Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
My parents and my other older relatives who grew up in the mid 20th century, as well as stories about my even older relatives (late 19th-early 20th centuries) told stories about what people would do to one another because certain actions were considered "shameful". It was terrible how they treated each other.
Perhaps if someone is a member of a community, in our case, a member of a parish, and they are refusing to repent, and their actions are causing a great harm to the rest of the community, then I can see where "shaming" a person might be appropriate. What I mean by that is telling the person you cannot come here anymore, you cannot be a part of this community until you repent, or removing that person from a position of leadership (if they are the parish council president or something like that). Then and only then would we take such actions.
I think we agree, then; it seems to me that you have been reading "stigma" as the alienation and avoidance of people, whereas I mean treating the behavior as negative and undesirable.I don't think that condemnation of sin is the judgment of God on the sinner.
Often in social stigma though, the offender IS judged and alienated. So I see no problem with society disapproving of sin. I do see a problem with Orthodox Christians following what many people do with social stigma though: avoiding people, shaming them, making them feel unwelcome and unworthy. If you have experienced social stigma (I have seen it personally with medical issues), it often extends to those reactions.
So disapproval of sin by society? That's not a problem (though I doubt that will happen with fornication). Following the general pattern of what often happens with social stigma could very well be a problem though.
"I don't know why you ever bother to go to Confession"
Remember our conversations about how you come across sometimes. Please think about how this sounds. Thank you
Feeling ashamed after sinning can be helpful and lead to repentance. But stigmatizing a person by shunning, branding them, calling them names, excluding them, ostracizing them, acting out violently against them, etc is absolutely unacceptable.
I know this is difficult for some conservatives to hear, but I believe, (as well as many others) that the reason why we are seeing such a backlash against what is perceived as Christianity in the West is precisely because of the way Western Christendom dealt with people and their sins. Some (Conservative people) may think they are innocent victims being attacked by these people who just up and decided one day to hate on Christians. I suppose that may be true for some of them, but for the majority, I'm doubtful that's the case.
One of the biggest mistakes we made in the West is to conflate Christianity with Conservatism. The West took a very legalistic approach to Christianity. This influenced how people treated one another when they sinned.
My parents and my other older relatives who grew up in the mid 20th century, as well as stories about my even older relatives (late 19th-early 20th centuries) told stories about what people would do to one another because certain actions were considered "shameful". It was terrible how they treated each other.
Perhaps if someone is a member of a community, in our case, a member of a parish, and they are refusing to repent, and their actions are causing a great harm to the rest of the community, then I can see where "shaming" a person might be appropriate. What I mean by that is telling the person you cannot come here anymore, you cannot be a part of this community until you repent, or removing that person from a position of leadership (if they are the parish council president or something like that). Then and only then would we take such actions.
From my perspective, stigma typically means shaming people, alienating people, labeling people, marking people...and not the feeling of shame or the disapproval of sin. The most recent explanation from Rus made more sense as a valid Orthodox perspective over the related practice of shaming a person that often comes with social stigma. All personal experiences I've had with stigma have shamed, or ostracized the person, not the related behavior (or in my case, medical condition). I agree with Greg's analysis of how we should handle sin, and it seems to be a fairly "Orthodox" perspective in my opinion, no matter what your definition is of 'stigma'.Wait...are the feeling of shame and the practice of shaming assumed to be synonymous by some posters in this thread? Because I read Greg's post as being against some of the extremes people can go to in shaming a person, rather than being against having anyone ever feel shame for anything they do. In fact, he says right there in the beginning that shame can be a good thing in bringing people to repentance.
Wait...are the feeling of shame and the practice of shaming assumed to be synonymous by some posters in this thread? Because I read Greg's post as being against some of the extremes people can go to in shaming a person, rather than being against having anyone ever feel shame for anything they do. In fact, he says right there in the beginning that shame can be a good thing in bringing people to repentance.
