Ain't It a Shame! 
Unhealthy Guilt and Religious Fundamentalism
by Timothy L. Boschen, D. Min.

Fundamentalist movements in American Protestantism in the 20th century have found the need for rule-bound rigidity, religious purification and the all-sufficiency of a perceived source of orthodox authority, an inerrant application of the Holy Bible.

It is possible that at least a part of the driving force behind these movements lay in the shame-bound behavior of fundamentalist believers and leaders. The implication is that religious fundamentalists bear a burden of unhealthy guilt that we can call shame. If this is true, a direct link would lie between the ethical behavior of religious fundamentalists and the shame they carry.

To pursue this theme, we need to clarify terms. For our purposes, we can define fundamentalism as a religious movement that militantly defends orthodoxy against modern incursions.

These intrusions may be about shifting interpretations of holy writings, changing ethical values in the native culture or the complicated anxiety that accompanies intense and rapid social change. Although guilt and shame may have the same emotional origin, it is important that the reader understands they are different. Shame, an unhealthy form of guilt, is toxic to the victim's selfhood. Kaufman, Gershen, Shame: the Power of Caring, says:

"Shame is an inner sense of being completely diminished or insufficient as a person. It is the self judging the self. A moment of shame may be humiliation so painful or an indignity so profound that one feels one has been robbed of her or his dignity or exposed as basically inadequate, bad, or worthy of rejection. A pervasive sense of shame is the ongoing premise that one is fundamentally bad, inadequate, defective, unworthy, or not valid as a human being."

Therefore, guilt is not synonymous with shame.

"Guilt is the developmentally more mature, though painful feeling of regret one has about behavior that has violated a personal value." Kaufman said in The Psychology of Shame. "Guilt is immorality shame."

That is, it is a violation of the internal moral code one has developed. Guilt is a self-generated feeling of disgust with one's actions. Shame is an other-generated sense of disgust with oneself as a person of worth. Parents and the victim's family of origin more often assign it to the victim.

If you ever heard a parent say something like, "why can't you be like your brother," or "I can't believe you are so stupid," then you have known shame. When a child hears statements like these throughout maturing years, the adult-child becomes shame-based.

The church, undoubtedly, also has been a source of shame for Christians. When you hear sermons repeatedly calling you an evil sinner, when you hear often that you are dirty and filthy with sin, you can feel soiled spiritually.

Seeing shame-based Christians making repeated public statements of rededication is common among Baptists and other evangelicals using the altar call or invitation as a time of public profession of faith. They hear their inner critic declaring them unclean.

Guilt is not their issue. It is shame. The very institution founded on the grace of God in Christ, the church, can enhance and empower this inner critic. They need deliverance from self-loathing, not forgiveness for sins committed.

Merle Fossum and Marilyn Mason, The Psychology of Shame, suggested that a shame-bound family is a group of people who feel alone together. We may also say that a shame-bound church is one in which the members feel alone together.

Church members judge each other on a goodness vs. badness scale. In this system, the preservation of one's personal goodness is foundational to one's acceptance by other church members. They subsequently reach for connection in the powerful inner circle.

However, a member of an inner circle that requires them to stick to goodness as defined by the group becomes preoccupied with maintaining the goodness factor. They have little time for fellowship and authentic expressions of affection and need.

Grace, the unconditional love of others as God loves us, is not the operative ethic. Preserving one's personal goodness is. Intimate relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ is subordinated to preserving the appearance of goodness even when there may be feelings of little or none.

Shame-bound systems follow certain rules, according to Fossum and Mason. These are just as true of shame-based persons, marriages, families and churches. While there are at least eight of these regulations, this article will allow for only three.

The first and all-important rule is that one must always give the impression of being in control of one's life at all times. This is the cardinal rule of all shame-bound relational groups in that all other rules flow from this one and help it remain in place.

Since shame-bound persons come from families-of-origin in which their worth is always questioned and diminished, one way an adult-child learns to cope with these subsequent feelings of inferiority is always to seem powerful and in control of one's life, proving his worth in his world.

The second rule of shame-bound fundamentalism is that one must always be right and do the right thing according to group law and especially the leadership. This means that the individual strives for a kind of spiritual perfection to maintain his sense of personal power and control from within the group.

Apart from the parent organization, there is no awareness of increased self-worth but only deep self-questioning. These persons become strong competitors because they have to be proving their inherent value to others. They must look better than others.

They become the hard-working church members who can be used up and burnt out by controlling leadership. Their personal worth depends on their winning and being seen by others as high-achieving winners. The personal, family, or church image, what the rest of the world sees, is foremost.

The third rule of shame-bound fundamentalist religious groups is blaming others. If something does not happen the way you planned, blame yourself or someone else, if possible. Blame helps one maintain the illusion of control and helps the system remain pure.

They can transfer one's personal sins to another thereby helping the blamer feel freed from his own anxieties. Blame also keeps the rules rigidly in place. By blaming, one declares they did not break the rules. Another did. Therefore, the rules become more important than relationships.

They thereby elevate rules to the level of love and mercy in terms of importance in one's life of faith. Blaming and trust are mutually exclusive because responsibility and forgiveness are not a part of the blame equation.

Religious fundamentalists exhibit blaming behavior when they label others liberals. They also blame when they keep the group's focus on what they oppose and when they make new rules to which all must agree.

In American Protestant circles, whether the target is women, blacks, the Masons, the Disney Corporation or other subgroup within one's own denomination, the tactic is to get and keep power by having your followers focused on some target to blame for some set of ills.

Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. On these things hang all the law and the prophets." A person from a shame-based system will have trouble doing this.

Frequently in fundamentalist circles, the interpersonal need displaces love to appear good, that is, worthy. When one is trying to work out one's worthiness by following the directive dictates of another, they can hardly expect one to love others as oneself.

For the shame-bound believer, the Biblical statement, "grace through faith saves us," becomes, "We are saved by earned worthiness through our works." In other words, "Let me prove to you how good I am and thereby show you how much Jesus lives in me."

August 2001