CHAPTER 72
Ministry in Guilt, Shame, and Fear Cultures
Jayson Georges
Jayson Georges (PhD, Durham University; MDiv, Talbot Seminary) has served among Turkic people and in refugee communities. He has authored several books, including The 3D Gospel, Ministering in honor-Shame Cultures (with Mark Baker), and The Honor-Shame Paraphrase of biblical books. His websites—HonorShame and The Culture Test—provide free resources for learning and ministry training.
Excerpted from The 3D Gospel: Ministry in Guilt, Shame, and Fear Cultures (2014) by Jayson Georges. Used by permission.
There are three types of culture in the world. First, there are cultures that emphasize guilt and innocence. In these social settings, people are seen as guilty for breaking laws and are expected to seek justice or forgiveness to rectify wrongs. Second, some cultures are shaped by the dynamics of shame and honor. In these cultures, people are shamed for not fulfilling group expectations, and they seek to restore their honor before the community. Third, there are cultures in which fear and power dynamics shape society. Because people fear evil powers and harmful, invisible forces, they seek to overcome the threat by performing rituals.
Although guilt-innocence, shame-honor, and fear-power are three distinct cultural outlooks, no culture can be completely characterized by only one outlook. These three dynamics interplay and overlap in all societies. Even individuals or groups within a culture can vary, depending on region, age, or gender. A rural Thai might be more fear-based than an urbanite in Bangkok. Young adults in America, who value authenticity and connection, are increasingly being shaped by shame and honor. Human complexities defy simple, either-or categories.
Each cultural worldview is a unique blend of guilt-innocence, shame-honor, and fear-power cultures.
Each cultural worldview is a unique blend of guilt-innocence, shame-honor, and fear-power cultures. The three dynamics are like the three basic colors from which artists create thousands of colors. How much of each color is used determines the final type of culture that emerges.
Guilt-Innocence Cultures
The notions of right and wrong are foundational pillars in guilt-innocence cultures. Society creates rules and laws to enforce what actions are right and wrong and define acceptable behavior. A mature person knows right and wrong. You might hear someone described as a “law-abiding citizen.” Doing right preserves innocence; doing wrong makes one guilty. Governments, corporations, schools, and even families establish rules to guide social behavior and expect those rules to apply to all people. Nobody is above the law.
Guilt-oriented cultures do not simply emphasize rules and laws but also socialize people to internalize the codes of conduct. Moral responsibility comes from within. Society expects individuals to be guided by internal consciences so that every person knows right from wrong.
The result is an individualistic system. Parents in guilt-innocence cultures train children to “think for yourself,” “be true to yourself,” and “blaze your own trail.” Bowing to social pressure and blending in are rarely admired. People are autonomous. Since everyone possesses their own internal compass, the community rarely defines acceptable behavior. Society expects people to act rightly by themselves. But when a person does something wrong (as defined by rules and laws), justice requires those negative actions to be addressed equitably.
Guilt-innocence cultures focus on actions. A guilty violator can remedy a bad action with another action—community service, paying a fine, or jail time. Since the problem is a wrong action, the solution is a counterbalancing action that fits the misdeed. To alleviate guilt, a person must typically confess wrongdoing and/or provide restitution. The person who honestly takes ownership of wrongdoing is rewarded. For example, a politician accused of marital unfaithfulness can typically repair the situation by publicly confessing wrongdoing.
Shame-Honor Cultures
Shame-honor societies assume a strong group orientation. Honor is a person’s social worth, one’s value in the eyes of the community. Honor is when other people think well of you, resulting in harmonious social bonds in the community. Honor comes from relationships.
Shame, on the other hand, is a negative public rating: the community thinks lowly of you. You are disconnected from the group. Many societies use the expression “losing face” to describe someone being embarrassed or shamed.
Honor and shame function like a social credit rating that measures one’s reputation. Because honor and shame are inherently relational, such cultures emphasize family and community. Members of shame-honor cultures are expected to sustain the social status of the group, often at the expense of personal desires. If a young person marries into the wrong clan, the village will compel the father to act in the interests of the family’s honor. This is because they see shame and honor as being somewhat contagious: what one person does will affect the entire group.
The social structure of shame-honor cultures is designed around establishing and expanding a network of relationships. Connections are vital in every aspect of life. Who you know (and who knows you) is of paramount importance. Group-oriented cultures value relational harmony. People strive to maintain interpersonal bonds and avoid offending others. Saving face and keeping peace preserve connections.
The good news of the gospel is that salvation in Christ provides innocence (our sins are forgiven), honor (we are restored to God’s family), and power (we are liberated from Satan’s control).
In relationships, it is critical to maintain a balance in obligations and reciprocate. Gifts and hospitality are always repaid, lest one incur a “social debt” of shame before peers. Family dynamics and leadership structures are generally authoritarian. People grant leaders authority and prestige in return for provision and protection.
