A distinction
Submitted by Dirk Gently on November 10 1999 at 22:28:22
In reply to Re: You've got that right, brother.. Submitted by Gametoy on November 10 1999 at 21:32:51
|
that I try to make is that between guilt and shame. Or more precisely, false guilt and shame. Here's an example to point out the distinctions. In an exchange of email, one person made a number of comments which enraged me. I'm talkin' extreme anger, here. If he had been physically present, I would have had to sit on my hands to keep them from his throat. Matthew 5:22 "But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, 'Raca!' shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be in danger of hell fire." In all honesty, I did have a cause for anger. However, I also realize that my emotional response was w-a-a-y out of proportion. I was guilty of hating my brother. This response of hatred invoked a deep sense of shame in me. This sort of attitude is not a fruit of the Holy Spirit, it is my hard little heart. I deeply regret my response. I pray that the capacity for homicidal rage will be rooted out of my heart. But I'm not obsessing about either the episode or my reaction to it. That's over and done with now, and we've both moved on. In this example, I was guilty, I felt shame, but there was no false guilt. In many situations, I believe that a sense of shame may in fact be a life preserving element. Paul had something to say on the matter when he wrote to the Corinthians about some of the sexual immorality that they had been indulging in. (I'm too tired to look it up now -- it's somewhere in 1 Cor if you're curious.) Dirk |