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

by Jayson Georges

Unaware of these honor-shame dynamics in communication, a Western person may regard indirect communication as lying or deception. When absolute honesty is a virtue, indirectness seems immoral and conniving.

Time is not a schedule to be followed, but a relational opportunity. Time functions as a social tool for conferring honor (or shame). The more important a person is, the later they arrive at gatherings. To show their status, the most important people arrive last.

Purity implies the right thing in the right place. Defilement, or pollution, indicates the wrong thing in the wrong place.

Every culture deems certain times, places and actions to be “sacred cows”; doing those things is what it means to be “us.”

Properly observing such purity codes helps a person remain socially clean. But associating with unclean objects or people pollutes and defiles. Defilement disqualifies a person from the community—the ultimate mark of shame, as we often see in the Gospels with lepers, Gentiles or prostitutes.

Many cultures expect women to avoid shame through modesty and discretion, and expect men to compete for honor in the public arena.

Westerners bristle at social roles. They violate our sacred ideals of autonomy and individual expression; everyone should “be themselves.” In an egalitarian culture, gender distinctions reflect antiquated sexism. Expectations from others to behave in a prescribed way suggest oppression. Western culture assumes all people should have equal access and opportunity, so unique treatment based on someone’s rank or age seems like an injustice.

Hospitality and feasting provide opportunities to accumulate honor by publicly sharing food. Large banquets with endless provisions merit tremendous status in many cultures.

Failure to offer the best belittles the guests and shames the host.

When the World Bank asked the poor themselves what it means to be poor, many people noted the shame of not providing food to guests.5

Westerners interpret those very dynamics of honor-shame cultures through the lenses of their guilt-innocence cultures. So when they see something happening in the culture, they attribute a different meaning to the cultural event.

There are consequences to Westerners’ negative misunderstanding of honor-shame cultures. First, Christian discipleship simply becomes transplanting Western cultural values. Since corruption, lying, tardiness, ritualism, obligation and inequality (all the ways we misinterpret social dynamics rooted in honor-shame) are “immoral” and “wrong,” Western missionaries feel obligated to confront these cultural “sins.”

the values of guilt-innocence cultures are rather immoral when interpreted through the lens of honor-shame cultures.

Initial encounters with honor-shame cultures prompt positive evaluations. The hospitality, generosity, laid-back attitude and family orientation merit admiration.

Psychology has long viewed shame as a childish emotion to be replaced by guilt as people develop. In Western thought, honor-shame cultures are inferior and immoral, reflecting outdated or undesirable social mores.

Jesus utilized manifestations of honor and also confronted many aspects of the honor-shame system of his day. Honor and face are not universally sinful (they originally came from God), but do need to be redeemed in light of God’s true honor.

jesus used aspects of honor shame and confronted others.

Honor and shame are foundational realities in God’s mission and salvation that flow through the entire Bible.

In chapters two and three we examined how human cultures cover shame and project honor; the next two chapters examine how God covers shame and restores honor in the biblical narrative.

Their disobedience to God’s commands created shame. They felt unworthy and embarrassed. They sought to cover their nakedness.

“Man perceives himself in his disunion with God and men. He perceives that he is naked. . . . Hence there arises shame. . . . Man is ashamed of the loss of his unity with God and with other men. . . . Shame is more original than remorse.”

primary characteristic of sinless paradise was the absence of shame.

Being from an honor-shame culture, he intuitively understood the great honor God ascribed Adam at creation—blessing, land, food, naming privileges and a wife.

The shame Adam and Eve felt was not just a private emotion but also a public social reality. They not only felt ashamed, they were actually shameful before God.

People are internally ashamed and externally disgraced.

Western theology typically limits sin to an individual transgression of a particular rule or law. But biblical writers also view sin in a relational context (e.g., parenting, marriage, covenant). Sin breaks relationships (not just laws).