In a shame-honor culture, every person has a proper role, which is often based on age, gender, and position. People maintain honor by behaving according to their roles. The group enforces morality externally. When making choices, people ask, What is honorable? What will others think? What about my family name? When a person has multiple social roles, acceptable behavior depends upon the context, not the rules. Shame-honor cultures do believe in moral right and wrong but define morality relationally, not legally or abstractly. What is best for relationships is morally right.
While actions can produce shame, such as falling down in public or evading taxes, the deepest shame often comes from being seen as the wrong kind of person. Status is primarily inherited from the group. Who you are, either honorable or shameful, is ascribed based on your group’s ethnicity, prominence, origin, and lineage. Identity is based more upon who you are, not on what you do.
Removing shame requires more than forgiveness. Shame produces feelings of humiliation, disapproval, and abandonment. Shame means inadequacy of the entire person. Guilt says, “I made a mistake”; shame says, “I am a mistake.” Since the problem is the actual person, the shamed individual is banished from the group.
Fear-Power Cultures
In fear-power cultures, certain rituals are seen as appeasing threatening spiritual powers. The focus is upon techniques that supposedly overcome the unseen powers. In fear-power cultures people are afraid of offending evil powers. Leaders in fear-power contexts are often religious or spiritual people believed to be endowed with the power capable of performing ritual practices effectively.
Fear-power cultures live in constant fear of invisible powers. They fear a misstep may potentially make them vulnerable to spiritual influence or expose them to harm, such as accidents, bad dreams, or even demon possession. People in fear-based settings rarely can be certain of what evil, capricious spirits might do. To control the unknowns of life and ward off evil influences, they resort to magic rituals. Secret techniques harness spiritual power to avoid harm and invite blessings. People strive to live in peace with the forces that inhabit their world. Disharmony with the spiritual world could prove disastrous.
Common practices for increasing or wielding power include the use of amulets, curses, charms, fetishes, recitations, incantations, witchcraft, horoscopes, or the evil eye. Things in the seen world can affect or manipulate forces in the unseen world when combined with certain methods.
Different Narratives of the Gospel
Sin distorts the human family by causing guilt, shame, and fear. Consequently, the cultures of the world chase after innocence, honor, and power apart from God. But the God of the Bible desires to bless all peoples with the fullness of salvation in Christ. No culture type is better or more biblical; each is corrupted by sin and needs redemption. The good news of the gospel is that salvation in Christ provides innocence (our sins are forgiven), honor (we are restored to God’s family), and power (we are liberated from Satan’s control). Therefore, we can tell the biblical story in ways that resonate with each culture type.
The Guilt-Innocence Narrative
God is perfectly holy and just. In all His ways, He acts with perfect righteousness. When humans disobey God’s law, they become guilty and face punishment.
Jesus Christ, God’s Son, became the perfect sacrifice to take away the sins of humanity. Jesus lived a perfectly sinless life. Having no sin of His own, He was able to take on the sin of the world. Jesus was the perfect Lamb of God. He was pierced for the transgressions of all people and carried the consequence of their iniquities.
The Shame-Honor Narrative
God has existed for all of eternity in full glory and honor. He is an honorable King, a Father who provides for the entire family. He is pure, faithful, and glorious—the essence and source of all true honor. However, humans have dishonored Him by failing to give Him due glory. As a result, all people are separated from God and experience shame.
Those who give allegiance to Jesus will receive a new status. Their shame is covered and their honor restored. People must ultimately renounce their trust in social manipulation and instead trust fully in Jesus for their societal status. Membership into God’s family is not based on ethnicity, reputation, or religious purity but by one’s familial allegiance to the crucified Messiah. God exchanges our old status as unclean, worthless, and inferior orphans for the status of pure, worthy, and honorable children. Those who follow Christ to the cross of shame will also follow Him into resurrection glory.
The Fear-Power Narrative
In the beginning, the creator God made the world by His powerful word. God is sovereign over all creation, the heavens and the earth. In love, He rules with absolute authority and power, and creation praises His mighty strength. When humans turned from God’s ways, they lost His protection and came under the power of Satan.
God’s liberating power was incarnated in the person of Jesus. Fully empowered by God’s Spirit, Jesus resisted Satan’s offer of corulership and remained committed to God’s mission of dismantling Satan’s kingdom. Because God was with Him, Jesus saved people who are under the power of the devil. In an unprecedented way, Jesus delivered people held captive by Satan. By healing the sick, raising the dead, and casting out demons, Jesus disarmed Satan in order to plunder his kingdom and set the captives free.
Conclusion
People with different cultural orientations will appreciate and receive the gospel when they hear and understand how the gospel brings forgiveness for their guilt, honor for their shame, or freedom from their fears. In Acts 26:18 (NIV), Paul describes his mission to the nations in a three-dimensional way: “to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God [power], so that they may receive forgiveness of sins [innocence] and a place among those who are sanctified by faith [honor] in [Jesus].” These three strands of the gospel never function in isolation, but the driving forces of a particular culture may warrant an emphasis on one approach above the others.
The calling of the church is to meaningfully introduce the nations to the God who addresses their deepest cultural and spiritual longings, whether they yearn for innocence, honor, or power. 