on Scripture to express good and bad questions.

Matt Anderson also comments that we live in an age when doubt "has become the currency of the highly educated." He talks at length about healthy questioning in faith contrasted to doubt, which is "a double-mindedness, an indecisiveness and instability in our desires and practical judgments."

This book does not provide an easy self-help solution to asking better questions, but it does encourage the reader to biblically understand the power of questions. We learn through both Scriptural and modern examples of how questions impact others and how we might demonstrate better discernment in our questions.

This is a book that would be most beneficial in supplementing discussion with other believers. And a book that one should use to examine their own questioning life rather than just reading quickly through and setting on a bookshelf. I found myself underlining several passages, which I have already turned back to reflect on. Considering how crucial questioning is -- not just in gaining knowledge and understanding -- but also in building relationships, I think this is a book well-worth reading and reflecting on.

It’s not too late to tell a friend about the book or leave a review.

Around the Web

Why is the IVF debate different in the United States than Europe? Abortion politics dominate everything.

It turns out, the online “tradwife” phenomenon might not be very healthy. Who would have thought?

What is casuistry, and why does the church need it? We took up the subject on Mere Fidelity. If you want to know what I am up to in this newsletter, it’s a good episode to listen to.

And speaking of, if you have a practical question that you would like to consider, respond to this email. I might take it up in the form of ‘Pro et Contra’—for and against, in which I lay out multiple paths as a way of helping you discern a path through a complicated situation.

The Penultimate Word

“In the resurrection of Jesus Christ the claim is made, according to the New Testament, that God’s victory in man’s favour in the person of His Son has already been won. Easter is indeed the great pledge of our hope, but simultaneously this future is already present in the Easter message. It is the proclamation of a victory already won. The war is at an end—even though here and there troops are still shooting, because they have not heard anything yet about the capitulation. The game is won, even though the player can still play a few further moves. Actually he is already mated. The clock has run down, even though the pendulum still swings a few times this way and that.” — Karl Barth