The Importance of Shame

Yesterday, I shared an interview that Charisma Magazine did with my friend Dennis Jernigan. Not that I was too fond of the way Charisma decided to twist his words into a click bait headline, or that they did a pretty hard cut and paste of what Dennis said within the article itself, but rather because I know Dennis and I believe that there are people who need to hear his story.

As I expected, there was an immediate reaction, and most of it was negative. There were several comments, but most of them revolved around the concept of shame. The idea being that even in telling his story he was and is, and if I know Dennis, will continue to heap shame upon others by declaring his victory over homosexuality.

All of this got me to thinking, which is always dangerous, when did shame become a bad thing?

Seriously, why do we automatically reject anything to do with shame? I know that there are times when shame is unhealthy and damaging. I know that it is always painful and that it can drive people to do some really awful things in their lives, but does that mean that shame should be avoided at all costs?

There is a part of me that would love to think that shame is a horrible emotion that we should just outright rejected in our lives. I never liked being ashamed and shame was what kept me from seeking help when I was in the middle of an abusive marriage. The weight of it all left me self-destructive and suicidal, and I only learned how to speak up when I managed to free myself from those feelings. Part of what I do now is help other women to free themselves of the shame that has kept them quiet so that they can walk towards healing and with confidence of God’s love for them. There really would have never been any need for my book Scandalous if so many women had not been bullied into silence by the destructive power of shame. So, yeah, I am not a big fan of that particular emotion.

But there is another story, one that I haven’t told all that often – probably because I have been, well, ashamed.

Sometime after my divorce, I found someone who made me happy. There are no words to describe how complete I felt with this person or how they eased all the wounds I carried since leaving the warzone of my marriage, but there was one problem. This person was unwilling to commit to loving only me. I knew I could never be happy hanging out on the fringes of their life. I wanted to be the center of their world, just like they had become the center of mine. So I did everything in my power to facilitate that. I began bending and twisting the rules, reinterpreting the decrees of my faith to make allowances for my lust, and justifying my actions under the guise of love.

God is the God of love, I told myself, and so he must want this for me. God would never allow me to feel such passion for something he did not bless. He would have never created me this way if he knew it would cause me to sin in his eyes, so I must not be sinning to do what was so incredibly natural for me. This was his design, everyone knows this, and only a fool would say that it is evil to experience the bliss I felt only with this person.

Looking back, I can see the flaws in my logic. I know now that what comes natural to humanity is very often the very things that God does call sin. He has no use for my happiness when it comes at the expense of who he declared me to be, and his greatest desire is that I would love him above all others. If that means putting aside my own desires as a demonstration of that love, I need to do it, and if I am allowing my happiness to be pervert his word to serve me then I am declaring that my happiness, not God, is the one I am worshipping.

I won’t lie to you. It wasn’t easy turning loose. I can’t tell you how devastated I was when I finally walked away, and what was worse, I had no clue as to who or what I was walking towards. Sure, I knew I was chasing Father, but what that looked like this side of eternity, I didn’t know. And the idea of living my life alone terrified me as few other things ever had. I had become so enmeshed in my dream of being with this person and finding my fulfillment in a life with them that I did not even know how to define who I was or who I could be without them because every image of the future I possessed had them at my side.

How did I do it? How did I find the courage to finally make that cut? Well, it didn’t start out as courage. It started out as shame. Big, ugly, nauseating shame. The type of shame that makes you doubt if you are worthy of life. The type of shame that rubs salt into the wounds of loss by demanding that you admit how stupid you had been, how you had let yourself be played, and how you had sold out everything you believe to be true so that you could have a few moments of fun that left you utterly unfulfilled and tormented.

But shame becomes something amazing when presented to Father. Shame stops being that ugly worm that gnaws at your guts and finds wings as it transformed into repentance, and finds its true form in faith. I think this is the step so many of us are unwilling to take, and why shame paralyzes us or propels us to do horrible things to ourselves, we don’t trust the process of repentance. We buy into the lie that if our walk to Father begins in pain that it will continue in pain. So we recoil before he can lead us through the process. All we can focus on is what we are losing, and when we shift our gaze to him we see our sins laid bare before a God who loved us so much he withstood the shame of the cross on our behalf. Knowing that so much ugliness was heaped upon one so perfect makes your soul bleed. Everywhere we turn is nothing but pain! Giving up seems to be the only option where we don’t have to hurt.

