British theologian Paula Gooder is a Pauline scholar who has studied first century life in places Paul worked. In lectures and books she has made the point that social standards of the day were based on a system of honor and shame. The goal of a Roman citizen’s life was to acquire as much honor as possible, reaching for the next higher level of social standing. Social shame was a path to increasing dishonor that could lead to exclusion from “society.”
Free non-citizens could not attain honors but could be respected for their work and character. They could also be publicly shamed sometimes resulting in punishment or exile. Slaves were not socially respected no matter how important they were to the functioning of society. They could not be shamed but they could be punished, even killed at will.
The followers of Jesus in the early Christian church upset the social standards of the day because baptized into God’s family as children of God they had all the honor possible, an honor that shaming could not remove. That, Gooder said, is what enabled them to face attempts at public shaming, beatings and more with peace filled hearts and minds. It must have been infuriating not to be able to shame those who didn’t let it change who they were or saw themselves to be. Even worse, it was difficult to tempt them with the usual menu of honors. Whether early Chrisians had honors or not was of little personal concern to them. As for slaves, nothing could turn the world upside down more than a Christian slave who acted as if they were free and seemed unresponsive to punishment.
Was that so? I imagine it was true for some, perhaps many, at least in part. Human nature being what it is, it’s likely the honor and shame system was hard to resist. What struck me as I reflected on the author’s thoughts was that times have not changed very much since then. We still live in an honor and shame system even if called by some other name. We may have a poorly defined and chaotic social hierarchy, but everyone knows there is one and has a sense of what it is and how it operates. It’s what sociologists spend most of their time examining. It’s the fodder of tabloid style news media where the modern way of public shaming is scandal marketed as entertainment.
Today’s honors are doled out in a variety of forms, including the multitude of awards such as Oscars, Nobels, and Bookers, not to mention men and women of the year, employees of the month,, valedictorians and prom queens. There was once a list of society’s 400. Now we have Forbes list of the ten richest, the billionaires club, and (sigh) influencers.
The whole mess is kept churning by private and public shaming to remote, humiliate, ridicule, ostracize, and bully. Tactical shaming is the red meat of negative political ads. Spiteful shaming is the realm of gossip and media sensationalism. Bosses shame subordinates to let them know who’s boss. Parents shame children to teach them a lesson. And quite a bit of shame is self inflicted by the consequences of bad choices. I don’t think the Greeks and Romans invented the honor and shame system. It probably exists in some form in every culture but maybe there are some who employed it with more integrity and respect. What strikes me is that there should be more Christians adhering to the ancient practice of the early church that rejected the power of shame, was ambivalent about honor, and had unflinching confidence in God’s redeeming love for them in Jesus Christ.
What we know of Pauline Christians is that they were well aware of sin, especially their own. But they also knew the healing power of confession, repentance, and forgiveness were theirs by grace through faith, and theirs to offer to others. It isn’t magic. It’s always a struggle with one’s own ego amidst social pressures from all sides, some good, some not.
Paul wrote that we are “not to be conformed to the world but to be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom. 12). He meant to be wary of contemporary social standards and expectations. Measure them all by the will of God revealed through scripture and especially in Jesus Christ. Live in confident assurance that as a child of God, social honor and shame are to be faced with courage and peace of mind. Let me put it another way. Society’s honors are often little more than a form of ego enriching bribery. Beware. Social shaming is often a form of blackmail demanding the surrender of your soul. Beware. In Jesus’ own words, “do not be afraid” you are beloved by God.
The Stoics also attempted to step out of that squirrel cage, though, as you point out in connection with the Christians, not always successfully. One of the best known among the Stoics to our world was Seneca who in spite of his writings was very much caught up in the invidious competition in his life.