Have We Lost a Sense of Shame?

I notice a marked lack of shame at public sin in young people. Some teens and college-age young people--even those in church--seemingly have no idea of what it is to become embarrassed at things from what they post on Facebook to the clothes (or lack thereof) they wear. Part of the reason I notice it more is because I am a parent of adults and teens. Part of it is that I am a pastor and see lots of shameful behavior. 

In some ways I would guess it is a reflection of an anything-goes culture. However, it happens in the strictest of Christian homes as well. 

The whole conscience thing is difficult to understand. I understand that it is sinful to violate the conscience (Romans 14) even when the conscience is not biblically trained. That is why I so often tell parents not to sweat the small stuff. When we have a large number of "house rules" that we cannot possibly enforce, kids can learn that rules are not that big of a deal. Kids tend to get in bigger trouble for violating Dad's kingdom standards than God's. So they learn to violate their conscience in bigger and bigger ways.

The cults, for instance, have long been very good at communicating their system of performance-based righteousness to their children. Consequently you see people two or three generations removed from the devout ones who still hold some of the accepted convictions even though they are no longer identified with the cult. That is why you have non-Mormons avoiding coffee and Coke, non-JW's arguing against the Trinity and non-fundyBaptists voting Republican. Then you have some who have turned to the extremes of sin but are still afraid to listen to a doctrine other than the false one they grew up with.

I am increasingly seeing that the common error in all these cults (notice I included fundyBaptists) is their trashing or at best ignoring the cross. They clearly communicate a system of rules that can never change a sinner into something better. When the only way to get or keep a right relationship with God is to perform, you either play the hypocritical game or you turn away in despair. The only difference among those with unregenerate hearts is that some can convincingly play the game for a lifetime and some cannot.

So when I work with a man who is more afraid of smoking a cigarette than he is afraid of God's judgment on his anger or addiction to pornography I do not start by telling him about Spurgeon's smoking habits. I call him to see the attributes of God, to hate his own depravity, to love the cross, to hate performance-based righteousness and to love the diverse kingdom of people redeemed by blood.

I really like John Calvin’s statement about substitution: “When we behold the disfigurement of the Son of God, when we find ourselves appalled by his marred appearance, we need to reckon afresh that it is upon ourselves we gaze, for he stood in our place.”

The Road to Happiness Goes through the Graveyard

Have you ever known someone who was terribly messed up, but likeable? You blush at their language and their past, but feel strangely relaxed around them because you have nothing to prove. You set the bad person next to some church people who seem to have the gift of criticism and you might wish for a few more evil people in your church.

There is a reason for this. We are proud of our religious accomplishments. We look so good before the dark backdrop of the tattooed and the uncatechized.

It is very hard to be good, but you are deceived if you think that good just means you have to be better than those around you. In Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis says that you—the compliant child who wishes you could be bad—are, “a far greater pest to anyone who has to live with you than you would have been if you had remained frankly selfish.”

That is why there is little difference between the vile criminal who feeds on sinful pleasures and the church guy who feeds on religious pleasures. The reason the outwardly vile man seems happier is that he is living completely for what he wants. The religious guy is in a battle to prove he can achieve what his heart really does not want to do. He is like the compliant child who takes her nasty medicine because she likes to look better than her rebellious brother. She hates it too, but she loves the applause slightly more than she hates the medicine.

Maybe the reason we don’t like hypocrites is that we have all learned to play the game. Sometimes in our honest moments we wonder how much fun it would be to just hang it up. But of course the answer is not for all of us to start living consistent lives of fleshly indulgence. The answer is that we need to die. The words of Jesus in Luke 9:23-24 bring us to see that He is not out to improve us but to remake us in His image.