Study 4: Corporate Shame, Shame & Our Narcissistic Culture

"To counter shame’s toxic effects requires regular attention, a repeated look into the face of Christ, and a repeated vulnerable openness in relation to others." (Paul Goodliff)

Much of the Bible deals with shame (especially the OT & the nation of Israel specifically) in a corporate sense. It is also argued that we live in an incredibly narcissistic shameless culture. How, then, do we live in a culture that is not only shameless but hinders a "vulnerable openness in relation to others" by promoting the 'put together' façade above all else?

We’ll look at some verses of corporate shame & shameless culture, talk about the link between narcissism and shame, and consider how we can live in openness in community to alleviate the harmful affects of shame in our lives, without allowing narcissism to color our fellowship.


Passages:

Romans 1:18-32

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Isaiah 44:9-11

9 All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame. 10 Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing? 11 Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen are only human. Let them all assemble, let them stand forth. They shall be terrified; they shall be put to shame together.

Psalm 83:16-18
16 Fill their faces with shame,
that they may seek your name, O Lord.
17 Let them be put to shame and dismayed forever;
let them perish in disgrace,
18 that they may know that you alone,
whose name is the Lord,
are the Most High over all the earth.


Questions:
• What is shameless about our culture that’s similar from these passages? Are these images just an extreme, or to what extent are we shameless in our participation of these things, or to what extent to we relate to narcissistic shame?
• What is God’s response, and what should be ours, to shamelessness of a corporate body of people?
• Why is narcissism linked to shame particularly problematic? In our culture? In the church? In your own personal relationships?
• How is a “winning approval” or “culture of achievement” linked to narcissistic shamelessness, and how does it affect our lives?
• How do we combat the desire for our “false self” to always be what shows, in a society that completely celebrates and approves of such behavior? What, really, is "authenticity" and "vulnerability" anyway -- and should we strive for it? How?
• How do we practice, exactly, ‘a repeated vulnerable openness in relation to others’ without becoming a different brand of shameless or desensitized altogether (or forgetting that “Christ stands between me and others”? (i.e. to what extent can it be that we are simply narcissistic and exploiting relationships in a need for admiration from others in the name of something 'pious'?) (or, How do we guard against contrived shame and spiritual eroticism?)
• Is it easier to open our shame to God or to others in community? Should we confess to one another?
• What can be helpful (and also, harmful) about confession in community?



Notes:

Narcissism
The term is derived from the Greek mythology of Narcissus. Narcissus was a handsome Greek youth who rejected the desperate advances of the nymph Echo. As punishment, he was doomed to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Unable to consummate his love, Narcissus pined away and changed into a flower that bears his name, the narcissus. In psychology and psychiatry, excessive narcissism is recognized as a severe personality dysfunction or personality disorder. The terms narcissism, narcissistic, and narcissist are often used as pejoratives, denoting vanity, conceit, egotism or simple selfishness

Narcissistic Shame

In the Narcissist, shame is so intolerable that the means have been developed not to experience it at all. What psychologists call "bypassed shame" looks like shamelessness or the absence of a conscience, hiding behind a protective barrier of denial, coldness, blame, or rage. Since there are no healthy internal mechanisms available to process this painful feeling, the shame is directed outward, away from the Self. It can never be "my fault."

More typically, the shamelessness of the Narcissist comes across as cool indifference or even amorality. We sense that these people are emotionally shallow, and we may think of them as thick-skinned, sure of themselves, and aloof. Then, all of a sudden, they may surprise us by reacting to some minor incident or social slight. When shaming sneaks past the barriers, these "shameless" ones are unmasked for what they really are -- supremely shame-sensitive. That is when you will see a flash of hurt, usually followed by rage and blame. When the stink of shame has penetrated their walls, they fumigate with a vengeance.

Shame is the feeling that lurks beneath all unhealthy narcissism, and the inability to process shame in healthy ways -- to face it, neutralize it, and move on as healthier individuals do -- leads to the characteristic postures, attitudes, and behavior of the Narcissist.

Narcissists adopt all kinds of defenses to counter narcissistic shame. They appear "hypomanic", developing addictive or impulsive behaviors. They deny, withdraw, rage, engage in the compulsive pursuit of some kind of (unattainable, of course) perfection. They display haughtiness and exhibitionism and so on. All these defenses are employed primitively (or are primitive, like splitting) and involve projective identification.




Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Confession – “When I go to my brother to confess, I am going to God…. In confession the break-through to community takes place. Sin demands to have a man by himself…. Sin wants to remain unknown. Confession in the presence of a brother is the profoundest kind of humiliation. It hurts, it cuts a man down, it is a dreadful blow to pride. To stand there before a brother as a sinner is an ignominy that is almost unbearable. In the confession of concrete sins the old man dies a painful, shameful death before the eyes of a brother…. And we refuse to bear the Cross when we are ashamed to take upon ourselves the shameful death of the sinner in confession.”


Two Dangers in Confession -- “There are two dangers that a Christian community which practices confession must guard against. The first concerns the one who hears confession. It is not a good thing for one person to be the confessor for all the others. All too easily this one person will be overburdened; thus confession will become for him an empty routine, and this will give rise to the disastrous misuse of the confessional for the exercised of spiritual domination of souls. In order that he may not succumb to this sinister danger of the confessional every person should refrain from listening to confession who does not himself practice it. Only the person who has so humbled himself can hear a brother's confession without harm. The second danger concerns the confessant. For the salvation of his should let him guard against ever making a pious work of his confession. If he does so, it will become the final, most abominable, vicious, and impure prostitution of the heart; the act becomes an idle, lustful babbling. Confession as a pious work is an invention of the devil. It is only God's offer of grace, help, and forgiveness that could make us dare to enter the abyss of confession. We can confess solely for the sake of the promise of absolution. Confession as a routine duty is spiritual death; confession is reliance upon the promise is life. The forgiveness of sins is the sole ground and goal of confession.”

“Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless, He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secret sin. Why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God? But if we do, we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also grating ourselves absolution. And is not the reason perhaps for our countless relapses and the feebleness of our Christian obedience to be found precisely in the fact that we are living on self-forgiveness and not real forgiveness? Self-forgiveness can never lead to a breach with sin; this can be accomplished only by the judging and pardoning Word of God itself.”

“The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer…. The believer feels no shame, as though he were still living too much in the flesh, when he yearns for the physical presence of other Christians.”

Human love --- “Human love has little regard for truth. It makes the truth relative, since nothing, not even the truth, must come between it and the beloved person. Human love desires the other person, his company, his answering love, but it does not serve him. On the contrary, it continues to desire even when it seems to be serving. There are two marks, both of which are one and the same thing, that manifest the difference between spiritual and human love: Human love cannot tolerate the solution of a fellowship that has become false for the sake of genuine fellowship, and human love cannot love an enemy, that is, one who seriously and stubbornly resists it. Both spring from the same source: human love is by its very nature desire—desire for human community. So long as it can satisfy this desire in some way, it will not give it up, even for the sake of truth, even for the sake of genuine love for others. But where it can no longer expect its desire to be fulfilled, there it stops short—namely, in the face of an enemy. There it turns into hatred, contempt, and calumny."

vs.

Spiritual Love --- “Spiritual love will speak to Christ about a brother more than to a brother about Christ.” (p. 36)