Loss of Shame: The New Norm in Society

By Dr. E. Douglas Lee

The cultural atmosphere is changing so rapidly, it is becoming difficult to maintain perspective and understanding with so many variations. Riots are called peaceful, and only a certain group such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa matter; they demonstrate to defund the police and law enforcement who protect them. Babies are killed in the womb, and it is justified as women's rights. Illegal drugs, which are destructive to the mind and the body, are now legal and accessible. God's plan for marriage between a man and a woman is blatantly disregarded to accommodate same-sex marriage, transgenderism, and the LGBT movement agenda. It is now permissible for transgender males to compete in female sports. Our young people are a confused generation who have no ethical or moral compass. This thinking comes from the organizations who have no concept or morality or compassion and deny that there is a God. If anything makes them feel ashamed of their motives or sinfulness, they "cancel" it with the goal of changing culture.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685268015

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Loss of Shame: The New Norm in Society

Chapter 1: What Is Shame?

Chapter 2: What Is Guilt?

Chapter 3: What Does the Ten Commandments Tell Us about the Law?

Chapter 4: The Biblical Moral Laws of God

Chapter 5: Moral Education

Chapter 6: Society and Shame

Chapter 7: The Blame Game

Chapter 8: Moral Narcissism

Chapter 9: Spectrum of Cultures: Guilt, Shame, Fear

Chapter 10: Loss of Decency and Shamefulness

Chapter 11: Who Counsels Whom?

Chapter 12: What the Bible Teaches Us about Shame

Chapter 13: Survey: Shame

Chapter 14: Shame, Regret, Remorse, and Contrition

Chapter 15: Where Did We Lose Shame?

Chapter 16: Cancel Culture

Chapter 17: Pedophilia: No Shame

Chapter 18: What Is a Moral Compass?

Chapter 19: Honor-Shame Culture in Biblical History

Chapter 20: How to Conquer the Feeling of Unhealthy Shame?

Chapter 21: Shame and Guilt and Its Harmful Effects on Health

Chapter 22: Conclusion

Biblography

About the Author

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Loss of Shame: The New Norm in Society

Dr. E. Douglas Lee

ISBN 978-1-68526-800-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68526-801-5 (Digital)

Copyright © 2022 Dr. E. Douglas Lee

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books

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Chapters

Acknowledgments

To my home church, Mill Creek Baptist Church: thank you for believing and partnering with Diane and me in the vision of church planting and training young people for the ministry in the Philippines. Without your prayers and financial support, we would not be where we are today. Thank you, students, staff, and faculty at the Baptist Missionary Association Bible College in the Philippines for your love and support.

To our son and daughter-in-law, Jarrad and Christy Lee: you encouraged us to follow a twenty-four-year dream of being a missionary in the Philippines and for teaching our grandchildren the importance of following God's will.

To our grandchildren, Abygail and Michael Streaker, Coleton, Ann, Grace, and Jarran Lee and to our great-grandchildren, Ariat and Ember Streaker;140 Thank you for understanding the importance of following the will of God, no matter the sacrifices and challenges. Be the very best in the Lord's ministry you can be.

To my sweetheart, Diane, and wife for fifty-two years: you have been by my side every step of the way, always encouraging and supporting me in whatever and wherever God has placed us, standing together in the hard times as well as in the good times. With the help of God, you and I have accomplished things in our life that few people will ever experience. When we put the two brains together, we may have one good brain! Love you with all my heart.

Introduction

Loss of Shame: The New Norm in Society

If a word makes a person feel shame, our society has shown its willingness to change the name, so as it will not make that person feel ashamed or affect their self-esteem. Bad habits are called lifestyle choices. Wrong is now labeled inappropriate. Promiscuous has been changed to sexually active. If a person is a pedophile, he is more accepted by using the term minor-attracted to label him. Society has become so attached to themselves until they do not want to know the truth. If truth is recognized or may have a shameful connotation, society is ready to re-label or reinvent it in a lesser iniquity. Sin is made acceptable by sugar-coating it and ignoring the consequences.

Where does this craziness stop? It stops when parents become parents and children are taught respect for others. It stops when our society turns back to God and obeys His commandments.

Looking at shame through the biblical view, condemnation and consequences follow sin. We are condemned in sin when we are born. "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:18). What is shame and how to deal with it? Shame puts our focus inward to view our entire self in a negative light. Feelings of guilt result in a concrete action from which we accept responsibility. Guilt will cause us to focus our attention on the feelings of others. When God created man, He built into him the understanding of right and wrong by giving us a conscience. Satan has distracted the truth and directed people to not feel shame. The good news is there is forgiveness and restoration through Jesus Christ. When we accept Him, the Holy Spirit indwells in us and guides us in our decisions. Changing culture does not solve the problem, it only intensifies the situation and moves on without solving the problem. To get to the root of the problem, we will go back and look at history and what the Bible says about shame and guilt and shine the light of truth on this crisis that has affected the cultures in times past and even more so in today's culture.

Chapter 1

What Is Shame?

