What is shame, and why does it shape us so deeply? Shame is a shared human experience, yet we struggle to describe it. In some cases, we sense that we should not feel ashamed, and yet we do. In other cases of moral wrongdoing, a lack of shame, or at least the ability to experience it, is often deemed problematic. To be shameless is viewed as a moral deficiency in such circumstances. 

Scripture only deepens the complexity. Across both the First and Second Testaments, the Bible seems to present the experience of shame as something integral to the human experience— and as something we should not resist.

In this Friday Night Lecture, Dr. S. J. Parrott will explore the dynamics of shame, what it contributes to our moral psychologies, and how Scripture can reorient our thinking about shame in order to consider how we find out who we are, and who gets a say in the process.

Friday Night Lectures feature three short and engaging talks woven together with live Q&A, brief intermissions, and time for conversation. Join us for a warm, welcoming atmosphere and meaningful reflection on compelling questions within the Christian tradition. 

ABOUT OUR SPEAKER

S. J. Parrott completed her DPhil in Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford after obtaining two master's degrees at Regent College in Vancouver. She specializes in topics of shame, ethics, human formation, rhetoric, prophetic and poetic literature, and more.

As we begin our finale for tonight I want to thank all of you for being here with me. You could have done many things on your Friday nights and it's cold outside so I'm grateful for you being here. I'm grateful for you being here talking about a difficult subject matter. I just want to say again shame is not easy to discuss as it brings up memories and experiences and difficult topics that to be frank we'd rather not talk about so I'm very grateful that you're all here with me and engaging me, engaging with me in this topic and learning with me as we go along. My aim in this lecture is to draw together the previous two in a meaningful way that can help us all move forward from shame towards transformation so it's a bit of a hybrid between looking some more at shame and transformation and in the context of scripture this time the second testament and then also again just because this is a topic that affects all of us and some of us very deeply I just I wanted to help us all quite practically move forward from it so it's a bit of a mix between the two. I want us to move forward from shame towards transformation. What shame got to do with transformation? Here I am using the word with respect to our relationship with God in Christ. By transformation I mean that the ability of God's perspective to affect and make demands of us need not refer singularly to shame and in fact I'd say this is not the ultimate aim of God's shaking of our self-conceptions. We already saw this last lecture where I suggested that if we are to avoid being shameless we need to contend with the perspectives of others the upside of which is that we can also give practical weight to and acknowledge God's who is our arbitrator and defender in the midst of our shame and who refocuses our attention on himself. Rather the ability of the divine perspective to affect us is what leads to transformation the usurping of our view of ourselves for his view of us that is accurate positive divinely inspired one that does not reject our neediness limitation particularity or our simpleness even if it means working through these things these difficult things along the way in order to arrive at such a view. Such transformation I will suggest comes to its fullest expression by being in Christ and I'll use most of my lecture time to discuss how we can move from shame towards transformation by coming in contact with God's perspective of us and I'll follow that by kind of giving some practicalities to manage and mitigate shame because again I take this quite seriously that this matters in our lives. So last lecture I said that we are all prone to not see ourselves correctly at times we may not see character flaws sin arrogance or actions and behaviors that ought to be refined we are also limited in our view of ourselves in another way we feel as though we are worthless sinful beyond redemption stupid ugly untalented boring unable to move beyond a particular thing that happened in the past or move beyond a broken and sinful past in general these examples are also ways in which we do not see ourselves correctly because the nature of these examples is that we tend to view ourselves solely as these things to the exclusion of other parts of our identity complex we might want to include in our self-conception we feel as though we are worthless and nothing of what is worthwhile about ourselves or our life is in view there's no complexity but there's singularity and limitation one whether we have an overinflated self-conception and our arrogant and ignorant self-conception and are unaware of some aspect of ourselves or an underinflated self-conception and are dissatisfied with who we are or any other configuration that you can think of we are all limited in our view of ourselves add in the fact that others may not see ourselves correctly at times and we could find ourselves in quite a situation this is messy this is the messiness of being fallible limited finite humans in relationship with one another and in the midst of this messiness i want to suggest to you that god has provided us a way to navigate it that we are not the final authority on the person we are because we have chosen to contend with the perspectives of others means that we