The last emotion Selwyn looks at is shame.
He writes that shame is a ‘feeling of humiliation excited by consciousness of one’s own guilt or shortcoming, a state of disgrace, a regret or ignominy’. He also mentions that guilt is a feeling of having done something wrong and is different to shame.
I think the feeling of shame has more to do with one’s perception of their social standing, it’s a feeling of loss. I like the expression that is often heard in Asian countries, a ‘loss of face’ – because this expression carries with it, the feeling that there has been a loss regarding one’s social prestige. The person does not want to show their face in public.
Consequently, I think there are two areas where the emotion of shame arises; one, is where we feel shame within our own social environment – the outcomes could be humiliation and some loss of our self-esteem. The second and more important expression of this emotion is the feeling of shame where we realise we are not following God’s ways; here the outcome can be more than the ‘loss of face’, it can be the loss of life!
‘The portrayal of hell’
The last emotion Selwyn looks at is shame.
He writes that shame is a ‘feeling of humiliation excited by consciousness of one’s own guilt or shortcoming, a state of disgrace, a regret or ignominy’. He also mentions that guilt is a feeling of having done something wrong and is different to shame.
I think the feeling of shame has more to do with one’s perception of their social standing, it’s a feeling of loss. I like the expression that is often heard in Asian countries, a ‘loss of face’ – because this expression carries with it, the feeling that there has been a loss regarding one’s social prestige. The person does not want to show their face in public.
Consequently, I think there are two areas where the emotion of shame arises; one, is where we feel shame within our own social environment – the outcomes could be humiliation and some loss of our self-esteem. The second and more important expression of this emotion is the feeling of shame where we realise we are not following God’s ways; here the outcome can be more than the ‘loss of face’, it can be the loss of life!