Imagine sitting with a group of friends, when someone suggests as a conversation starter: ‘Tell us the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you?” Initially, people feel uncomfortable. But soon the stories are flowing, eliciting a mixture of laughter and sympathy. After all, we’ve all had the experience of feeling red-faced and wishing the ground would open up underneath us to save us from the embarrassment.
However, imagine the reaction if a slightly different question were posed: “What is the worst thing you have ever done?” Probably the air would grow cold and conversation dry up as everyone is seized with fear. Answering that question, truthfully, runs the risk of being judged, rejected and condemned. Rather than triggering the feeling of embarrassment, it rouses our sense of guilt and shame. Deep down we’re all afraid that if people knew the truth about us then they wouldn’t love us.
Many of us know what it is like to struggle with a secret sense of guilt or suffocating sense of shame. Although related, these two things can be distinguished. Guilt says: ‘I have done something wrong’. Shame says: “There is something wrong with me”. Guilt is triggered when our behaviour falls short of an objective standard dividing right and wrong, justice and injustice, good and evil. Shame is the subjective sense of pain that I am unworthy of being loved because of the things I have done or experienced.
Over the centuries, people have sought to find an escape from the crippling effects of guilt and shame. Often they have blamed religion for making people feel bad about themselves, particularly Christianity with its concern about personal sin. Perhaps they could point to the central character in John Bunyan’s famous story “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” Christian is seeking freedom from the burden of sin that he carries around on his back. He became aware of his sin and its potential to sink him down from the grave into hell after reading about it the Bible[1].
In the story he finds release at the Cross of Jesus Christ. However, in our world people have suggested alternative ways to remove the burden of sin, guilt and shame from our backs. For example, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche denied that sin existed – believing that a release from guilt would come when people realised that “God is dead” and consequently there is no moral objective moral standard that stands in judgement over our lives.[2] An alternative solution offered by the psychologist Sigmund Freud was to redefine sin – arguing it is not a moral problem, instead it’s a psychological or emotional problem.[3] He wanted to liberate his patients from their over-active consciences, informed by religious beliefs, to accept and express their deepest desires rather than repress them as sinful.
However, it’s noticeable that none of these alternative strategies have worked! We are still a society that is gripped in the vice of moral guilt and shame. In fact, our guilt and shame have metastasised to even greater proportions. Now we are made to feel guilty and ashamed about the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the places we shop, the ways we travel, the opinions we hold, the injustices of our ancestors. But the problem is that there is no end to the possible reparations, no way to keep up with the demands of righteousness, and no means of forgiveness for our failures. Like Lady Macbeth, we cannot cleanse our hands from the “damned spot” of our sins.[4]
The reason that we cannot escape the moral sense of sense is because we don’t live in a universe of mindless, meaningless matter that exists purely by time, chance and natural selection. Instead, we live in a moral universe that has been crafted and ruled over by a morally good God.
Life works best when we live in line with the moral grain of the universe and life breaks down when we work against it. Our conscience, like the umpire in tennis, calls us “in” or “out” in the moral game of life. It convicts and makes us feel guilt and shame about our sin.
The Russian novelist Dostoyevsky explores this inescapable moral reality in the novel “Crime and Punishment”.[5] It tells the story of a young student called Raskolnikov, who attempts to pull off the perfect crime. Although he successfully murders and robs a rich old woman, and avoids being arrested by the police; he cannot escape his own conscience, which in the end leads him to confess and confess his guilt to the police.
The fact is that we all sin (guilt) and all are sinners (shame). If you still need any convincing of that fact, then listen to Francis Spufford’s contemporary definition for sin, the HPtFtU: “the human propensity to ***k things up”.[6] The fact is that none of us is perfect. None of us live up to our ideals, let alone God’s.
Another Francis (Schaeffer, this time) once pointed out that as moral beings living in a moral universe, we cannot avoid setting moral standards for others. We expect other people to behave certain ways and treat us in good ways; and we judge them and express disappointment in them when they fail to live up to those standards. But the problem is that so often we fail to live up to our own standards – we are very good at living in hypocrisy.[7] We don’t need God to pronounce us sinners according to His standards, when we often fail to live up to our own standards!
But there is good news for sinful, guilty, ashamed people like you and me. The Bible is not the problem; rather the Bible contains the solution. Without the Bible we still know we’re sinners; but with the Bible we are introduced to a Saviour from sin. The Bible is not just a moral rule book – because moral rules can only condemn, never forgive. It is the true story of the gracious love of God who forgives and transforms sinners. At the centre of that story is the divine person of Jesus Christ.
Jesus knows the truth about us – the worst things we have done or have had done against us. But rather than judging and dismissing us. Instead, He has set His love upon us and come into this world to save us. In His life, Jesus is the only person who has ever lived up to God’s moral standards – He never sinned. In His death, Jesus has suffered the moral judgement and condemnation that our sins deserved. And in His resurrection, Jesus has proclaimed the good news: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Roman 8:1) … “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8)
Jesus makes it possible for us to be honest about our sins, to receive forgiveness for our sins, and to be transformed to become more like Himself, the sin-less One. That’s why the former slave-trader and notorious sinful sailor John Newton burst out in song: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me”.[8]
So if – like Christian in Bunyan’s tale – you feel crushed by the burden of guilt and shame, then come to the Cross of Jesus – there you can be set free!
[1] John Bunyan, ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1966) at p1-2.
[2] Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘The Gay Science,’ translated by Thomas Common (Dover Publications: New York, 2006) Book 3 Section 125.
[3] Sigmund Freud, ‘The Future of an Illusion,’ translated by James Strachey (W.W. Norton: New York, 1961) at p.43-45.
[4] William Shakespeare, ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’ at Act 5 Scene 1 (accessed online 8th November 2024: https://shakespeare.mit.edu/macbeth/macbeth.5.1.html)
[5] Fyodor Dostoyevsky, ‘Crime and Punishment’ (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1998).
[6] Francis Spufford, ‘Unapologetic: Why, despite everything, Christianity can still make surprising emotional sense’ (Faber and Faber: London, 2012) at p.26.
[7] Francis Schaeffer, ‘Death in the City’ (Inter-Varsity Press: London, 1969) at p.98-99.
[8] John Newton, ‘Amazing Grace’ (Public Domain: 1623).
Have You Ever Wondered? is also the title of our popular book and a series of articles and videos on this website. With intriguing answers to questions as diverse as ‘Have You Ever Wondered’ why we are drawn to beauty, respect altruism, value the environment, preserve the past, chase money, love music and defend human rights?; the book has a wide range of authors who’s wonderings have drawn them to spiritual and Christian answers to their investigations. With free copies available for people who sign-up to support Solas for as little as £3/month, and big discounts for bulk orders – Have You Ever Wondered? is an effective and affordable way to engage in helpful spiritual discussions.