are importantly open to god's perspective of who we are and as i've already said according to the perspective of the of scripture it is god's perspective that is accurate and of the utmost value god's perspective is what can help us navigate the continual influx of perspectives of others and our own and that means that it is god's perspective that is the final authority on who we are and his perspective is the way in which we can navigate the messy and beautiful business of being humans and relation and i began arguing this already last lecture when i turned to psalm 71 and i want to continue this argument now by suggesting that god's perspective is one that transforms who we are and therefore how we see and understand ourselves and that's all going to become crucial in our moving forward from shame so how does god see us well the answer to that question is going to be unique to each of us as we are all unique individuals but the tendencies of god's perspective are made known to us in the person of christ and thus i'd like to turn to two well-known stories in the gospels to begin our conversation about the transformative perspective of god they're probably not going to be the stories you're thinking of but they're the stories that i believe highlight hopefully highlight you'll be you'll tell me if they do or not highlight when i'm talking about um this is the story of the samaritan woman at the well and the story of zekias one of my favorite stories and time limits my ability to engage in these stories deeply but i believe it's worth doing anyway and this is like the heart of my work i'm i'm a biblical scholar i love working with the texts themselves so this is the stuff that really gets me excited here again tiny so tiny i'm so sorry and no circles this time to help you either but i did put in bold which makes it harder to read right so you go pull it up on your phone if you want but you probably all know the story anyways okay john four narrates a story well known to most of us jesus's interaction with the samaritan woman jesus is at a well and he asks a samaritan woman who is also there for a drink her response to jesus's request in verse nine is my first point of focus she is confused or uncertain how a jewish man jesus could ask a samaritan woman herself for water john helps us out with a parenthetical note that states that jewish people did not use anything in common with samaritans sharing a well in a bucket of water is a no no what is central to the woman's understanding of herself in that moment is that she is a samaritan something which looms large in her perception due to the presence of jesus who is jewish her samaritanness is perceived as a barrier in this encounter she cannot give him water because of this contingent and unchangeable aspect of her identity and that's quite physical i mean this quite physically they physically cannot touch the same things but christ does not make her samaritanness central as she does rather he reorients the conversation around who he is he suggests that if she knew who he was her focus would not be on the fact that he that she is a samaritan but she would be asking him to give her that which will transform her living waters that quench theirs forever she then asks for this some verses later and then christ brings in to focus some part of her past and present actions and behaviors her many husbands not for the purpose of defining her by it not for the purpose of shaming her but to reorient the conversation once again around who he is not what she has done what he has to offer her isn't contingent upon what she has done and isn't prohibited because she is a samaritan everything he talks about and offers has to do with who he is even as he interacts with the woman and in all of the particularities of her life that is it isn't that the particularities of the woman disappear they're talked about and openly her samaritanness and her many husbands it's that they are reoriented around the person of christ and he offers her he offers her himself as the means to transform her and we already get a hint at this in the narrative for at the end of the story the woman goes to the people of the town and says come see a man who told me everything i ever did christ's perspective has already affected her view of herself her public declaration that there is a man who knows everything she ever did is a very vulnerable declaration is it not i sure wouldn't share that for fear that somebody will go talk to that person and ask everything i ever did yet she openly states that he knows and her openness seems to suggest christ's view of her has been adopted by her that is everything she has ever done is not central to her it doesn't define her nor does it limit her because christ was reorienting her understanding of herself around who he is and thus follows the statement after her disclosure of a man who knows her totally could he be the messiah everything for the samaritan woman is being reoriented around this jewish man luke 19 begins with christ on the move and his destination is jericho we are then introduced to zikias who's already there and we are told he is a chief tax collector he's rich and he's short these three points do not serve zikias well as a tax collector he was despised as a trader by working for the roman empire not for his jewish community his richness speaks of his corruptness something he himself confirms later in the narrative and his shortness limits his ability to see including christ emits the crowds so he runs ahead and climbs a tree that's why the story's famous in order to see christ who would pass by in a manner similar to the samaritan woman