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How Penal Substitution Addresses Our Shame: the Bible’S Shame Dynamics and Their Relationships to Evangelical Doctrine David E

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How Penal Substitution Addresses Our Shame: the Bible’S Shame Dynamics and Their Relationships to Evangelical Doctrine David E How Penal Substitution addresses our Shame: The Bible’s Shame Dynamics and their Relationships to Evangelical Doctrine David E. Rennalls David E. Rennalls serves as Pastor of Discipleship at the Metropolitan Bible Church in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He earned his MDiv from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, where he is also completing his PhD in systematic theology. He is writing on the subject of this article, namely how a penal substitution view of the atonement addresses our shame. He presented an earlier version of this article at the national meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. David and his wife, Jennifer, are the parents of three children. Introduction It is difficult not to notice how the notion of shame surfaces in the first chapters of Genesis1 and how the need for men and women to cover them- selves from “the shame of their nakedness” remains in focus even as the canon comes to a close in Revelation.2 The dynamics of shame are intricately woven through the biblical storyline. A significant thrust of scholarship has argued, however, that the language of shame has been largely eclipsed by the language of guilt in western culture at large and in the western theological tradition in particular. An early and influential voice in the current discus- sion was anthropologist Ruth Benedict, who argued in 1946 that Japan and other Eastern civilizations were characterized by concepts of shame and SBJT 23.3 (2019): 77-98 77 The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 23.3 (2019) honor which were foreign to the cultures of the West.3 Scholars following Benedict have shown that a hard distinction between “shame cultures” and “guilt cultures” cannot be maintained,4 but the growing awareness of shame’s presence in the West has drawn increasing levels of attention to the topic in western scholarship. Psychologists have sought to understand and describe the phenomenon of shame, its roots in the individual psyche, and its wider cultural underpinnings. They have defined shame using the categories of their discipline and sought to provide clinical solutions.5 Christians have sought solutions as well. Evangelists and missionaries have struggled to share the gospel among people who seem to have no category for guilt, and pastors have struggled to help those who are burdened by an overwhelming sense of disgrace, dishonor, and humiliation.6 They have searched the Scriptures and rediscovered its rich shame and honor themes, but some have looked to the western theological tradition and found it wanting for doctrinal resources which are able to deal with the presenting problem. More specifically, a number of scholars and practitioners have studied the doctrine of penal substitution and been unable to reconcile its legal categories of sin and guilt with the communal and interpersonal notions of shame with which they are confronted. They have therefore abandoned penal substitution in favor of other conceptions of the atonement.7 Into this category falls the influential work of Mark Green and Joel Baker who argue in Recovering the Scandal of the Cross that a penal satisfaction model of atonement is dependent on western categories of thought rather than biblical exegesis.8 Furthermore, they contend that biblically, the significance of Jesus’ crucifixion “is variously parsed, depending on the narrative within which it is located.”9 This conviction leads them to conclude that “the models championed in the New Testament (NT) for expounding the meaning of Jesus’ suffering may not (all) be suited to our day,”10 and that a western guilt-based penal satisfaction doctrine of atonement has little significance in shame-based cultures such as Japan.11 Similar criticism has come from Stephen Pattison, who contends that the Christian tradition, including its substitutionary view of the atonement, “has little to offer to the condition of shame” and suggests that “Christian theology may therefore have to repent, turn around, and change its focus of attention quite radically—for example in relation to atonement—to make shame and defilement much more directly visible and redeemable.”12 78 How Penal Substitution addresses our Shame My Thesis The question at hand is whether a move away from penal substitutionary atonement is a necessary or appropriate response to the presenting problem of shame. In this article, I contribute to the discussion by providing analysis of some of the shame dynamics presented within the canon of Scripture and highlighting some of their critical points of contact with classic evangelical theology. Without delving deeply into any particular point of theological formulation, I pursue the modest goal of showing that the Bible’s shame categories are inherently related to the classic orthodox and evangelical doc- trines of God, humans, sin, forgiveness, justification, regeneration, adoption, union with Christ, sanctification, and glorification, when