Imagine receiving a grade for all your activities—both public and private. Then picture everyone knowing your score. China, an honor/shame society, is now pushing the pursuit of honor. By 2020, the government plans to rank all citizens and businesses based on their social credit, their economic and social reputation. As Jayson Georges says in The 3D Gospel, “Honor and shame function like a social credit rating measuring one’s reputation.”^[i] The stated purpose of China’s social credit system is to help people trust one another again. The program aims to honor/reward or shame/penalize people based on whether they conform to dictated social norms. 

The Pursuit of Honor and Avoidance of Shame in the Majority World

In an honor/shame culture, the group possesses a collective honor that members share. A person’s family name, title, rank, and social position (ascribed honor) determine his or her honor status. Individuals pursue honor for their group, not for themselves. The community determines whether an action is good/honorable or bad/shameful. Failure to meet community expectations results in shame and isolation. Since honor and shame come from the community, success or failure is only real when others know.

Whereas honor makes life worthwhile; shame is a living death. Both honor and shame are contagious; what affects one affects all. Unlike a guilty person, a shamed person can do little to repair the social damage. Restoring the honor of the group requires either removal of the source of disgrace or revenge. In non-believing cultures, forgiveness isn’t an option. However, responses to shame vary within different honor/shame cultures. 

The Pursuit of Honor and Avoidance of Shame in the Bible

The Bible contains 500+ references to shame, honor, and their synonyms—many more than to guilt, innocence, and their synonyms. The world of the Bible was honor/shame with varying amounts of fear/power.

In the Old Testament

In 1 Samuel 1, we meet Hannah, the first but barren wife of Elkanah. She felt intense shame: First, because she did not fulfill her expected purpose of providing her husband with a son. And second, because Elkanah had to take a second wife to produce an heir. The second wife, Peninnah, enjoyed provoking and humiliating Hannah. Eli, the priest, made Hannah’s pain worse when he accused her of drunkenness as she prayed for a son. But when God answered her prayer, he transformed her honor status from shamed to honored. In his prophecy against the house of Eli, God said, “Those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be disdained.” (1 Samuel 2:30) Not only did that prove accurate in the lives of Eli’s sons but also Hannah’s life. 

In the New Testament

Jesus performed his first miracle at a wedding in Cana (John 2). Running out of wine at a wedding banquet brought great shame to the groom and his family. We don’t know what Mary thought when she informed Jesus of the problem. But at a minimum, she was hoping he could think of a way to remove the groom’s shame and restore his honor. When Jesus changed the water into wine (and not just ordinary wine but the best wine), he reversed the groom’s honor status from shamed to honored.

Conclusion

The pursuit of honor and struggle to avoid shame are universal, but non-Western societies are more motivated by honor/shame dynamics than Western people. As Jayson Georges and Mark D. Baker note in Ministering in Honor-Shame Cultures, “When social reputation is the basic foundation of life and identity, people’s pursuit of respect, honor and status frames every facet of life.” 

People in the Bible also pursued honor and sought to avoid shame. As we study modern honor/shame cultures, we can understand more about biblical culture. When we read Scripture through an honor/shame lens, we can discover how God reverses the honor status of the shamed—something that isn’t possible in non-believing honor/shame cultures. How many places can you find the pursuit of honor in God’s Word?

^[i]Jason Georges, The 3D Gospel: Ministry in Guilt, Shame, and Fear Cultures (Timē Press, 2017), Kindle edition, 21.