Nathan identifies David in one of the most shameful images possible—an inhospitable rich person who refuses to share with a guest. But worse, David’s behavior shamed God. Three times in the story Nathan, speaking on behalf of God, says David “despised” and “utterly scorned” God (2 Sam 12:9-10, 14). David’s sin was foremost against God and his honor.

Sin shames (Gen 3), and shame sins (Gen 4)—it is a spiral of death.

I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed and humiliated, disrespected and ridiculed, and that did not represent the attempt to prevent or undo this “loss of face.” . . .

The purpose of violence is to diminish the intensity of shame and replace it as far as possible with its opposite, pride, thus preventing the individual from being overwhelmed by the feeling of shame.

Sin dishonors God. Sin makes us objectively shameful before God. Sin leaves us feeling ashamed. Shame induces sin.

Only a relationship with the one true Creator confers true honor to people.

Recall that honor comes from knowing the right people and being in the right group. Election brings us into relationship with the Right Person and into the Right Group.

Israel is the new Adam called to bear God’s glory to all creation.

God’s covenant with Abraham was an invitation to a life of honor.

Through the reign of David’s family, Israel as a whole would experience the promises of honor God made to Abraham and Moses, and all nations would receive the blessings of Israel’s glorious God.

“redemption” is largely the reversal of status from shame to honor (cf. Is 49:7; 54:4-5).

As a prominent rich man in the community, Boaz would have been eager (and expected) to exercise his wealth for the benefit of relatives.

“A son has been born to Naomi.” Though this may come across as a typographical mistake to Western readers who assume a child belongs to the birth parents, the ancient Israelite community recognized the child as the entire family’s since reputations were intertwined multigenerationally.

The book of Ruth illustrates a common pattern of biblical salvation—God reverses the status of his people. Naomi and Ruth are rescued from shame and lifted to a position of honor.

The first narrative pattern of “guilt → innocence” begins with an innocent person transgressing a rule or law (see figure 4.1). To remove the guilt of their offense, they must make reparation. Once punishment is endured and/or they repent for their wrongdoing, forgiveness is granted and normalcy returns.

The second narrative pattern of “shame → honor” begins with the characters in a respectable state (see figure 4.2). But as the story develops, their status is threatened and shame appears imminent. Their status may be jeopardized by personal sin, or by external factors like a skin disease or military invasion. After the Israelite cries to the divine Patron for deliverance, God eliminates the threat of shame and vindicates their honor. God reverses their social position. Such stories conclude with an increase of honor for the main character(s), not simply a return to the original state.

God is working to exalt humanity from shame (Gen 3) to honor (Rev 21–22).

One fundamental rule of shame-based cultures is that people cannot lift themselves from the pit of shame. Rather, shame is alleviated only when another person of higher status initiates and restores.

what a powerful insight.

David’s grace toward Mephibosheth mirrors the nature of God’s grace toward his people. Before God we are shamed. Consequently our only hope for removing shame and restoring honor comes from God—the one seated on high who comes down to us.

God’s covenantal relationships were intended to promote Israel’s honor (as a means of magnifying God’s renown among the nations). But she often failed to properly honor God, and so faced the shameful consequence of foreign captivity.

Those who chose to live apart from the Creator will live in isolation forever. Their earthly glory will be stripped away, and they will endure the painful awareness of shame for eternity.

“God’s wrath in Revelation is the anger of a slighted benefactor, whose favor met not with gratitude but with rejection and affront in the form of idolatrous worship or in the form of violence against God’s loyal clients.”

God’s promises of future shame removal and honor restoration would come through the Suffering Servant of God (Is 50:6-8; 53:3; 52:13), whose sufferings would bring eschatological honor to the shamed in all nations.

Jesus was shamed, yet honored by God. This tension, as well as the trajectory of his mission, was prefigured at Jesus’ birth.

Jesus conducted a ministry of status reversal. His life, death and resurrection finally solved the problem of shame and restored honor, as God promised to do through Israel.

jesus ministry of bestowing honor on the disenfranchised.