Shame seems to be the currency of Christianity. We are taught that we are inherently bad, the only way to be good is through Jesus. We all have sinned, and with it goes shame and guilt.
Our first parents, Adam and Eve, had no sin and thus no shame.
And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Genesis 2:25
When they ate of the forbidden fruit, their eyes were “open”
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons
Genesis 3:7
Why did they cover up? Why was being naked shameful? The LDS Temple Endowment provides the answer
LUCIFER: See, you are naked. Take some fig leaves and make you aprons.
Father will see your nakedness. Quick! Hide!Temple Endowment from 1990
(As an aside, $250 billion can buy you a whole lot of Search Engine optimization (SEO). It took me several minutes to get past pages of LDS.org web sites before I could find the temple endowment script. )
So it was Satan that taught Adam and Eve that being naked was shameful, and ever since Christianity has used shame to get people to follow the rules.
Shame is still alive and well in the modern day Church. I can think of several ways we shame people today at church. One of the most damaging is denying people the ability to attend their own children’s wedding due to being “not worthy” to attend the temple. While this effects non-member parents to a lesser degree, it really pours on the shame to member parents that do not meet the criteria. Also close to this is the shame associated with a couple that have to get married civilly because they are not worthy.
Probably the most common one in day to day Church members lives is the shame of not being able to take of the sacrament due to direction given by the Bishop as a result of some disciplinary action. This is especially true in a YSA ward, where much speculation and gossip results if somebody is not taking the sacrament.
Yet Christianity claims to relieve shame through Christ’s atonement, but shame is the drug Christianity passes out at the party to keep people coming back for more. You’re not enough, you need Jesus. You’re prone to temptation, you need Jesus. Your intuition is wrong and worldly, you need Jesus. To top this off, you can’t use Jesus by yourself, you need the Church to tell you how to use Jesus. You need to come back every Sunday for reprogramming the shame-for-salvation cycle.
What has been your experience with religious based shame? In what ways is shame used in a typical LDS ward? Can people be good without feeling shame/guilt when they are bad? How have you reduced your religious shame since becoming a more nuanced member of the Church?
Image by Vilius Kukanauskas from Pixabay
Wheat & Tares 
The LDS endowment is a remarkable contradiction. For it credits Lucifer for a whole host of beliefs and actions that Elohim endorses. And yet Lucifer is the “bad son”. No wonder Lucifer is so erratic and belligerent. He’s emotionally, mentally and spiritually abused by his father.
(1) Lucifer introduces the fig leaf apron and God’s covenant people wear that apron all the way back into heaven! They never take it off! God is perfectly ok having his chosen people wear a symbol of shame given to them by Satan. Why?
(2) Lucifer introduces the fruit of the tree. Eve declares this fruit is “most desirable”. This is the same description Lehi uses to describe the fruit of the Tree of Life. Certainly knowledge is desirable and necessary. Yet Elohim keeps referring to the fruit as forbidden. Why?
(3) Adam & Eve oberve at the end of their journey they are happy for the choices they made. The choices they made helped them grow and become better than what they had been. The key person who guided Adam & Eve in the choices they made was Lucifer!!! Yet he’s the bad guy.
Note that throughout the Endowment we do not observe Jesus doing a single thing to directly help Adam & Eve, only promises he will. Yet Jesus is rewarded with being the favored son, and Lucifer is blamed.
The LDS endowment fails to impress the main reason why Lucifer is worthy of contempt. It is that Lucifer wants to be like Jesus, and worshipped like Jesus, but he’s not going to sacrifice his life as Jesus will do. Observers are only told that Lucifer is a false Messiah. At the same time, observers are only told that Jesus is the true Messiah. What observers see is Lucifer helping Adam & Eve make the choices they need to make, and get scolded for it.
Religious shame is largely a man made construct. In Mormonism, it is applied inconsistently – often without regard for long term effects.
I contend it is typically a serious mistake for members to confess their sins to local authorities. Such confessions usually result in public shame resulting from information leaks and the insidious Mormon gossip mill. Combine that with wildly inconsistent “punishments” and there exists little upside to confession.
As bishop I learned that, in most cases, members have the power to confess and receive their own absolution directly from God. Of course, exceptions occur when civil laws are violated or innocent people victimized.