Having faith means that we learn how to trust the process, and sometimes the process means embracing the pain. I think there is reason for this, and I don’t think it is because is some celestial sadist. I think he wants us to know the depth of the wounds we carry within us. I think he wants us to feel our sickness has invaded every part of our being and how it has warped us into something that he never desired us to be. I think he wants us to learn how to hate our sin, but more importantly, I think he wants us to know our sin does not define us. For how will we ever celebrate the grandeur of his love and forgiveness if we are unable to acknowledge the depths of the healing?

No, shame is not a bad thing. It is a necessary thing, but something should only last for season – a tool to be picked up and then cast aside as we celebrate God’s redeeming love that was given when we were still lost in our sin.  

Why Christians Are To Blame For SCOTUS Marriage Decision

Okay, now that we good Christian folk have all had a chance to lament the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, I think it is time that we took a moment to consider our culpability in the situation. I know this really eats into your allotted time to wail about the evils of our society, but getting honest is a huge part of the Christian faith.

And I think it is time that we got honest about how we paved the way for this decision. Now there are a million and one things that we have screwed up royally, I plan on addressing several of them in the future, but right now I want to focus on one.

We have tried to turn Jesus into the Easter Bunny.

Not even Santa Claus, but the freaking Easter Bunny. Santa, at least, demands good behavior for rewards, but the Easter Bunny, he don’t care. All he demands is that go to sleep and you get all the feel good goodies you want.

We have told the world they should love him because he is soft and snuggly. We have said that he wants you to have your best life now, and that he doesn’t care what you do just as long as he can put a smile on your face, he’s happy bouncing in and out of your life.

The Jesus we showed the world doesn’t even care enough to stop you from facilitating your own demise. In fact, he will help and he will praise you while you do it because isn’t that what wanted? Isn’t he the one who filled your basket with desire, sexual or otherwise, so that you can indulge in it to your heart’s content?

When we started preaching love without holiness, grace without discipline, mercy without judgement, we started preaching a false gospel that only caters to the whims of the selfish. We began with money, because who doesn’t want more? We claimed that God wanted us to prosper financially, and we justified by calling God good and declaring that a good God did not want his people to be without this fundamental necessity for happy life. It was an easy sell. We all bought it.

Our views of God began to warp just tiny bit. It was easy to push aside those passages that talked about Jesus not having a home or caring for the poor. We found other verses that suited our cause so much better, and we began to declare them over homes, our families, and ourselves. We told the world that riches were not evil, and Jesus really didn’t mean it when he said that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. The love of money was certainly evil, but we sure didn’t see any reason not to love the things it bought us.

We were trained and groomed to use the Bible as shield against our detractors, and we became proficient in making converts to this gospel of self-fulfillment. Soon money wasn’t the only thing that this message could be applied to. We began to add marriage to the list, God didn’t want me to spend my life being unhappy or so the tale was told, and divorce became a valid option for all, not just those for whom it was not a choice. We tacked on “me time” and called it boundaries, when the reality was we just didn’t want to be burdened with a friend’s need. We found ways to justify fornication, but we never called it that. We knew that God just wanted us to love and be loved.

We stopped serving God and we started serving ourselves. Even church became an experiment in self-gratification (you have no idea the amount of control I used not to use the proper term here), worship was too loud, too slow, too new, too old, and too boring. It offends my sensibilities and tastes, so therefore it could not be of God, because he wants me to be happy. Sermons became pep talks, pop psychology, and self-help seminars so that we could be empowered to live the life Jesus died to give you. We were encouraged to live life more abundantly, but defined according to our new god of happiness.

And oh, how we have served that god! So many lives offered on his alters!

And we served with such devotion that the world caught our fervor. They became excited about this soft and lovable god who gave his people only sweet things and never required a thing in return. They took up his cause and began to evangelize in the streets, in the cities, and on the hillsides. “You were created to be happy! You know our god loves you when you are happy! You deserve happiness and you must fight for it because it is your right!”

