For many people, religion and guilt are partners in crime. Religion is nothing more than a scolding voice that makes us feel guilty in order to control our lives. Sermons endlessly remind us of our guilt: “You’re bad. Do better. Come back next week and I’ll remind you how you’ve failed so that you can feel even worse about yourself!” Indeed, for some Christians, the worse you feel about yourself, the better a person you are!

I rarely speak about guilt because I am embarrassed by the use of religion to induce guilt rather than relieve it. I wish that religion could be a source of healing – relieving guilt rather than adding to it. And yet, the solution is not to be completely silent about guilt and shame. We can only heal guilt if we understand it better.

Guilt and Shame: Definitions and Distinctions

We tend to conflate guilt and shame, but there is a difference between these two emotions. Guilt is “a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, etc., whether real or imagined.”[1] Shame is “the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous.”[2]

Guilt is feeling bad for what you have or have not done. It is expressed in the phrase, “I’m wrong.” Shame is feeling bad for who you are, and is expressed as, “I’m not what I should be… I’m bad!” While guilt feelings arise from specific behaviors, feelings of shame cause one to question one’s total worth as a person. Guilt is a self-evaluative emotion and thus, arises from within. Feelings of guilt can plague us even if others do not agree with us – even if others do not know what we have done. Shame, on the other hand, is an interpersonal emotion, and thus, it arises from outside a person. Feelings of shame are completely rooted in how others think of us.

The following table summarizes the distinctions between guilt and shame:

Guilt and Shame: Good Or Bad

Having defined guilt and shame, the question arises: Is guilt good or bad?

In order to answer this query, reflect on the following: Should a person feel guilty for succeeding? Should one feel guilty for failing if one has tried his or her best? Is it proper for a person to feel guilty for something over which he or she had no responsibility?

Most people would respond to the questions above with “no”. Guilt must be bad, right?

However, we must consider more questions: Should a person feel guilty if he or she betrays another? Are guilt feelings appropriate if we have hurt or abused others? Should a parent feel guilty if he or she gambles away his or her paycheck instead of paying bills to maintain his or her household?

Most people would respond to the questions above with “yes”. When one hurts others, acts irresponsibly, or transgresses the law, one should feel guilty.

Let’s try this same exercise with shame: Is shame bad or good?

Should one feel shame if he or she is different than others? Are feelings of shame appropriate when one is mocked and spurned by others? What if the “others” are Neo-Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan?

Most people would respond to the questions above with “no”. Shame must be bad, right?

Not so fast! Should a person feel shame if he or she walks naked through a public school? Should a man feel shame if he fondles himself in the presence of children?

Most people would respond to the questions above with “yes”. When one transgresses basic societal standards of civility and decency, then one should feel shame.

Guilt and Shame: Good And Bad

Clearly, there are no simple answers to the questions: Is guilt good or bad? Is shame good or bad? Sure, sometimes guilt and shame are bad, but sometimes they are good! A world without guilt or shame (when appropriate) would be a world full of sociopaths!

Guilt and shame are self-evaluative and moral emotions. They play a key role in fostering moral behavior. They are pro-social and life-enhancing. Psychiatrist Willard Gaylin writes, “Shame and guilt… are not useless emotions. They signal to us that we have transgressed codes of behavior which we personally want to attain.”[3] Rabbi Harold Kushner summarizes it well, “The purpose of guilt is to make us feel bad for the right reasons so that we can then feel good for the right reasons.”[4]

Good guilt and shame can be moral indicators that we need to repent – to admit being wrong, and change our behavior for the better. In this way, the bad feelings of guilt and shame lead to personal transformation and social improvement.

Even though both shame and guilt “feel bad” – who enjoys feeling guilt or shame? – there certainly is a difference between good guilt and bad guilt, good shame and bad shame.

The problem is that both bad and good expressions feel the same. It is hard to distinguish between the two.

This calls for discernment (a cognitive quality that is difficult to produce when in the throes of guilt and shame). Somehow we must learn to discern between good and bad expressions of guilt and shame. Why? Because we cannot afford to lose guilt and shame!