The Mormon policy of seeking out and punishing all participants in intimate relationships is especially insidious. It represents nothing more than institutional witch hunts.
I am not sure that shame is the currency of all Christianity, although it certainly does seem to be the currency of the LDS, Catholic, and Evangelical flavors of Christianity at the moment.
I am not sure that the historical Jesus was big on shame. It seems more like he was was the one that went to people who thought of themselves as broken and told them they were enough. It was to those who treated others with contempt and as they were not enough or shameful things that he gave harsh criticism.
One of the things I find interesting in at least the current version of the United Method church is the idea of the open communion table, that ALL who desire are invited to partake. That certainly contrasts to the way the LDS church approaches the sacrament. (And of course, UMC has women as pastors and young girls helping with communion, so there is no gender shaming there either.)
I don’t know why the LDS church seems to have leaned into shame as a motivational tactic especially in the last couple of decades. In the end, it certainly didn’t work for our family.
10ac,
The shaming is problematic and undermines our purpose of following Christ and welcoming people to our congregations.
In our area at one time the missionaries taught a young unmarried couple that lived together. They enthusiastically came to church for several months, then marriage came up in a lesson. They kept telling the missionaries they intended to marry but couldn’t afford necessary needed things. She was still married to a prior husband who wouldn’t provide his address for a no fault divorce. They kept coming until the bishop looked into their records and discovered the man had been baptized at age 8 but never attended after that point. He called him into the bishop’s office and told him he couldn’t take the sacrament because he was living with a woman unmarried and was baptized.
They never came back. They weren’t really given opportunities to learn and grow at their own pace because of the shaming
I really felt no shame growing up. I was a good kid. My parents never spanked us, and they were not harsh, but also loved us in a unique unexpressed way. But we knew there were boundaries and did not push them. I did feel the stress and the competition of the Mormon culture to being popular (“blessed”), winning via achievement, check lists, Eagle scout requirements, and doing everything right. Since I did not push the boundaries with rules, I never had a leader shame me during interviews or from my family. Now years later, I have been personally embarrassed learning how others in church were treated with LDS leadership roulette.
However, once on my mission and with a dictator as a Mission President, I was taught shame, although I had not broken rules or gone out of bounds. We were told, we did not baptize more people because of our own unworthiness. This constant abusive message and backfiring emotions led me to anger, eventually questioning of whole institutional system, and 20 years later out of the LDS church.
I have learned that bullying is an expression of exerting power over another, it almost always involves shaming as an act of aggression. And while demeaning, subjugating, and belittling others, the bully can momentarily distract himself/herself from their own underlying and haunting sense of shame.
The LDS church is a bully!!
Bullies lose their power if you don’t cower. They sub-consciously admire you for speaking with self-assurance and confidence. So, when they bombard, don’t counterpunch. Rather, win them over with your strong, firm, courteous demeanor. Bullies operate by making their victims feel alone and powerless. When we disassociate, they lose power over us and there is strength in our numbers.
We need to guilt them right back with the facts and set the record straight for the future generations. Sometimes, although unrepentant or remorseful, the institution changes, aka Sam Young.
Disgrace on them for hiding the history of the church, for glorifying Joseph Smith and his misdeeds, for writing books like Mormon Doctrine and Miracle of Forgiveness and then burying them. Contempt on them for the whole mission system, for their racist teachings, for early morning seminary, for all the changes of the temple and keeping parents out of their own children’s wedding’s. Disgust for their pride and self-esteemed exalted state in their red velvet chairs. Shame on them for shaming us and generations of members, for lying about the purposes and uses of tithing, as countless families struggle financially. Hypocritical of them for teaching the purpose of life is to make choices, and mistakes and to learn and then not practicing those same teachings and allowing for repentance without the shame cycle.
The Worth of Souls and the Problem of Bullying (churchofjesuschrist.org)
The Sad Truth About Bullying at Church – LDS Living
How to Beat Bullying (churchofjesuschrist.org)
When Bullying Happens on Missions: What You Can Do About It – LDS Living
The church has some of these teachings……but 4 fingers are pointing back at them for the 1 they are pointing for everyone else.
lws329, that’s awful.
