by Stephen Parsons

I continue to feel a profound sense of shame at the Church of England’s historic safeguarding failures. –  Archbishop Justin

There are numerous words in the English language that need to be defined before we use them.  When ++Justin used the expression ‘profound sense of shame’ I realised that I did not know precisely what meaning he was giving the word shame.  I do not blame him for my uncertainty over his use of the word.   While most people do, from their experience of life, have a pretty good idea of what the word means, we still need to pause to ensure that we are drawing on the same well of common experience as that belonging to ++Justin.

In this reflection about shame and its meaning, I am going to speak about the word in terms of a burden we lay upon ourselves through our actions, rather than one imposed on us by others.  I hope that my attempts to use the word in a consistent way do not stray too far from the common-sense meanings that most of us share.  For me, the word shame is one that usually involves a degree of emotional distress and trauma.  The first thing to be said about shame is that it is a strong feeling.   If one has shame, one feels it acutely.  The relationship with events or behaviour that cause this shame is quite distinct from the one that an individual has with an action creating guilt.  Guilt can also be a strong disruptive feeling, but somehow most people come to terms with levels of guilt in a way that never seriously disturbs the conscious mind in the way that shame does.   As I think about these two words, shame and guilt, an image comes to mind to indicate the difference.  In using the word guilt, I imagine a sponge that has soaked up a considerable amount of water.  So far, the sponge has managed to keep the soaked part out of sight and the impression is given to the outside that the whole sponge is completely dry.  The word shame on the other hand denotes a sponge that is completely soaking.  There is an overwhelming, even overpowering awareness of guilt with no attempt to hide it.  The person experiencing this intensity of guilt is encountering shame and the full implication of their actions.  In feeling shame, they have gone beyond caring about what other people think; the only concern is their complete surrender to the sense of genuine remorse and regret over what they have done.

The gospel narratives have two sections which describe the abject sorrow of the penitent, and which may also be considered as descriptions of self-inflicted shame.  They are so well known that I do not need to recount them in full.  The first account is the parable of the Prodigal Son and the second is the description of the publican when compared to the Pharisee.  The power of both accounts is that we can sense the abject grief of both men as they come to an awareness of their lowly status before God.  Both the prodigal and the publican had no claim on God, but they simply poured out their deep sense of shame in his presence.  The texts suggest that God was able to use that profound shame as a stepping stone to rebuild relationships.  At the same time the reader also sees that the approach of the Pharisee did not provide the raw building blocks to enable a true reconciliation with God and neighbour.  The ‘confession’ on the part of the Pharisee was, as we would say, phony and shallow.  He went home without the divine forgiveness that he sought. 

Abject felt sorrow for sin is described by two further words in the English language.  Each is used to convey the acute state of shame-filled awareness in both religious and secular contexts.  These words, contrition and compunction, are not commonly used, but each strongly points to a meaning that would contribute something of value to our discussion.  We are introducing ideas that point to God requiring something more than a simple generalised admission of faults as part of our preparation to receive the sacrament.  The two words were both known by the early church Fathers and mediaeval spiritual writing.   When used by one of the Desert Fathers for example, such words suggest a depth of sorrow for moral failure which is far deeper that anything that is suggested today by most books of spiritual guidance.  The words and all that they imply remain in the spiritual literature and remind us that there is a level of penitence that God requires but which few of us aspire to or give much time to explore.

Another word that seems to be attached to the ideas of remorse and real sorrow for sin is one that we have discussed on the blog some years ago.  That word is tears.  Weeping is not often discussed in modern works of spirituality, but it certainly had an honourable place in the writing of the Desert Fathers and other writers in the eastern traditions of spirituality such as Evagrius and John Cassian.  I am no expert on this corner of Christian writing, but tears were an important indication that sorrow for sin was taken very seriously.  One important Byzantine writer, Symeon the New Theologian, made the bold statement to his followers ‘never communicate without tears’.  This injunction seems to be a command to weep over the gravity of our failings when placed alongside the generous and loving presence of Christ in the sacrament.  There is much more to be said on this topic but, in spite of the place given to this profound form of self-examination in Scripture and the spiritual classics through the ages, this is an area of the Christian life that most of us know little about.

In this post I have suggested that there are several levels of sorrow and remorse to be experienced in response to the things we have done wrong.  The first level, and possibly the most superficial, is a sense of guilt which may exist only at the level of a vague discomfort rather than bringing out deeper feelings.  The level that involves shame, and which Welby was referring to, may or may not include real feelings and such things as remorse.   Equally other ways of expressing sorrow for past evils exist, but they may be only well-crafted words such as those given in a public apology.  We may find that most corporate expressions of shame are typically devoid of both feeling and sincerity.

In writing this, it occurs to me that Church of England has great difficulty at dealing with emotion and, in fact, finds any open expression of feelings distasteful.  Emotional displays were seemingly shunned in the Iwerne culture and Nash, the founder, strongly resisted the incursion of charismatic influence.  He was keen to promote a manly culture which did not give space to emotions of any kind.  It is hard to see that an appropriate understanding of such things as remorse and sorrow for sin was ever part of the conservative male dominated culture that has been bequeathed to the Church by the Iwerne constituency.    I personally received much of my emotional and spiritual education through the medium of music.   Had I not been involved in music at my second-tier public school, I wonder whether there would have been any other way of learning about the cultivation of emotion and the life of the spirit in the widest sense. The miasma of repressed emotion has made a home in many parts of our Church of England.  Perhaps the current crisis in leadership of our national Church can in part be ascribed to an apparent emotional illiteracy of those in charge.   We might go so far as to suggest that English public-school culture, with its indifference to the life of feeling and empathy, has contributed to a poverty in the ability to feel.  When feeling is undervalued or despised, then shame, the kind that ensures that true penitence takes place, cannot be felt.  It is that kind of penitence and remorse that survivors and victims long to see from those who have wronged them as abusers and bystanders. Tears, grief and true heartfelt sorrow are what we need currently in the Church.  A Church which risks showing some genuine contrition and shame for the past might have a chance of creating a new beginning for itself.  The reliance on words, crafted by a firm dedicated to the task of damage control and crisis management, will never serve up what is needed in these times of enormous danger for the Church of England,