christ sees zikias and asks something of him christ declares i'm staying at your house tonight zikias there is the same uncertainty about this interaction between christ and zikias as there is in the interaction with the samaritan woman christ and these people ought not to be interacting as they are unlike the samaritan woman zikias himself does not espouse this uncertainty but the people watching do verse seven states and when the people saw it that jesus had gone into his house and and dined with him they all complained he has gone into be the guest of a man who is a sinner and not only a sinner we might add but a trader of his jewish community and a corrupt one at that now while the crowd's comment is against jesus it reveals also much about their perspective of zikias excuse me whether zikias is affected by their perspective on any given day we do not know but i think it's safe to say that this would not be news to him the narrative continues however and something about zikias's interaction with christ in his home leads him to respond to the crowd's perspective of him that day by saying not to them but to christ i'm going to make right i'm going to pay it back pay back those who i cheated without knowing what happened in zikias's home it's hard to say anything concrete about how about how his interaction with christ has affected him but what we can say is that it did and the same sort of reorientation of zikias himself around the person of christ occurs he says not to the crowd in response to the perspective but to christ that he will make right a statement which is probably not in response to the crowd and their perspective that they think this way about him is probably not news to him rather i believe that we could say that following his dinner and conversation with christ something has changed in the way zikias sees and understands himself because he is now seen and met with christ when the crowd comments that jesus has portaste him picking a host this prompts zikias to make other areas of his life align with whatever has transformed in him through his interaction with christ now these are very brief observations about these texts but i believe in both these stories we see the transformative perspective of god at work in christ people who people are are reoriented around him things that are part of their identity complexes such as ethnicity actions and behaviors past and present how they come across to others unchosen or contingent factors of their lives the good the bad and the ugly are all brought into focus by christ not for the purpose of shaming them or defining them by these things but to reorient their identities around who he is he becomes the axis around which who they are finds its place he becomes central to their self-conceptions their own sense of who they are i know i have new testament colleagues in the room here so i don't claim to be a new testament scholar i'm a i'm a first testament scholar but um i believe that this is part of what is described uh part sorry i believe that what i've described is part of what paul means when he says in texts such as second chrindians 5 17 so then if anyone is in christ he is a new creation what is old has passed away look what is new has come now i'm not suggesting that all of paul's language of being in christ and we'll look at a few more texts has to do with our self-conceptions and our identities more broadly being formed and reformed in him paul has very specific theological agendas when he uses this language when he uses this language not least of all in the book of romans and that his those agendas are not my concern tonight but i do believe that we can say that a key idea paul is gets at is that our entire persons our life our death our past our future everything is now in christ and reoriented around his death resurrection and ascension and this would include how we conceive of who we are second chrindians chapter five continues in verse 19 that god in christ was restoring reorienting perhaps we could say the harmonious relations that have been disrupted by human sin failure finitude and brokenness so that we might relate to one another rightly which is part of what it means to give practical weight to the perspectives of others and respecting one another we could all look at also look at glations to 20 and i'll just read it closely here i have been crucified with christ and it is no longer i who live but christ lives in me so the life i now live in the body i live because of the faithfulness of the son of god who loved me and gave me for himself tiny again so sorry and i'll put on my glasses for this one i think you can see all this language here and again i'm not saying this all has to do with self-conceptions and identity but it's this general idea of the transform the the transformation of the entire person in the person of christ you have um pardon me being blessed with every blessing in the heavenly realms in christ for god chose us in christ for the foundation of the world before him in love verse six we are in his dearly loved son and in him we have redemption through his blood moving on according to his good pleasure that he set forth in christ toward the administration ball things to head up all things in christ verse 11 in christ we too have been claimed as god's own possession and then verse 13 when you believed in christ we could also look at the books of philippians and cautions for more of this language but i think you get the point coming in contact with the risen and ascended lord is how we get insight into god's perspective of us and this perspective is transformative in that it re-orients how we see and understand