Shame and honour

I think we all would acknowledge the cultural differences between (broadly speaking) Eastern and Western worldviews. It wasn't until I was asked to speak at a conference last week on Shame and the M@slim mindset that I realised just how vast the differences were. A UNICEF report especially helped me see the issues of publicness/visibility being the factor that enabled some to behave in certain immoral ways as long as it was unknown or unmentioned. Honour is not a quality it is a gift to the Pushtoon people. What matters is what the community think, not what your personal values/conscience say.

I enjoyed thinking into and presenting some thoughts on shame and defilement, shame and community and shame and association, and realised how very little I was aware of this whole 'other world' (and how much Scripture addresses these issues).

So many Western theology books fail to engage with shame. I had to go to good old John Owen to bring some helpful Scriptural thinking:

Through fear man is taught the guilt of sin. Through shame man is taught the filth of sin. By the sacrifices of atonement, God taught his people the guilt of sin. By the ordinances for purification, God taught his people the filth of sin. By these Levitical laws, sacrifices and purifyings, internal and spiritual things were symbolized. They foreshadowed Christ and his work, which brought real and actual spiritual cleansing (Hebrews 9:13, 14). So the whole work of sanctification is pictured by 'a fountain opened for sin and uncleanness' (Zechariah 13:1).

John Owen, 'Holy Spirit'.

Here is the link for UNICEF report which makes for disturbing reading in its latter part, but is so worth reading for its section outlining shame culture (p.12ff) which so very helpfully blows the whole shame culture in NW Pakistan wide open: http://www.crin.org/docs/resources/publications/SexAbuse1.pdf

I am sure some of you out there have thoughts that would help me as I continue to think into the subject, especially as it relates to ministry among M's.

Care to share them?