I noticed an article over at the Gospel Coalition, called "Canceled: How the Eastern Honor-Shame Mentality Traveled West". It is an interesting article about honour-shame culture, and East Vs West. I agree the West is more individualistic, but I'm not so sure that shame is such a new thing, though perhaps it is getting more accent at the moment.After all, hasn't shame has always been a powerful weapon in the arsenal of the socially powerful, and social majorities, and especially of abusers who manipulate by shame?
For example, have we ever been strangers to using weaponized mockery and ridicule to oppress by shame? Perhaps it starts with the "cool kids" at school who shame the minorities, and those who don't fit. Hasn't shame always been currency for racism and sexism in the West? Shame has always been a good sickle for cutting down tall poppies. It has always been readily at hand, whatever size the community, whether it is "big" culture or sub-culture. Sadly, shame has too often been badly used within church sub-cultures as well. There are "cool kids" there too, even amongst the "grown ups". And now, as Christians have moved more into the minority in Western "big" culture, we are also feeling more what it is like to be the easy targets of abusive shame.
But I do love the article's ending, pointing us to John 9. Jesus has also always been the answer to those cancelled by shame! Jesus seeks out those battered and squashed by abusive and oppressive shaming, and lifts them up, showering them with the purest and truest love.
