On Shame

"when it is said, 'Let's go, let's do it,' we are ashamed not to be shameless."

--Saint Augustine, The Confessions

This is one of the most insightful statements I have come across in a long time. Augustine wrote those words over 1500 years ago, and they are still incredibly relevant. In fact, they seem to perfectly encapsulate the modern age. For all of our talk of individualism, Western culture is still obsessed with fitting in. People wear clothes they don't necessarily like, they listen to music they don't necessarily like, they say words they don't necessarily mean; and it is all for the sake of fitting in. Even nonconformity itself is often a kind of conformity to the ideal of nonconformity. Just look at the hipster revolution. The internet gave us all the ability to strike out from our culture while still finding people all over the world to whom we can conform.

I don't want to portray this as an absolutely negative thing. People are contagious. It is in our nature. And we get more of our identity and definition from others than we are often willing to admit. Where I think it becomes a problem is in the sort of case to which Augustine refers: when "we are ashamed not to be shameless." There are two ways to be shameless. Augustine is talking about an abandonment of certain morals, so that a wrong can be excused or disregarded. This sort of shamelessness has become almost an ideal in our culture to the point where getting hung up on morality, even thinking something could be wrong is more shameful than even doing something. Enter peer pressure. According to Augustine, it Has existed since the fourth century A.D., and I bet it existed before that. If no one else is ashamed, then we don't want to be either.

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing, and perfect will."

--Romans 12:2

Fortunately, there is another kind of shamelessness. Paul says elsewhere in Romans "As the Scripture says, 'Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.'" Trusting in Christ, in his mercy and grace, leaves us nothing of which to be ashamed. We do not need to abandon morality to escape the shame of our actions because, by the grace of God, we are forgiven, and shame has no power over us. The passage to which that verse refers is in Isaiah 28, and it is followed by words to those who have abandoned God: "I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line; hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie, and water will overflow your hiding place." Abandoning morals will not change what good is because God is good, and good is God, and God is absolute.

"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."

--1 Corinthians 3:17-18