Good guilt makes our lives richer and more meaningful. We all want our lives to matter. We want to do “good”. We want to feel “good” about who we are. And yet, we cannot “do good” without a sense of right and wrong or without the possibility of falling short of our ideals and thus experiencing guilt. Likewise, we cannot feel good without a sense of what kind of person we ought to be, and the awareness that we do not always live up to our aspirations – thus, exposing the possibility of feelings of shame.

Because it is likely that we will not always be able to accurately discern between good and bad guilt and good and bad shame, we would do well to listen to the wisdom of Rabbi Kushner: “The question is not whether or not we will make mistakes, whether or not we will get some important things wrong from time to time and feel terrible about it. Of course we will… The question is, how shall we deal with our imperfection, our sense of inadequacy? How do you relieve guilt? How do you cure shame?”[5]

Wholeness, Not Perfection

The book of Psalms gives guidance in our experience and expression of guilt and shame. The psalmists do not deny guilt, but rather, they own it, offer it to God, and as a result of their confession and brokenness they receive divine forgiveness and blessing. In the process, their guilt actually becomes worship! “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17; cf. Ps. 32:1-2).

The psalmist teaches us that the goal of human life is not perfection, but wholeness. Perfection is incompatible with growth, flaws, weakness, or failure. Wholeness is not. We can wholly love another and still make mistakes. Recognizing our moral weakness, owning our failures, honestly confessing them before God – all actions that arise from or accompany feelings of guilt and shame – are all vital components to a thriving and healthy relationship with God and others.

This is important to recognize, because much “bad” guilt arises from perfectionism – either in regard to ourselves or our perception of God.

When we expect perfection from ourselves or assume God expects perfection from us, we are bound to experience unhealthy guilt and shame. We are sinners. (Or, if you prefer, we are human, and even the best humans make mistakes!) Our best attempts will be flawed. Likewise, God is holy. God’s love is not so weak that it rejects us at the first sign of sin. Indeed, our weakness, frailty, and flaws actually draw God to us. God accepts the sacrifice of our brokenness. Rabbi Kushner exposes this popular, yet flawed, thinking:

I know there are some prominent clergymen – I hear them on the radio and see them on television from time to time – who tell us that God will reject us and consign us to eternal damnation if we sin even once (I have to wonder what kind of parents they grew up with). But I don’t believe that. God loves us enough to forgive our mistakes and at the same time He loves us enough to take them seriously, to ask us to do something to make up for them.[6]

Allow me to develop this further: When we expect perfection from ourselves, we end up hurting ourselves and putting off others.

Somewhere along the way, we have picked up the idea that in order to be deserving of love and admiration, we have to be perfect. If we can only manage to be perfect, everyone, even God will have to love us. Admitting any weakness, any mistake, we think, will give people reason to reject us. As a result of this outlook, we have trouble admitting that we are ever wrong…

The sad part is, we never even notice how unpleasant and unbearable we become when we insist we are always right.[7]

Livingston takes this further: “The problem with perfectionists and their preoccupation with control is that the qualities that make them effective in their work can render them insufferable in their personal lives… in some settings, notably in our intimate relationships, we gain control only by relinquishing it.”[8]

There is a space between perfection and mediocrity. It is a space called “good enough.” It is a space where we wholly – though often imperfectly – pursue God and a good life. It is a space where we come to truly embrace grace – that our actions truly matter, but that God continues to love and accept us in spite of our sin. It is a space where we can be satisfied with our efforts, even when there is room for improvement.

To be whole before God means to stand before Him with all our faults as well as all of our virtues, and to hear the message of our acceptability. To be whole means to rise beyond the need to pretend that we are perfect, to rise above the fear that we will be rejected for not being perfect. And it means having the integrity not to let the inevitable moments of weakness and selfishness become permanent parts of our character.[9]

Wholeness is not perfection. It is achieved by personal confession and repentance (the answer to our guilt) and received through divine acceptance and grace (the answer to our shame). The combination of owning our guilt and receiving God’s grace leads to spiritual transformation! This is not possible without the self-evaluative and moral emotions of guilt and shame.

To listen to the audio message, right-click and "Save Target As"

• Good Enough! (Mp3 - 14.2 mb)

© Richard J. Vincent, 2006