Some of the new followed our example, and they still worshipped their god in the Christian churches. They found evidence of him in our sacred books, and they even prayed to him the name of our Lord Jesus. Those who refused to honor their right happiness became hypocrites, legalists, unenlightened, and bigots, and the god of happiness began to look less and less like the God of the Bible.

You want to know who to blame for the Supreme Court decision? Look in the mirror. Point the finger at Christians who failed to live their faith with integrity and who sacrificed the God of the Bible to the god happiness. Blame those who knew better and didn’t care, those who placed selfish desire above obedience, and those who refused to experience the pain of conviction when confronted with the truth of the Word.

See the God of the Bible never prioritized happiness over maturity. He never condoned our selfishness, and he never praised us for meeting our needs. Instead, he asked us to love him above all other things including happiness and self-fulfillment. He said he wants to be the center of our world and life, he wants to be the source for all good things we have and experience, and he wants us to know the beauty of growing in him so that we can share that beauty with the world.

The God of Sinai is cuddly. The God who took out the prophets of Baal wasn't interested in sweet things. The God of who lead the children of Israel through the desert did just show up when they had a tummy ache, he was there through the hard times and the bad but he demanded that the people honor him with their hearts and their actions, and he hasn't changed. The God of the Bible is still the same, it was just us who tried to create him our image in an attempt to avoid the pain of growth.

It's time we repent, and we let him be God of our lives again, even when it doesn't make us happy because when we do there is once again hope that we can change the world - and maybe get it right this time.

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A More Thoughtful Response To SCOTUS Decision

A good friend who always has a balancing and healthy perspective on the issues I address, pointed out to me that yesterday's post about the SCOTUS decision seemed dismissive of the gravity of the situation. And as usual, I could not argue as she was right.

I did not address any of the possible, and I believe inevitable, negative outcomes this will create for the Church. There is no doubt in my mind that things are going to get a whole lot uglier before they get better, and I think that as Christians we should be prepared for what is around the bend.

Now, I am in no way claim to be a legal expert, nor do I pretend to be familiar with all the intricacies of the laws of our land. What I offer is my opinion based on my knowledge as a student of the Bible and history.

What I do know about our nation’s laws is that they can be rewritten to be acceptable to the changes of time and culture to better reflect the social attitudes of our day. The ability to make these changes was integral part of the design from the start and has been used to make some very positive changes in our country. Women’s right to vote and racial equality are just two issues that come to mind without a second cup of coffee. My point is laws change, even constitutional laws change, and to bank on them as the source of our security is absurd and naïve.

And it isn’t always that the laws have to change, it is simply that interpretation of the laws are changed. After all, if you compared many of the selfies posted on social media, they clearly fit the standards of pornography of the Comstock Act of 1873 and would have been grounds to arrest about half our nation. However, over the years styles and fashion changed so the definition lewd and obscene changed and as such laws had to be changed to accommodate public demand. Now you can show your butt online as long as you have a string over the crack, and by law it is not considered to pornographic.

There is a very similar evolution going on in our laws that dictate the relationship between church and state, and the SCOTUS decision is going to accelerate that evolution.

The first, most obvious reason, is that the Bible teaches homosexuality is wrong. I know there are a ton of convoluted arguments to the contrary, but let’s go with the plain reading of the text as offered in Scripture.

Now if we believe that freedom of speech is a protected act in the US then you have never studied censorship laws – speech is only as protected as it is deemed proper under societal dictates. Whereas Clark Gable once caused a scandal by “not giving a damn”, no one even blinks at such phrases today. However, say that for a man to lie with another man as woman is an abomination, and presto! You have crossed over into hate speech, and do you know what isn’t protected under freedom of speech?

If you guessed hate speech, you are right.

Freedom of religion also will not spare us the consequences. All that is needed is apply the term abusive to any religious practice and it can come under fire, particularly when it involves minors, and this isn’t a bad thing. When we have men like Warren Jeffs marrying off teenage girls to the men his church, legal action should be taken. However, where do we draw the line and who determines what abuse is? In California, reparative therapy for a child dealing with same sex attraction is considered abusive and has been banned. Other states are sure to follow as homosexuality is now considered to be normal part of our society and culture.

