Shame
I've been thinking about shame since the middle of summer, trying to figure out how to put together a presentation on the topic for the church. I've looked through over a dozen books on the subject, and just today have come upon one that stands so far above all the others that I am compelled to mention it: Stephen Pattison, Shame: Theory, Therapy, Theology, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). I do not know of another volume which does such a wonderful job integrating a wide range of interdisciplinary resources on shame. So far, I've had just one evening with the book. Rarely has such a short exposure helped me to focus and clarify my own thinking on a subject to the degree I am now experiencing. While I most certainly don't agree with everything Pattison says, I still very highly recommend his book to anyone interested in looking at shame in a way that balances Christian and secular western perspectives....
posted by Ang at 10:37 PM
1 Comments:
For all that many (most?) Asians and Asian Americans experience in terms of shame, it'd be a fascinating thing to see a more contextualized Asian American theology and theological reflection develop, so we can unpack more of what shame really is all about. I get the sense that much of our Western (Eurocentric) theological thinking spends plenty of time and effort on guilt, but not enough on shame, when in the whole scheme of things, both are at play.
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