Ministering in Honor-Shame Cultures: Biblical Foundations and Practical Essentials

by Jayson Georges

I have shared with my sister many times that God forgives her sins, but she just says her shame is too great for God.”

A foreign culture is like the night sky—initially fascinating, but quickly daunting without a configuration to meaningfully connect the dots. Amateur stargazers see stars, but miss the constellations. Honor-shame is like the lines between stars; they give meaning and structure to life. Westerners rarely get honor-shame dynamics; they seem foreign.

Zacharias’s attempt to end his own life was motivated by shame, not depression.

When social reputation is the basic foundation of life and identity, people’s pursuit of respect, honor and status frames every facet of life.

As morbid and evil as the ISIS ideology is, it reflects an inescapable reality—humans crave honor and abhor shame.

Though designed to experience God’s true glory, our honor was exchanged for shame in the Garden of Eden. As a result, humans crave honor and grasp for it in warped and destructive ways, apart from God’s original design.

this is key: we seek honor but in warped ways.

“Shame cultures rely on external sanctions for good behavior, not, as guilt cultures do, on an internalized conviction of sin.”

Village elders would even stop children at play and require them to recite their family lineage back seven generations.

They determine identity, define family, confer status, identify potential spouses and establish social rank. Genealogies function as a manual for life by defining the boundaries of honor and shame.

The Bible consistently reveals God’s heart to honor the shamed.

For the church to fulfill her mandate to “make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19) and “present everyone mature in Christ” (Col 1:28), a biblical missiology for honor-shame contexts is crucial, due to several global realties.

Western society is like a computer running Linux—its cultural “operating system” has a minority share of the global market.

significantly for Christian witness, cultural context influences how people experience sin (i.e., as guilt, shame or fear) and conceive of salvation (i.e., innocence, honor or power).

In 1900, 82 percent of all Christians were white; by 2050, about 80 percent of all Christians will be nonwhite.

a significant demographic statistic.

Western theology has skillfully applied God’s truth to the needs of its specific cultural milieu—characterized as individualistic, rationalistic and guilt-based. For example, Augustine and Luther, significant voices in Western theology, wrestled through seasons of introspective guilt.

First, unbelievers hardly sensed personal guilt nor desired forgiveness of their sins. They disregarded my traditional evangelistic presentations as illogical or unintelligible.

the removal of shame and the restoration of honor lies at the center of God’s salvation.

Shame is not just a social issue plaguing human relations, but a spiritual reality separating us from God as well. Ever since the fall, humans have been in a state of shame. But in Christ, our honor is restored as we enter God’s family.

Honor and shame are not merely cultural themes laced through the Bible, but are foundational elements to rightly understanding biblical salvation.

To help define the “gospel,” we examine two primary aspects of salvation in the Bible—status reversal and group incorporation.

“Virtually every culture in the world contains concepts of both guilt and shame, including the pressure to conform to certain group expectations as well as some kind of internalized ideas about right or wrong. The difference is not in absence of shame or guilt, but rather in how dominant these tendencies are.”1

In shame-based cultures, acceptable behavior is defined by ideals from the community. You must be the person others expect you to be.

Because shame leads to exclusion and rejection, the primary response is to hide or cover the shame. If others are not aware of the issue, then shame does not exist.

Guilt-oriented cultures do not simply emphasize rules and laws, but socialize people to internalize them into a person’s conscience.

Honor-shame cultures do have morality, but their basis for defining right and wrong happens to be communal and relational (not legal or philosophical). For them, what is best for relationships and honors people is morally right; what shames is morally wrong.

Guilt is removed when a person confesses wrongdoing and makes restitution.

Guilt says, “I made a mistake, so I should confess,” but shame says, “I am a mistake, so I should hide.”

Managing shame is essential because a shamed person (unlike a guilty person) can do very little to repair the social damage.

Overcoming shame requires a remaking or transformation of the self. One’s identity must change, and this happens only as their relationship to the group changes.

That usually means a person of a higher status must publicly restore honor to the shamed, like the father graciously did for the prodigal son in Luke 15.

Honor is a person’s worth in society. Honor is essentially when other people think highly of you and want to be associated with you.

Think of honor as a social credit rating measuring one’s reputation.

Parts of the human body symbolically demonstrate honor and shame in many ways: the right hand purveys honor with gestures like touching, waving and shaking; the head embodies a person’s honor so is kissed and crowned; face is a metonym for honor; feet are the lowest and dirtiest part of the body and thus symbolize disgrace; private parts signify the shame of vulnerability and desecration; and one’s blood transfers honor and is often the price in transactions of honor.

body parts that convey honor or shame.

Royal families exemplify ascribed honor par excellence. Royalty is hereditary.

Prince George and LeBron James represent the extremes of both types of honor—one is entirely ascribed, the other entirely achieved.

Shame means other people think lowly of you and do not want to be with you.

That is shame—being despised and rejected by the community.

as exemplified in job.

Shame is connected to exposure and rejection before peers or those in authority. Shame causes someone to “lose face,” taking away their identity and value.

In the New Testament, we see that many recipients of Jesus’ grace bore some type of ascribed shame—for example, Gentiles, Samaritans, the bleeding woman, blind, deaf, lame, lepers, demon-possessed. Their shame stemmed from congenital social realities beyond their control.

Even though the experience of shame will be painful, we can affirm a group’s shaming when (1) the action in question is something God would consider shameful, and (2) the intent of the shaming is restoring the person to right living and right relationship with God and others. This “reintegrative” shaming is restorative and temporary.

Collectivistic societies define people by their relationship to the group. A person’s honor and essential nature is bound to the group they enter at birth (i.e., family, ethnicity and country). The group possesses a collective honor that individual members access and share.9 People are expected to be true to the group, not true to themselves.

God is the essence and source of all true honor. The Creator emanates glory and splendor from his very being. God’s honor is neither achieved nor ascribed; it simply is. So being made in the image of this glorious God, every person and every nation covets the true honor that was lost in the Garden of Eden.

The superior patron provides material goods to a client, and the client repays with nonmaterial goods such as loyalty, obedience or gratitude.

In exchange for financial provision, the client becomes socially obligated to repay the patron with social capital.

Patronage in collectivistic societies means the materially rich provide survival and security to clients in exchange for honor and prestige.

Honor, not money, serves as the primary currency facilitating the transaction of goods and services. Around the globe, leaders at all levels (e.g., the president, a mayor or a family elder) operate according to the precepts of patronage; benevolence ensures respect and allegiance.

Alisher’s effusive thankfulness as a client not only baffled me but also really bothered me. Only after several years did I learn how to respond appropriately.

People in honor-shame cultures communicate indirectly. Words are for the purpose of managing relationships and social identities, not presenting information.

key understanding here.

Harmony takes priority over ideas. Truth in communication is defined relationally, not logically.

Indirect communication is a strategic technique for minimizing shame.