ourselves in light of him and by being in him samaritan nests or infidelity or shortness or corrupt behavior do not disappear but neither do they define us rather our total selves are redefined around him or in him and in light of this our identities are reconfigured refined and reformed and i want to ensure that something i'm saying um uh something that is implicit in what i'm saying is not missed and so i'm going to make it just even more explicit now i believe that key to understanding what being in christ means is to see that that which defines us lay outside of who we are it lay outside of myself is that kind of making sense the answer to the question of who i am and who should i become and how can i not experience shame lay not in ourselves lay not in a better self-made self-conception not in the unchosen contingent parts of our histories or lives not in how we come across to others that which defines me and around which all those other things find their home is christ who is not me and yet is in me and i am him and it is important for that point to really land i know this language of being in christ is so familiar but if we understand that then we are going to mitigate and manage our experiences of shame much much much better and we can press the point even further part of the experience of shame is that something defines me that is me i am defined by my nose i am defined by my being opinionated i'm defined by by being a thief that which defines us yet is us overshadows our self-conception our own understanding of who we are when we are in christ we are defined and i'd suggest defined in the sense we're talking about shame we're overshadowed by who christ is including his dignity his glory his death his resurrection and his ascension when we are in christ we are defined by something not only outside of our self-conception but outside of who we are full stop we are overshadowed not by any part of us that falls outside of our self-conception again whether actions behaviors how we come across to others etc etc we are overshadowed by christ and this does not cause us shame and i believe the reason why it doesn't is it has to do with the idea of our identity finding its fullness one could even say its destiny in christ to say it kind of again when we experience shame we often feel small it's one of the physiological characteristics of experiencing shame exposure is another care at physiological feeling exposed another physiological characteristic we feel small when we feel shame because our self-conception sink shrinks it feels dwarfed some people right since we are defined by something of us that isn't our self-conception so i used my really fancy example before this is your self-conception and when you're defined by some aspect of your identity it covers it and that's why you feel small because it's like your your self-conception has disappeared i know this is really technical stuff it's different when we're overshadowed or defined by christ when we're in christ the fullness of who we are is found in him we believe and therefore to be defined by to be overshadowed by him doesn't make our self-conse our self-conception shrink and disappear as they do in the experience of shame but it's more like christ is a container or a vessel and when we are in him it's not like our self-conception shrinks it's more like it grows and finds its fullness it's like if he is the container and it fills up kind of like this blossoms and grows i believe something akin to transfiguration happens as john odonofu john odonohue a christian theologian philosopher um kind of uh spiritualist you want to call it that like Celtic spirituality i mean as john odonohue describes it transfiguration is not change transfiguration makes something more fully itself than ever and more it is irredated with beauty in christ defined by him overshadowed by him we have a self-conception that is informed and guided by him one which allows us to become the kind of the fullest version of ourselves because it is informed by his perspective of us so how do we figure out who we are in christ how do we have a christ-informed self-conception identity broadly speaking how do you as your individual self reorient yourself around him i cannot answer that for you as i don't know any of you personally but even if i could am i telling you who you are as reoriented in christ um wouldn't help as it's you and christ together who need to sort that out otherwise i don't think we would ever really believe it it's that experiential nature of it that needs to happen you need to see to experience to learn to become that person that christ has made you to be in a manner similar to the samaritan woman in her encounter and that's similar to zikias the difference is that we can't bump into jesus at a well or shimmy up a tree to get his attention so how do we come to see this perspective of us and reshape our self-conceptions in light of that um oh sorry one slide behind um i think and then this is where i just general practicalities in the next slide too i would say that scripture is an excellent place to begin not simply by reading to find texts about identity but reading is guided by the spirit to hear what god is saying to you about you prayer is another way to talk to god about who you are as well as a way to bring your experiences of shame to him to be your arbitrator and defender that was the key means for me and my struggle with identity and god really met me in prayer and that's something i'm happy to share if it's relevant later um but i also returned to a comment i made at the very beginning of the first lecture this is not a strictly me and jesus