And reminded me of an incident in a former ward. Enthusiastic young recently baptised couple with children. He was sustained for ordination to the priesthood, but the Bishop refused to permit the ordination without this poor man first getting his long hair cut. He absolutely refused to get his hair cut, and we never saw them again.
Many of us on here are parents. And my question to you parents is: do you like to utilize shame in your relationship with your children? I think many of us would say no. So why then would we endorse a God / Heavenly Father / Church that depends on shame to motivate? No thanks.
10ac you reminded me of the open communion which is also now practiced by Community of Christ. Before sacrament the person who going to bless will often read out a statement
“All are welcome at Christ’s table. The Lord’s Supper, or communion, is a sacrament in which we remember the life, death, resurrection, and continuing presence of Jesus Christ. In Community Of Christ, we also experience communion as an opportunity to renew our baptismal covenant and to be formed as disciples who live Christ’s Mission. Others may have different or added understandings within their faith traditions. We invite all who participate in the Lord’s Supper to do so in the love and peace of Jesus Christ.”
the first time i heard this it took my breath away at the open vigorous welcome it proclaimed. Even now, after several years, I still get emotional hearing this. Being told explicitly that *I* am welcome 100% as I am at Christ’s table, I am wanted and welcomed and invited gives me a spark of joy every communion Sunday.
This is probably a minority view, but I believe shame is fundamentally baked into Christianity. If you read the New Testament there are examples such as hate your father and mother, use of the word hypocrites (aren’t we all), gouge out your eye. Paul uses it too in his letters. There’s also the Old Testament where it’s abundant, and Jesus is the god of the Old Testament.
This is a great topic to discuss and I appreciate your insight.
My own observation on temple weddings and families not able to attend. I’m a high school convert. I was married in the seventies. None of my family are members.
I was married in Cardston because all my husband’s family were from southern Alberta. The only other temple close to us was Salt Lake. Only 1100 miles from home. My mom, my 2 sisters, my 3 brothers, my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were excluded. None drove all the way to Canada to sit outside. Stupid suggestion from church people.
It was the happiest and saddest day of my life. My angel mother was not allowed. I called her the minute we left the temple on a pay phone. My wedding day left a lifelong negative impression about the church for all my family. Except Mom.
I should have known then that there was something wrong about my new church.
Most of the comments seem focused on the shaming of people for relatively trivial things. In my experieince, that has declined significantly since the 70s. But that is not my primary point.
My primary point is that certain very prominent people have much to be ashamed of and yet feel none. Their example has led others to embrace a similar shamelessness and the collective effect is highly corrosive to society. Note how many people no longer try to hide their racism or antisemitism. (I won’t try to claim that about homophobia–nobody ever really tried to hide that.) I miss the days when shame forced racists to keep it to themselves.
Disciple:
“The LDS endowment is a remarkable contradiction. For it credits Lucifer for a whole host of beliefs and actions that Elohim endorses. And yet Lucifer is the “bad son”. No wonder Lucifer is so erratic and belligerent. He’s emotionally, mentally and spiritually abused by his father.”
I think these verses from Section 50 of the Doctrine and Covenants gives us some clarity with regard to the conundrum you present about the adversary’s roll in the garden story:
17 Verily I say unto you, he that is ordained of me and sent forth to preach the word of truth by the Comforter, in the Spirit of truth, doth he preach it by the Spirit of truth or some other way?
18 And if it be by some other way it is not of God.
19 And again, he that receiveth the word of truth, doth he receive it by the Spirit of truth or some other way?
20 If it be some other way it is not of God.
The Lord makes an important distinction between the “word of truth” and the “spirit of truth.” And so, as it relates to the adversary’s motives–he sought to stand in the place of God. And, indeed, he enters the scene as a false Christ–an imposter–speaking the “word of truth” to Adam and Eve. But none of his words are conveyed by the spirit of truth–and therefore nothing that he says to them is of God.
“Lucifer introduces the fig leaf apron and God’s covenant people wear that apron all the way back into heaven! They never take it off! God is perfectly ok having his chosen people wear a symbol of shame given to them by Satan. Why?”