To me the almost obscene footnote in all of this has become a major issues among Christians, and that is the idea that churches will lose their tax exempt status. Ladies and Gentlemen, I hate to break to break it to you that is going to happen. When we have churches who voluntarily decided to run themselves corporations instead houses of prayer we asked for it, and I am not going to waste time feeling sorry for reaping the consequences of what we have sown. There are greater issues on the line than money, and if you think that God has to have a tax break to be present in this world, your god is pretty small and probably not worth worshipping, and definitely not able to handle the real issues of our world.

So what are we supposed to do? Well, for starters, don’t sit around wringing your hands as if the world has come to an end. What if it has? Isn’t that the hope and longing of all creation? Our job is to be preparing for it, and I don’t mean by stockpiling a bunch of food and ammo. I mean we should be helping those around us to see God’s glory and goodness so that they might be inspired to seek him, and let’s face it, if we are only showing them a defeated God, why would they want him?

We dive deeper into his Word and we follow the outline he gave a persecuted church so many years ago. For their persecution was far greater than any we face now, and yet, he gave them not only the keys to survival, he showed them how to thrive! He told them how to live their faith in the face of oppressive laws and intolerance for their religion. He didn’t lie to them about how believing in him would make their lives all lollipops and rainbows. Instead, he said that we are blessed in persecution and that we would be reviled and that we should rejoice in it.

We become intentional in seeking our King. For it is in knowing him that we find the strength and humility to live transformational lives. Lives that are not full of self-pity or fear, but lives that recognize the darkness makes the light shine even more brightly.

We surround ourselves with other believers, but we remain available to the rest of the world. We find strength and encouragement through the love and support of those who share our faith, and we use those times as a springboard to live our faith boldly before others.

We educate ourselves on the issues that touch the lives of our loved ones, believers and non-believers alike, so that we can have a ready answer in due season. We have been called to be wise, and wisdom is difficult to cultivate in a desert of ignorance.

We walk in grace and compassion, not anger and bitterness. God has done this for us and when we fail to extend it to others, we fail to deny God’s gift to us.

We speak truth, but we do it in love, fully recognizing that the love that has been given to us is also offered to any who would receive it.

But most of all, we share our stories of how God changed us. For some of us this means being real about struggles in our sexuality, for some this an admission that we don’t know what it is like to face that challenge, but for all of us it call to celebrate the goodness of God’s grace and mercy extended to us no matter what we have faced in our lives.

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When Faith Is Offensive

*This was originally posted as response to friend who found my support and friendship with Dennis Jernigan to be offensive. Find a link to "Sing Over Me" the documentary film on Dennis' life below.

My beliefs on homosexual behavior have been labeled hurtful. I do not disagree that anytime the Bible runs against our basic human nature it hurts. It hurt me when I experienced conviction about my own behavior. So there is no argument to be had there from me, but there is a way to move beyond the hurt. And that is ultimately the message.

In my personal experience, my faith has been the reason why I have been able to step into situations where many of my friends have been hurting and respond with compassion to friends whose behavior is at odds with particular aspects of my faith.

As such, in more than one instance I have been the only one at the side of a friend grieving over a broken relationship. And the number of times it was a gay friend who wept because they had been betrayed is only slightly less than when I did the same for a straight friend.

I do this because pain is valid and real. We each deserve to have someone treat it seriously and with compassion. My faith gives me the tools to do so. If we are using our faith as justification to throw rocks at another then we cannot claim it as Christian, nor can we claim to be loving if we do not or cannot accept the love extended to us.

It is a bitter heart that cannot appreciate the motives even if the means offend. My motive is simple - I have experienced  freedom and joy by daily moving my life into deeper unity with God, and I hope that all those I encounter would know the same. If it is offensive to share the beauty I have found then I shall be offensive. To remain silent would be to deny the gift I have been given and passively endorse what I believe to be wrong as defined in the text of my faith.

I share Dennis Jernigan's story first because he is my friend and second because he has been a source of hope and encouragement for so many. To deny anyone access to the truth of his life would be a form of censorship that I impose on no one - including those I disagree with and whose views I believe are hurtful.

Dennis stands out in the fact he was changed. He flies in the face of conventional teaching, but not through statistical observation or abstract arguments. This is a truth he lives with grace and mercy. And I believe that each of us can experience profound changes with the compassion and help of a God who loves us enough to move in amazing ways.

Sing Over Me - A documentary about worship, identity, and the transformative power of the Gospel.