Forbidden Fruit and Fig Leaves

Judith Rossall

Description

This book seeks to address this lack of serious engagement with shame in scripture. Tracing the story of shame through the biblical story of creation, exodus and exile the author shows how key narratives in the Hebrew scriptures, such as those of David and Job can be read as offering commentary on shaming abuse of privilege and power.

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern
• Date de parution: 10 juillet 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780334059226
• Langue: English

Extrait

Forbidden Fruit and Fig Leaves
Reading the Bible with the Shamed
Judith Rossall






© Judith Rossall 2020
Published in 2020 by SCM Press
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The author has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of this Work
S cripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
978-0-334-05920-2
Printed and bound by CPI Group ( UK ) Ltd




Contents
Introduction

1. Two Exits
2. Exodus and Exile
3. Recovering Abel and Learning from Cain
4. We Need to Talk about David
5. Job: The Truth but Not the Whole Truth
6. The Welcoming Messiah
7. The Demanding Messiah
8. The Shamed Messiah
9. Looking at Jesus, Jesus Looking at Us

References and Bibliography




Introduction
Shame is an incredibly inarticulate emotion. It’s something you bathe in, it’s not something you wax eloquent about. It’s such a deep, dark, ugly thing there are very few words for it. ( Ronson, 2016, p. 236)
So, who wants to talk about shame? It’s a cold, hard pain around the heart, a lurch in the guts, a hot rush in the cheek (insert your own physical reaction here), it’s something we feel, but who wants to talk about it? It makes us want to curl up and disappear, leaves us stammering and wishing we were somewhere else, so who wants to talk about it? It is, as the quotation above puts it, ‘a deep, dark, ugly thing’, and even admitting that we struggle with shame can make us even more ashamed, so, really, why would we want to talk about it?
Who wants to talk about shame with Christians and look at shame in the Bible? Don’t Christians only want to talk about guilt? The classic distinction between shame and guilt is becoming known more and more widely; we feel guilty about what we do, but we feel shame about who we are. For many people the heart of the message of Christianity is forgiveness for our actions. In fact, it can seem that Christianity invites us not simply to admit that we have done wrong but also to label ourselves as sinners – doesn’t that lead to more shame? On the cross, Jesus bore our sins and ensured that those sins could be forgiven. So, what does that have to do with shame?
Here is my overall argument for this book. Read the Bible carefully and it says as much about shame as it does about guilt; there is a clear understanding that sin, guilt and shame all distort human living and prevent us from flourishing. Sin, guilt and shame can work together to produce a toxic mix that leaves us sighing with Paul: ‘I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate’ (Rom. 7.15). It is not that ideas of Christianity that revolve around forgiveness are wrong, more that they have not noticed everything that the Bible has to say. We are complicated creatures and God is ultimately beyond our understanding; theology must therefore perform a balancing act that holds equally important truths in tension. If we fail to take the broader message into account we can leave people struggling with a toxic shame. What is more, we are likely to become more and more irrelevant to a world that is very concerned with issues such as self-esteem and self-worth.
In the next few chapters, therefore, I am going to attempt to read Scripture (that is, the overall story of Scripture along with some concentration on particular passages) with a focus on what is said about shame. How does shame distort our living and prevent our flourishing and what does Scripture have to say to those who struggle with a shame so deep-seated that it seems to shape all of their living? In looking at shame I will raise key questions that every Christian needs to take seriously, including what the gospel has to say about what shames us and what brings us honour and esteem. Since some (but not all) who struggle with shame have been injured by the actions of others, I will also give some attention to those injured by sin and what is needed for their healing – and this will include the issue of what forgiveness looks like in the context of the gospel.
Since that makes for a quick sweep through a lot of material, let’s start with a summary of where we are going.
Chapters 1 and 2 give an overview of some of what the Bible says about shame and how that is born from sin, and can lead also to sin. The basic thesis is that theologians are right to argue that the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 has dominated Christian thinking about sin too much, but this does not mean that we should abandon it altogether. Rather, I want to propose that we should read further into the story and include what happens in the next generation and that we should balance the story of the Garden of Eden with two other iconic stories of how sin distorts human flourishing – namely, the Exodus and the Exile. If we read these stories together, we can begin to see that shame is insidious, it damages us and the people around us in ways we do not always recognize, and that God is equally concerned for both the offender and the injured.
Chapter 3 asks some questions about what it means to recover Abel, or read the Bible with the shamed. If we want to talk about shame, however, we also need to be able to describe its opposite. Describing the opposite of shame is surprisingly difficult. One way is to talk about what we call self-esteem or pride (a proper pride that comes from knowing that you are wanted and valued). The problem is that the Bible never talks about self-esteem; it talks about honour, but honour is subtly but importantly different. So, having swept fairly rapidly through the First Testament, we will pause to try to understand what honour meant in the biblical world and how we can (or cannot) talk about honour today. I want to argue that doing this work matters – if we can grasp some of the cultural differences between our world and that of the biblical writers, not only will we read the Bible differently, we will also grasp some of the weaknesses in the ways we currently try to help people who are struggling with shame.
In Chapters 4 and 5 we return to the First Testament to read two stories that I believe are all about the relationship between sin and shame, but that traditionally have been read very differently. The story of David and Bathsheba is about privilege, power and distorted honour. It has a lot to teach us about sin because it illustrates the fatal ways in which a focus purely on our own honour can make us shameless and blind to any perspective except our own. Equally, the story of Job, so often read as being about suffering, is also about what happens when an unbalanced theology seeks to unfairly label someone as a sinner. Reading it carefully will introduce us to Job’s fight for his own sense of worth and integrity.
We will then take a pause between Testaments to do some more background work. Having already raised the question of the relationship between shame and being injured by another person’s sin, we cannot escape the issue of forgiveness, but again there is work to do. We need to grasp just how being sinned against damages us, why it sometimes provokes deep shame and why a struggle with shame can make forgiveness particularly difficult. Overall, I will argue that grasping the relationship between sin and shame can give us a deeper understanding of what forgiveness involves, and that can lead us to a theological model that can begin to address the cost and process of forgiving more fully.
It is not possible to understand the New Testament without a good background in the First Testament, so only after we have laid this foundation will it be possible to turn to the story of Jesus. It is common to discuss Jesus and shame by pointing to some of the ways in which he gave people back their sense of self-worth, and we will cover some fairly similar themes. We will also pay attention to Paul’s use of adoption as an image for discipleship but will read it against the Roman background in which adoption implied taking on the honour status of your adopted family and an obligation to uphold that honour in the way that you lived.
However, the New Testament has more to say, so we also have to grapple with what it means to believe in a God who was shamed in the crucifixion and who turns upside down everything that we understand about what is shameful and what is glorious. Only if we grasp this (or at least begin to grasp it) can we really begin to understand both what the gospel says to those struggling with shame and also why this subject is vital for all Christians, including those who do not see themselves as personally affected by the issue.
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