these doctrines are considered within the full-orbed framework of the New Covenant inaugu- rated by Christ’s penal substitutionary atonement. So, in contrast to Green, Baker, and Pattison, the exegetical and theological evidence leads to the conclusion that a move away from penal substitutionary atonement is neither necessary nor appropriate. The key to communicating the gospel to people who are sensitive to shame dynamics13 is becoming fluent with Scripture’s own presentation of those dynamics and with the biblical connections which relate those dynamics to other doctrines. Shame in the Scriptures The attention given to shame in contemporary discussions has yielded no shortage of analysis and debate, and the social sciences have offered helpful proposals for understanding the phenomenon and addressing its problems. As theologians seek to appropriate the fruit of such efforts, however, they will want to evaluate proposals in light of the biblical testimony. Since the theme of shame appears so regularly through the Bible’s pages, theologians have ample resources for study, and the examination of the biblical material leads to a number of relevant insights. Initial Definitions The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word shame first as “The painful emotion arising from the consciousness of something dishonouring, ridiculous, or indecorous in one’s own conduct or circumstances (or in those of others 79 The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 23.3 (2019) whose honour or disgrace one regards as one’s own), or of being in a situation which offends one’s sense of modesty or decency.” The second definition adds to the first, noting that shame can also be “modesty” or “fear of an offence against propriety or decency, operating as a restraint on behavior.”14 This is what comes to mind when we speak of shame, and voices in the discussion are in general agreement with that characterization, but the Bible’s depiction of the concept provides nuance and sophistication to the Oxford definition. Shame and Exposure One facet of shame regularly recognized in the literature is summarized by Gershen Kaufman: “Phenomenologically, to feel shame is to feel seen in a painfully diminished sense ... No one else need be present in order for shame to be felt, but when others are present shame is an impediment to further communication.”15 Green and Banker state the same concept more succinctly: “Shame is experienced as exposure to others and to oneself.”16 This description of the shame experience is largely consistent with the biblical testimony. A sense of being “seen in a painfully diminished sense” is what David has in mind in Psalm 25 when he cries out, “O my God, in you I trust, let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me.” By placing the idea of being exulted over by enemies in parallel with the idea of being put to shame, David associates being “put to shame” with being debased in the eyes of other men. Similar sentiments are expressed throughout the Psalms and the Prophets as, on the one hand, God’s people plead with him that they not be put to shame, and, on the other hand, God warns his people that if they persist in sin and unbelief they will be put to shame.17 In both cases the being put to shame is being debased in the eyes of the nations. This sense of defiled exposure is evident perhaps most clearly, however, in Genesis 3. Adam and Eve had been described as “naked and unashamed” in 2:25, but in 3:7–8 “the eyes of both were opened,” they sought to cover them- selves with fig leaves, and they hid from the Lord God to avoid his presence. As the episode concludes we read that a covering was provided: “The Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them” (3:21). Shame and Guilt A closer look at this passage in Genesis leads to questions about the relation- ship between shame and guilt. Their exact connection remains a point of 80 How Penal Substitution addresses our Shame significant controversy, but scholarly consensus does seem to have converged in locating the distinction between the two. As expressed by Tangney and Dearing, “the fundamental difference between shame and guilt centers on the role of the self. Shame involves fairly global negative evaluations of the self (i.e., ‘Who I am’). Guilt involves a more articulated condemnation of a specific behavior (i.e., ‘What Idid ’).”18 Taking the question from a biblical perspective, we note that Genesis 3 establishes a causal relationship in which shame is a result of transgression and iniquity. It was the sin of Adam and Eve that caused them to feel ashamed. In terms of the shame/guilt distinction cited above, it was what they did that changed their conception of who they were before God. They were still naked, but they were no longer unashamed; they were now painfully conscious that they stood before God no longer as his faithful, trusting representatives, but as willful violators of his command.19 If the account of the fall is meant to describe the fundamental human problem, then the shame which is funda- mentally problematic is causally related to sin and guilt.20 Genesis 3 is not the only text which points to that relationship; the link between guilt and shame is described explicitly throughout the canon.
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