We might think of it like a couple having sex before marriage–that would be wrong. Even so, that’s not to say that they should never be intimate after they’re married. A change of context makes what was once wrong right.
“Adam & Eve oberve at the end of their journey they are happy for the choices they made. The choices they made helped them grow and become better than what they had been. The key person who guided Adam & Eve in the choices they made was Lucifer!!! Yet he’s the bad guy.”
Yes, Adam and Eve see that they made the right choices in the long run. But without the atonement those choices would have been a curse rather than a blessing to them. Indeed, they would have miserable forever–which was the real outcome that the adversary sought for Adam and Eve.
Role–not roll…
Shame is a survival instinct. Evolution gave us shame so we wouldn’t offend our tribe badly enough to get kicked out and face the winter and the saber-toothed cats alone.
Every culture deploys shame to some extent to meet its own ends—from such extremes as samurai committing seppuku to Christian sex taboos to Hollywood celebrities getting cancelled.
The more secular the culture, the more what is shameful will align with what is unethical. The problem with religions like ours is that they tie shame to harmless, natural, and even ethical behaviors. Mormons feel deep, agonizing shame over things like lingering over a swimsuit ad or hearing too many swear words. Or doing the right thing in spite of ourselves.
I remember when my kindly but very conservative father in law met his gay son’s boyfriend for the first time. He was friendly and respectful and they all had a great time. It was only after when my wife complemented him for it that he got flustered, clearly felt ashamed, and started pontificating on why he didn’t really support that relationship. The church had taught him to be ashamed of doing the right thing.
Kirkstall
agreed, the LDS church does like to make natural, harmless things shameful.
Almost all my kids are left handed. As they grew up we had a LOT of conversations about left handedness. Some were more light hearted. The difference between right handed, left handed and ambidextrous scissors. The fact that bread knives are right handed. Some were more serious. The history of bias in almost every culture where left handed is used as a synonym for wrong, evil, lazy, or clumsy. The fact they needed to be more careful as almost all safety equipment was designed for right handed use and might not properly protect them.
Many of these conversations happened after a church meeting where yet again someone reacted badly to them taking the sacrament with the “wrong” hand and tried to teach my children to be ashamed of their body. And i would have to reassure my kids that there was nothing wrong with them. That they were not sinning or being disrespectful or doing anything shameful by using their dominant hand to take the sacrament. I let them know that there was nothing doctrinal in what the ward said about them.
And then the church decided to announce in conference that sacrament must only be done with the right hand. That the right hand was right and the left hand was offensive and shameful and wrong. And the church gave all those members who had tried unsuccessfully to shame my children the handbook as a tool to try to beat shame into them.
It may be a little thing in the grand scheme of things that the LDS church had done. But my children will not be taught to be ashamed of themselves for being left handed.
unintentionally the church taught my children that the church actually had no legitimacy to teach them shame
Niki-La, thanks for sharing that. You just sent me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole on anti-left handed bias.
The church making left-handed people take the sacrament with their non-dominant hand is wild. In any sphere other than religion, that would be discrimination. Why does religion so often get a free pass on discrimination?
Shame and guilt get used synonymously but they’re more like cousins – if you do something wrong (or that’s even just perceived as wrong in your social circles), guilt is feeling badly about the mistake while shame is feeling badly about yourself.
Shame is really learned from your social context. This is an interesting observation in the endowment script, because even after eating the fruit Adam and Eve don’t feel shame until they learn it from Satan.
Shame and guilt both have their purpose in the human mind, but they can also be manipulated. This can get problematic in a religious context when strong opinions and social pressure start to fill in the gaps between real doctrines (especially when they come from authority figures).
I really struggled with this, especially as a teen and young adult. I was overly prone to ruminating on past mistakes and habits I thought were bad to the point where I couldn’t sleep because I was obsessing over some mistake or habit and feeling a lot of personal shame for what I thought was inherent weakness.
On a particularly bad night of struggling through some irrational but catastrophic thinking, a thought came into my mind: “There’s real evil out in the world; it isn’t you.”
