Article: "GUILT AND SHAME: WHAT ARE THE ISSUES?"

by Dan Green, Ph.D. & Mel Lawrenz, Ph.D.

IN A RECENT NATIONAL SURVEY in which pastors were asked what were the most common issues that come up in pastoral counseling, second only to marital conflict, was the issue of guilt or shame. Many are the questions that linger in the minds of those who counsel from a Christian point of view: How can one person's conscience be so fragile, and that of another be so resilient? When should someone have a sense of guilt, and when claim freedom from guilt's blemish? How can you inspire a godly repentance, and how exculpate the penitent soul? What can be done for that person who is so easily unsettled, and is so often manipulated by others who prey on a sensitive heart? For that matter, pastoral counselors may themselves wonder: how do I sort out my own vacillating feelings of doubt and inadequacy in my role, how do I respond to the pressures of expectations and preferences of those I serve? When can I say before God that I did what he wanted me to do-nothing more and nothing less?

The Christian gospel has always said that the universal spiritual crisis in the human race is guilt and shame. The legacy of Eden is that we have had to struggle with a fallen nature that continuously gets us into trouble. We know that in thought, word, and deed, we fall short. The residual feeling that has resulted is, at its strongest, a sense of regret or remorse, but can be a more subtle embarrassment or shyness. In a word, we are left with shame.

The shame that results from our own guilt or that of others is a very complex and evasive experience. On the one hand, if we stop and think about it, we can all recognize plenty of times when we blush, or avoid eye contact with someone, or feel like crawling into a hole. Shame is a universal experience. On the other hand, our reactions vary considerably. One person may believe he is no more than a worm, and another will behave so narcissistically that he will act as if he is his own god, never caring whose rules he breaks or rights he steps on. Yet even in the seemingly shameless personality, there often lurks a deep, dark self-loathing that is so horrifying to face, that the conscience is simply walled off.

The importance for pastoral care is obvious. Pastoral counselors are frequently in the position of being a kind of external conscience to the person seeking counsel. The questions people ask are profoundly important: are bad things happening to me because I am guilty before God? why do I feel so distant from God? why do I feel so guilty when I read the Scriptures that I can barely read them anymore? Then again, pastoral counselors are frequently those who have to confront people who are shameless about the hurtful things they are doing toward others.

Yet when pastors have to make moral and spiritual judgments they have to test their perspectives so that they do not carelessly deliver uninformed edicts. The moral advice of a pastor carries a great deal of weight in the minds of many people. Pastors should be aware that some people will actually unconsciously read out of the pastors' words the very voice of the Holy Spirit. Like the tense moment in a courtroom when the audience awaits the verdict read by the jury, so many people will wait to hear whether the pastor will say "guilty" or "not guilty." Indeed, pastors need to carefully consider the process whereby they come to that point in pastoral counseling. Nobody will be helped with quick and easy verdicts from spiritual leaders.

Guilt and shame have long been recognized as central spiritual ideas. Every religion is an expression of what is wrong in the world, and how it might be set right. Those that assume a single, personal deity--Judaism, Christianity, Islam--define the world's problem as the human problem of transgression against divine will. Christian faith in particular is built around the hope of forgiveness and grace, renewal and reformation--all set against the dark backdrop of a universal spiritual flaw in human beings. Guilt is the flaw, and shame its signal. Within various Christian traditions we find differing and nuanced answers to questions like: how deep and wide is this guilt problem? When and how is it solved? How does the experience of shame and its alleviation fit into the progress of salvation?