thing as much as it sounds like i'm just talking about you and jesus god uses the relationships we have to reveal his perspective with us and help us to figure out what this being in christ thing means why because he's made us to be this way humans in relation who complete one another and with whom we experience the fullness of our identity with and i believe that is what nakedness is signaling in genesis 225 in fact in the garden the man and woman were naked but not ashamed this ability to be humans in relation the fullness of reciprocity finding out who we are in the context of relationships we are made to be in this harmonious relationships with god and fellow humans i believe that god reveals his perspective of us by using us to speak to us through one another to one another and as i said earlier as we all know we can all get it wrong about ourselves and others but that doesn't mean we always get it wrong and it doesn't mean that god won't use us to speak into one another's lives discovering who we are in christ and having our understanding of who we are informed by him and discovering that in the context of human relationships does not mean that you will never experience shame again but it does mean that your sense of self will be stronger divinely inspired and thus less liable to be shaken not because we are shameless but because we have become open to a divine perspective that is reshaped and reoriented who we are around the person of christ who himself cannot be shaken first peter 2 6 says and he himself is quoting scripture for it says in scripture panel for i lay in Zion a stone a chosen imprecious cornerstone and whoever believes in him will never be put to shame and in this verse i believe it's suggesting that our belief in christ cannot be brought into question through shame in that our belief in the person of christ his lordship and what he's accomplished cannot be shamed it cannot be overshadowed by another perspective on this particular matter on what he has done for us in love on the cross on this salvific point he is the final authority on our position of salvation and our standing with god and in that we can take great comfort final point for tonight again i just assume that some of you guys have come here tonight with very real experiences of shame so i just want to be very sensitive to this topic and so these are just my ideas to consider practicalities for mitigating and managing shame i think we're done at the quarter to our oh i've formed oh i've four minutes okay great um again when you're these are when you're experiencing shame try to figure out what's defining you in the moment or otherwise afterwards um do your best to wrench yourself out of whatever you feel defined by and don't make it worse by agreeing with it by saying i am this awful person that this person said i am or i am ugly as they said that i am or i am whatever whatever whatever that's very hard to do i realize this is extremely hard it's hard work to wrench yourself out of being defined by whatever it is you're feeling defined by but to the extent you're able to try to ask yourself what am i feeling defined by i'm why where did that come from is it was it a side comment not even directed about me was the act of shaming whatever it might be these might have to be kind-sight questions i already said if your experience is too strong but the more you do that um whether in the moment or in hindsight the easier it's going to be to manage shame in the moment and even avoid experiencing it one more shadow to my friend Blake is because i had worked through so much and and learned so much about shame that i didn't have to experience it in that moment though i know years earlier i would have and been occupied with it for days and days and days um Psalms as i said our prayers and tools to bring our shame to god and work through it with him he is the arbitrator of perspectives in the Psalms and note also that many of the Psalms that feature shame end up focusing if not all of them on who god is as the key means to help the psalmist find the path out of his shame declaring who god is and praising who he is can go a long way in managing and mitigating our experiences of shame because it takes the focus off of us and who we are and focus it focuses it instead on who god is and as i've said in various ways tonight we find out who we are in the face of another community is extremely important they are a crucial perspective in our lives that we need in order to discipline us encourage us help us along the way and our being in christ we're all trying to figure that out together so we might as well put our brains together and see if we can help each other along the way if possible have some trusted friends and families who know us and are willing to speak the truth and love to us and for barris says we work through these difficult issues um i have my short list which would be my mom who's my best friend trusted friends who've known me for a long time are gone with me through difficult things again blake or uh partner and then a final suggestion pray and ask god who you are this is what i did i went away on a eight day silent retreat 10 years ago to ask god who am i and what am i on this earth to do and at the end of it god revealed that to me be sure you're ready to do that and you don't need to go into eight day retreat i just encourage you to set aside intentional time to talk to jesus about these things um but be sure you're ready to do that at his it'll probably open up many things in you that will require his patient transformation um i'm gonna leave it there for now because it's basically at the end of the time here