It was a striking moment in my memory because it seemed to come from nowhere, but I instantly knew it was right. There are people out in the world doing truly horrible things with hardly a second thought while I was obsessing over a stupid mistake I’d made years prior. Starting at that moment I was slowly able to start to unwind a lot of the shame I’d imposed on myself or that I’d learned and give myself the same grace I’d give to others.
It’s interesting to compare this idea to how C.S. Lewis imagined the people in heaven as they came out to meet the people from hell on their bus excursion. He wrote, “Some were naked, some robed. But the naked ones did not seem less adorned, and the robes did not disguise in those who wore them the massive grandeur of muscle and the radiant smoothness of flesh.” Essentially the opposite idea that our bodies are shameful and should be covered up and hidden. I just find the contrast interesting.
I’ve heard it said that guilt is “earned” but shame is “inherited,” meaning that shame is something you get from a system and are indoctrinated into believing about yourself (“I’m bad”) vs. guilt which is evaluating your behavior to make improvements (“I did something I shouldn’t have done”). Dr. Bart Ehrmann did a podcast episode about the idea that Paul was the one who introduced atonement theory into Christianity in which Jesus had to die because humans were imperfect (ergo, humans are bad), but all Jesus actually taught was that humans should strive to be their best, to improve (humans are good, and can be better). I’m probably not doing his ideas justice in that recap, so here’s a link to his blog where he discusses this: https://ehrmanblog.org/how-did-paul-understand-salvation-the-judicial-model/
The reason Paul’s version of “the gospel” is different than what Jesus taught is that Christians were shocked when Jesus died. Suddenly the religion became less about what Jesus taught and at least equal focus on why this terrible unexpected thing had happened, and eventually on why it had to happen (to explain why it DID happen). It’s a very interesting concept, and it explains why Christian sects vary so much in terms of where they focus: on the goodness and potentiality of humans, or on their craven, fallen nature, their badness.
Different LDS leaders have focused in different ways on these dichotomies. The very idea that humans are literal offspring of God with divine potential (not just becoming angels strumming harps on clouds for eternity) is all about the positive view of humanity. Repentance may be necessary when people make a mistake, but their nature is good and divine. But leaders with a “conditional love” and “obedience” focus don’t trust in the goodness of humanity. They believe humans are at heart bad and need to be controlled and compelled. That’s where shame fits in.
I really felt no shame growing up. I was a good kid. My parents never spanked us, and they were not harsh, but also loved us in a unique unexpressed way. But we knew there were boundaries and did not push them. I did feel the stress and the competition of the Mormon culture to being popular (“blessed”), winning via achievement, check lists, Eagle scout requirements, and doing everything right. Since I did not push the boundaries with rules, I never had a leader shame me during interviews or from my family. Now years later, I have been personally embarrassed learning how others in church were treated with LDS leadership roulette.
However, once on my mission and with a dictator as a Mission President, I was taught shame, although I had not broken rules or gone out of bounds. We were told, we did not baptize more people because of our own unworthiness. This constant abusive message and backfiring emotions led me to anger, eventually questioning of whole institutional system, and 20 years later out of the LDS church.
I have learned that bullying is an expression of exerting power over another, it almost always involves shaming as an act of aggression. And while demeaning, subjugating, and belittling others, the bully can momentarily distract himself/herself from their own underlying and haunting sense of shame.
The LDS church is a bully!!
Bullies lose their power if you don’t cower. They sub-consciously admire you for speaking with self-assurance and confidence. So, when they bombard, don’t counterpunch. Rather, win them over with your strong, firm, courteous demeanor. Bullies operate by making their victims feel alone and powerless. When we disassociate, they lose power over us and there is strength in our numbers.
We need to guilt them right back with the facts and set the record straight for the future generations. Sometimes, although unrepentant or remorseful, the institution changes, aka Sam Young.
Disgrace on them for hiding the history of the church, for glorifying Joseph Smith and his misdeeds, for writing books like Mormon Doctrine and Miracle of Forgiveness and then burying them. Contempt on them for the whole mission system, for their racist teachings, for early morning seminary, for all the changes of the temple and keeping parents out of their own children’s wedding’s. Disgust for their pride and self-esteemed exalted state in their red velvet chairs. Shame on them for shaming us and generations of members, for lying about the purposes and uses of tithing, as countless families struggle financially. Hypocritical of them for teaching the purpose of life is to make choices, and mistakes and to learn and then not practicing those same teachings and allowing for repentance without the shame cycle.
