Namely, shame.

I refer to our postmodern psyche in a specific collective, cultural sense—knowing full well that shame has existed in all people everywhere, ever since our primal parents scrambled to cover themselves with leaves and skins. I have lived in Southeast Asia, where shame and honor forms a central axis of culture and social relationships. I have stayed up all night with a shamed Asian friend ready to end her life after “losing face.” Elsewhere I have known both victims and perpetrators of child sexual abuse, and seen the devastating power of shame not just in the past tense but the continuous present. I have seen how wealthy people are able to cover their shame with layers of possessions and power, while the shame of the poor is scantily clad at best. In the city it is often fully and painfully on display.

Alan Mann opens his book, Atonement for a "Sinless" Society, with this question: “How does the story of Jesus’ death touch base with the life stories of contemporary Westerners in a culture that no longer believes in the reality of sin?”

This question sent my mind reeling before I got through the introduction. For starters, I serve on the “new believers counseling team” of my urban church that gives a traditional altar call every Sunday. Each service, the salvation call goes out. Moments later I am in a back room, very often with someone who is weeping. Mostly I listen, in between a few probing questions. I try to get a sense of what they are seeking, and what wounds their tears express. Most are very aware of their desperate need for God. (I remember only one spectacular exception, when a man got out brochures and explained he just wanted to make contacts for his multilevel marketing scheme.) Our team stands ready to explain how God offers forgiveness through the shed blood of Jesus.

But you know what? In over 10 years I can scarcely remember a person who was weeping over a sense of guilt for sin. We are armed with a theology that deals with a problem people don’t even feel the need to fix. With enough patience, we can talk some people into a vague sense that yes they have transgressed God’s commandments and yes, they can be saved by confessing and repenting. We lead them in a “sinner’s prayer,” which is the focal point of our evangelism. In the end we might pray for their struggles almost as an afterthought… oh yes, what was it you were weeping about, again?

When we listen to stories told through tears, we hear stories of pain. When we listen some more, and people burrow deeper into their souls, the stories turn to shame. How often I have been deeply moved that someone would entrust me, a stranger in the back room of a church, with their most intimate anguish. They are at the end of themselves, desperate for some kind of salvation!

But we change the subject—if we go by the script. Our salvation script is about guilt, not shame. Over the years I’ve had an increasing sense that the script is inadequate as an opener for shamed people. Before I went to Thailand as missionary, someone knowledgeable in Asian theology tipped me off that if I were to communicate the good news there, I’d better seek a theology that addressed shame. Then he said something surprising: “The Bible, being an Asian book, says more about shame and honor than Westerners realize—maybe even more than about guilt.”

Mann argues that if we are to have a missional heart for our own changing culture, we need a “New Pentecost”— language for the good news that can be understood by the spiritually hungry hearers of our day. That hunger is less and less characterized by guilt over things we have done. It is increasingly defined by the shame of who we are—a stain that reaches even deeper to the core of our souls. It may be things we haven’t done—our own passivity that sickens us in moments of self-reflection. It may be the ways others have shamed us. In any case it is the ugly disconnect between who we wish we were (and hope to present to others) and who we suspect ourselves to be.

I'm drawing distinctions between shame and guilt for clarity here, when in fact the two are often so interwoven as to make them indistinguishable. Individuals and cultures have plenty of both. The PostSecrets site reveals both. And, nowhere in Mann’s analysis is a dismissal of sin—in fact, our culture's increasing denial of sin is damning. It is a self-delusion that cuts us off from the good news not only of scripture but also of traditional evangelism. To be whole, we need to figure out we’re guilty and need forgiveness. But shamed people may never get there. More and more people are missing good news, though they long for good news more fiercely than ever.

What is the good news of the cross for those who mail secret postcards, and the millions who read them? For the shamed of our city?

I’m seeking, because I’ve got my own shame. (My recent post hardly scratches the surface of it.) I’ve got a few thoughts, which I’ll share in future posts, but I would be grateful for yours.