Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes: Patronage, Honor, and Shame in the Biblical World

by E Randolph Richards

Thus, Westerners can’t imagine how the Spirit can convict anyone without using guilt; yet many Asian cultures don’t even have a word for guilt. They likewise can’t imagine how the Spirit can accomplish anything in a culture without honor. God understands and uses both. We are not yet ready to say that honor, shame, and boundaries are the sole or most definitive means for collectivist cultures, but we are ready to say they are some key means (or methods or manners or buckets).

What we are missing in our culture is the positive kind of shame, so of course we don’t have a word for it. This kind of shame leads to virtue. People feel this shame before doing something shameless. For example, Arabs have haya, a shame that monitors one’s behavior so one doesn’t violate the community norms. Everyone should feel haya. It keeps us within the lines. When a young man leers at a woman on the street, people will tsk their tongues and say, “Ah, he doesn’t feel haya.” (My American grandmother would have agreed, saying, “He has no shame.”) Haya should have stopped him from doing it. Someone who has haya (shame) doesn’t want to lose it. You certainly wouldn’t want God to take away your shame (haya).

Someone in the Mediterranean said to me, “I feel shame about lying to my parents.” He hadn’t yet lied. He wasn’t condemned. No one was accusing him. At the thought of lying to his parents, he felt shame. This uneasy feeling in his gut forecasted how he would feel if he did lie and if his actions were discovered. It is not a pleasant feeling, but it is good for him to have it. This kind of shame led him to change course and to avoid committing a shameful action (lying to his parents). This sense of shame kept him within the boundary lines.

Let’s be really clear in all this: no matter what causes shame, the biblical solution is always restoration.

Shame used badly only does half of this. It only tells people they have moved beyond the boundaries of the group; it offers no path of restoration. It offers no hope. It pushes out, rather than pulls back. People who have experienced this misuse of shame can be crushed or become hardened. Paul does not endorse any use of shame that causes someone or some people to be devalued, disgraced, or unwanted. The Bible calls this condemnation, not shame. Shame used properly provides a path of restoration.

While Westerners often use guilt to shape behavior, collectivist cultures more often use shame. While individualists might use guilt to shape my behavior, collectives use shame to shape our behavior. My grandmother would try to make me feel guilty, because I (as an individual) had drifted too far from the center of ideal behavior and was too near the boundary. Collectivist cultures think collectively. It is not that the community is alarmed that I (as an individual) have moved too far. Their thinking is more alarm that I have pulled all of us off center. I am part of us, and I am influencing all of us. We could be known as a community that has drifted away from the proper way to treat someone with respect! My community will use shame to make me aware that I have drifted. The goal—and this is critical to understand—is to pull me back toward the center, for everyone’s benefit. We have rescued me and us.

He is not just pulling himself away from the center of the group; he is pulling the whole group off center. An unrepentant member endangers the group, and it’s not just the group’s reputation at risk. Even our culture recognizes that one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. This person’s behavior could contaminate and mislead others in the group: “our” group could become confused about what our values are. It’s not me; it’s we. Matthew 18 offers an example of shame used appropriately. This is a far cry from the misuse of shame, which tends to apply the maximum amount of exposure and does not seek restoration. Again, this is the kind of shame that Christians such as Dr. Brené Brown rightfully critique.