For a little while I've been pondering the outworkings of an honour and shame worldview.
In Western societies (generally speaking) we operate on a guilt-innocence worldview, whereas typically in Eastern societies they operate on an honour-shame worldview.
I'm certainly no expert in these things, but it has been pointed at to me that a person with an honour-shame worldview will not be as gripped by being told about their guilt as they would about being told about their shame. "Objective" guilt or innocence is not as significant as the perception of honour or shame. Whether people think you are honourable or not is a bigger concern than doing the right thing. It doesn't matter so much that you do the right thing or not. The important thing is not to get caught.
When seeking to explain the Christian gospel, most Westerners (myself included) have learnt how to express the gospel in terms of guilt-innocence. Jesus takes away our guilt and makes us innocent before God. But if Easterners respond better to honour-shame, how can we express the gospel terms of that worldview?
This is something I'm continuing to ponder.
The Bible teaches us that his people are able to bring shame upon him. As his people, their behaviour reflects on him. For example, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you" (Rom 2:24, quoting Is 52:5).
So God's people can bring dishonour upon him, but what about everyone else? Do they dishonour God by their actions?
Anselm (archbishop of Canterbury in the 11th & 12th C) says yes:
"To sin is to fail to render to God what God is entitled to. What is God entitled to? Righteousness, or rectitude of will. Anyone who fails to render this honour to God, robs God of that which belongs to God, and thus dishonours God."
What do you reckon?
In Western societies (generally speaking) we operate on a guilt-innocence worldview, whereas typically in Eastern societies they operate on an honour-shame worldview.
I'm certainly no expert in these things, but it has been pointed at to me that a person with an honour-shame worldview will not be as gripped by being told about their guilt as they would about being told about their shame. "Objective" guilt or innocence is not as significant as the perception of honour or shame. Whether people think you are honourable or not is a bigger concern than doing the right thing. It doesn't matter so much that you do the right thing or not. The important thing is not to get caught.
When seeking to explain the Christian gospel, most Westerners (myself included) have learnt how to express the gospel in terms of guilt-innocence. Jesus takes away our guilt and makes us innocent before God. But if Easterners respond better to honour-shame, how can we express the gospel terms of that worldview?
This is something I'm continuing to ponder.
The Bible teaches us that his people are able to bring shame upon him. As his people, their behaviour reflects on him. For example, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you" (Rom 2:24, quoting Is 52:5).
So God's people can bring dishonour upon him, but what about everyone else? Do they dishonour God by their actions?
Anselm (archbishop of Canterbury in the 11th & 12th C) says yes:
"To sin is to fail to render to God what God is entitled to. What is God entitled to? Righteousness, or rectitude of will. Anyone who fails to render this honour to God, robs God of that which belongs to God, and thus dishonours God."
What do you reckon?
Hi Kirsty.
ReplyDeleteI was going to suggest taking a look at Anselm, but you beat me too it. His take on the atonement is at the heart of Reformed Protestant readings of the atonement and it's all about honour and shame. As sin is not giving God his due, (dishonour), he requires satisfaction - which is made by Christ on the cross. As you know, having done MTC doctrine 2, this is but one of various mutually interpreting metaphors of the atonement (and interestingly, not one presented in Scripture - although it does synthetic work).
My suggestion for the NT word which does the work of honour is glory. Thus one might say Anselm is riffing on Rom 1.21 - "For although they knew God they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him". The result Paul casts in the language of shame in 1.24-32.
bigdog, thanks for the suggestion about Anselm and glory
DeleteExcellent thoughts, I'll be pondering too.
ReplyDeleteI've been trying to explain the concept of glorifying God to SP (3), as we're currently singing a kids' song that talks about 'whatever I do, I do it all for the glory of God'. I wonder if this would be easier concept for an Eastern kid to understand than it is for him?
Petrina, that's so true about glory being a difficult concept for us to grasp and articulate, especially with enough clarity and concreteness to be able to explain to kids
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