Preaching Connection: Shame

In June of 1967 Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq—all within six days.  In fact Israel wiped out the air forces of the other nations mostly in one afternoon.  Israel’s victory was crushing to her Muslim opponents, who had believed that God was on their side in the long struggle with Israel.  Obviously they...

Shame used to be valued as a sign of character, of knowing limits. But contemporary culture…has tended to dismiss shame as the mark of a timid person. “We can be ashamed of anything—including our assets—when we see that they provoke disapproval, or divide us from others. Hidden and un-dealt-with shame can stalk one’s being, inflicting...

“Even pagan society has usually recognized shamelessness as the nadir of the soul.”

“Shame is man’s ineffaceable recollection of his estrangement from the origin; it is grief for this estrangement, and the powerless longing to return to unity with the origin. Man is ashamed because he has lost something which is essential to his original character, to himself as a whole; he is ashamed of his nakedness…. Shame...

Prince Dimitri Nekhlyudov (neck-lee-YOO-dov) seduces a beautiful housemaid, Katerína Máslova, impregnates her by the seduction, and spoils her life. On the day after the fateful seduction, Nekhlyudov makes a terrible decision: he ought to give Máslova some money “because it was the thing to do and he would be considered dishonorable if he did not...

During the 1930s Hitler’s aim in building up German arms, in rallying the German people, in defying other nations’ uneasiness over these things, was to expand German glory. Germany had been shamed at Versailles. Hitler understood that the only cure for shame was glory. All he needed was Lebensraum, living space, “into which a racially...