From my perspective, stigma typically means shaming people, alienating people, labeling people, marking people...and not the feeling of shame or the disapproval of sin. The most recent explanation from Rus made more sense as a valid Orthodox perspective over the related practice of shaming a person that often comes with social stigma. All personal experiences I've had with stigma have shamed, or ostracized the person, not the related behavior (or in my case, medical condition). I agree with Greg's analysis of how we should handle sin, and it seems to be a fairly "Orthodox" perspective in my opinion, no matter what your definition is of 'stigma'.
Thank you too for reading my post!
A gem of wisdom about shame from St John Chrysostom:
Do not be ashamed to enter again into the Church. Be ashamed when you sin. Do not be ashamed when you repent. Pay attention to what the devil did to you. These are two things: sin and repentance. Sin is a wound; repentance is a medicine. Just as there are for the body wounds and medicines, so for the soul are sins and repentance. However, sin has the shame and repentance possesses the courage.
Greg, you can't rag on Rusmeister for having too much of a go-to "Chesterton" obsession without full disclosure of your own "you people never read my entire posts!" obsession!
There is a backlash against Christianity because it has several features people don't like.....
Rules
Boundaries
Sexual ethics
forbids salad bar-style "all gods are basically the same god" mindsets
Sets the bar high for forgiveness
Stands against the world
We live in a society where people will cohabitate because there isn't one soul left who will frown upon it! You do it BECAUSE YOU CAN! We live in a society where you will abort your baby because nobody will judge you for it, people will pity you, and it's just a "right." Matter of fact, it's "women's health care!" You abort BECAUSE YOU CAN! A man has no problem walking down the street holding hands and lip-locking another man then taking him home to sodomize him and possibly running off to Vegas to get "married." Why? Because we have a society that will think it's cute and lovely. They do this BECAUSE THEY CAN. People have kids out of wedlock willy-nilly and are "partners" rather than married because society has a "no hangups" clause. They do it because they can.....People buy porn without shame, go to strip clubs without shame, have kids with multiple partners without shame, divorce without shame.
This shame-free society you and gzt want is already upon us. And it's yielding us some lovely fruit. I see the fruits of the vineyard in my classroom every day. My wife observes it in the hospital where she works. Yep, great stuff.
The beginning of wisdom and love of God is the fear of God. And we are called to have a sense of shame for our sins and failings. Shame, fear, caution, and other instincts helps us grow often times and to avoid the foolish impulses that humanity is prone to. Shame has kept me from doing some VERY dumb things in my life. Shame worked fine for a long time. This brave new world of no hangups and kumbaya isn't working so hot.
I don't know where or how you're getting those ideas from my posts. We must be careful not to bear false witness.It seems some people here on TAW are more concerned about what the world thinks, and they want the church to conform to the world, so they want the approval of abortion as "women's health" , divorce as "freedom of association", and homosexuality as a "right" due to the secular concept of "liberty". Well no matter what gzt and others say, tee Church ain't bending over backwards to be sodomizied by "the world".
I haven't heard ANYONE at TAW say they want these things to be approved as "women's health", "freedom of association", etc. No one at all. Some have said that it isn't a sin for Orthodox to support the legalization of some of those things, but that is a far cry from what you are saying, not to mention that it was a comment about people in general, not the poster's personal opinion.Thanks Gurney, you know in a way this relates to what Father been saying a lot about "the world" in his homolies lately. Father says we aren't suppose to be like those out in the world, especially the secular world concerning Abortion, sex outside of marriage, sodomy, transgenderism, how we live our lives as Christians, the sacraments - especially marriage, glutony, etc. It seems some people here on TAW are more concerned about what the world thinks, and they want the church to conform to the world, so they want the approval of abortion as "women's health" , divorce as "freedom of association", and homosexuality as a "right" due to the secular concept of "liberty". Well no matter what gzt and others say, tee Church ain't bending over backwards to be sodomizied by "the world".
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?