Shame is a consequence of sin. Feelings of guilt and shame are the subjective acknowledgment of an objective spiritual reality. Guilt is judicial in character; shame is relational. Though related to guilt, shame emphasizes sin's effect on self-identity. Sinful human beings are traumatized before a holy God, exposed for failure to live up to God's glorious moral purpose. We see this first with Adam and Eve in their sinful condition. Their reaction was to hide from God, and maybe from each other.¹ And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees in the garden (Gen 3:7–8).² Shame is a word in the Scriptures usually bound up with a sense of sin and guilt. All through the Scriptures, it is figuratively set forth as a wild beast, a Nessus-garment, a blight, a sin against one's own soul, a symbol of Hebrew abomination. It is associated with defeat, reproach, confusion, nakedness, everlasting contempt, folly, cruelty, poverty, nothingness, unseemliness, them that go down to the pit.

The Greeks manifest shame as the divine judgment upon sin, the very worst that a Hebrew could wish for on an enemy was that he might be clothed with shame. Shame was the portion of those who were idolaters, who were faithless to Yahweh or who were unfriendly to themselves. Shame came upon Moab because he held Israel in disrespect. They shall howl, saying, how is it broken down! How that Moab turned the back with shame! so shall Moab be a derision and a dismaying to all them about him Jeremiah 48:39.³

Throughout and beyond conditions of the grave, the biblical revelation is greatly uncommunicative. Here and there are hints that shame waits upon the wicked there and hereafter. This kind of expression is found in the book of Daniel 12:2, And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.⁴

Shame is a powerful emotion that can cause people to feel defective even to the point of feeling beyond repair. Most confuse shame with guilt. They are related, but a different emotion. When one feels shame, they have the feeling that their whole self is wrong. When a person feels guilty, they are making a judgment that something they have done is wrong. When a person feels guilty about a wrong thing they did, they can take steps to make up for it. But feeling convinces them that they are the thing that is wrong, offers no clear-cut way to a defined way to feeling more positive about oneself.

There is one difference between shame and guilt and the way they are defined. The effect of shame, and the behaviors it can cause, are far more important.

From the day a person is born, they begin learning to feel that they are okay or not okay, whether they are accepted or not accepted in their world. A person's self-esteem is shaped by their daily experiences of being praised or criticized, lovingly disciplined or punished, taken care of or neglected. A person who grows up in an abusive environment can easily get the message that they are undeserving, inadequate, and inferior. In other words, that they should feel ashamed.

Intense feelings of shame can take hold of a person's self-image and create a low self-esteem. It often stems from what other people think. The person may become super-sensitive to what feels like criticism and may feel rejected by others. Inside they feel painful self-contempt and worthlessness. There is evidence that serious problems can occur when shame gets deeply woven into a person's self-image and a sense of self-worth.

When a person has deep-seated shame and low self-esteem, it may motivate them for many destructive behaviors, including substance abuse, eating disorders, road rage, domestic violence, and many other personal and social abnormalities. They are also likely to feel shame, especially if they blame themselves for what happened. People with borderline personality disorders (BPD) and having deep-seated shame may account for a higher rate of suicidal behavior and/or self-injury.

Shame affects men differently from women. It is believed that men with shame-based low self-esteem tend to act out, through anger and violent behavior toward others, and women to act in, by turning their feelings inward and hating themselves. To understand the act out and the act in, we must first know the symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms which may vary from person to person. Women are more likely to have this disorder than men. Some of the common symptoms of BPD include the following:

Having an unstable or dysfunctional self-image or a distorted sense of self (how one feels about one's self)

Feelings of isolation, boredom, and emptiness

Difficulty feeling empathy for others

A history of unstable relationships that can change drastically from love to hate

A lasting fear of abandonment and rejection, including high emotional reactions

Intense moods that can last for several day or just a few hours

Impulsive and risky self-destructive and dangerous behaviors

Hostility

Unstable career plans, goals, and aspirations

Many people experience one or more of these symptoms, but a person with BPD will experience many of the symptoms consistently throughout adulthood. One of the ironies of this disorder is the people with BPD may crave closeness, but their intense and unstable emotional responses tend to alienate others, causing long-term feelings of isolation. While BPD exist in people, it is possible for them to learn how to manage feelings and find ways to have a healthier and more rewarding relationship. With the help of talk therapy, one can learn how to reduce impulsive and self-destructive behaviors and understand more about their condition.⁵

The New Testament expands on the concept of shame. A disciple of Christ stands with Him unashamedly in the world that finds the cross and God's ways offensive to the world. Hebrew 12:2 states, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.⁶ Suffering for Christ is the identification we have with the glory of Christ, not shame. Acts 5:41 states, And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.⁷

When one professes Christ and openly rebels against him, the work of Christ is publicly shamed. Christians must be diligent to renounce shameful behavior, though tempting, because of its hidden character. Shame is a godly motivator. A virtuous life shames the ungodly, providing a context that condemns their ungodly actions.

The beginning of shame started in Genesis 3:7, "And the