The Worth of Souls and the Problem of Bullying (churchofjesuschrist.org)
The Sad Truth About Bullying at Church – LDS Living
How to Beat Bullying (churchofjesuschrist.org)
When Bullying Happens on Missions: What You Can Do About It – LDS Living
The church has some of these teachings……but 4 fingers are pointing back at them for the 1 they are pointing for everyone else.
I have been thinking about the question of whether humans are fundamentally good or bad after going through the recent sunday school material in Alma 42. It says mankind “had become carnal, sensual, and devilish, by nature . . . ” We should also note King Benjamin’s famous line “the natural man is an enemy to God.” Unfortunately it seems to me the Book of Mormon’s view is that humans are fundamentally evil because of the fall. But then we have a different concept often taught these days, as Hawkgrrrl describes, that humans are fundamentally good. I much prefer this idea; it seems more helpful and hopeful. But the church has to acknowledge and deal with our scriptures that explicitly say the opposite. Maybe the negative view is invoked in order to explain the necessity of an atonement. Personally it doesn’t bother me much, I just ignore scripture that I don’t find useful or correct. There are other, better theories of atonement that don’t necessitate such a negative view of human nature. But I don’t like when the church leaders contradict the doctrine in the scriptures without explanation.
Kirkstall,
The problem with shame being tied to what is ethical is that ethics are fluid. While there may be some general agreement regarding basic ethical principles (autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence and justice), each of those principles are subjective and can be interpreted differently by groups. There really is no difference between religious and secular ethics. They just look to different sources for their definition of what is good, bad, and right or wrong.
Gilgamesh, I’ll concede that objective morality is hard to pin down but what Mormons are made to feel ashamed of is extremely far removed from any kind of secular ethics. Taboos on drinking coffee and mowing the lawn without your garments on? Hard to find any justification for that involving autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence or justice.
I have enjoyed this discussion and some fresh perspectives on the subject of shame. I have personally battled this debilitating emotion over my lifetime. And, not understanding it’s source of power I also developed some unhealthy compulsive habits to combat its effects. I think its often thought that shame and pride are polar opposites, but the more I have studied both, and examined them in my life, I’ve come to believe that shame is not the opposite of pride, it is its source.
Dave Brisbin, in his book “The fifth way” expands upon Brene Brown’s profound work on shame. He says, “There are those who believe they are worthy of connection and those who don’t… and the line between the two is only as thick as “shame”– the fear of disconnection.” It’s the fear of disconnection that ironically keeps us from connecting, it fuels the validation vampire of pride, forever driving us to find ways to be accepted. But the moment we believe we have to work to be accepted is the moment we also believe we are not worthy of connection right here and now, that we must somehow be other than we are. And if we are not worthy, what will ever make us so? How much is ever enough to be sure.
“We have always been taught that Jesus came to save us from sin. As true as that may be, there are layers. When we see Jesus leading with acceptance, accepting first and asking questions later, the realization begins to dawn that to save us from sin, he first had to save us from shame.”
I suppose the most disconcerting thing is not the existence of shame, but the human blindness to our propensity to use shame as a motivating tool. The mythology of Adam and Eve illustrate, by use of “Satan”, how we will stoop to our lowest nature to extract obedience from each other. We ought not only see ourselves as those tempted “by Satan”, but also see ourselves using the exact same tools and tactics that he uses. As soon as they knew they were naked, self-consciousness entered mortal existence, we all know this feeling well, that sense of judging eyes perpetually upon us. That self-consciousness makes us acutely aware of how we can be hurt, and consequently, teaches us how we can hurt each other. And with that knowledge, we often, in all our weakness employ the tools of the devil to justify the means needed to bring about “our” (not there) desired end.
Shame when you drink coffee compared to feeling stupid to think that having a couple of 32 oz cokes is okay. Shame when you have coffee and think that it’s about the caffeine but stupid when you realize that the 1500 other compounds found in coffee are very beneficial whereas the sugar and water with Coke syrup just add calories. Shame is pushed to control. Stupid is not realizing that.