Loss of Shame

I enjoy playing guitar and singing to entertain myself and amuse others. Though, when I first began to take up guitar playing it was a struggle to make my fingers do what I wanted them to do and after a few moments on the strings my finger tips would hurt. The longer I spent pushing down on the fret the more painful it was. Nevertheless, I persisted in cultivating the guitar practice because the payoff was satisfying for me. After awhile my finger tips began to develop calluses, the discomfort of holding down the strings faded and I was able to spend hours and hours on the guitar with no pain or tenderness at all.

In the early 1970s George Carlin got a lot of mileage out of his LP monologue "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” Not only were there verbal restrictions then but there were prohibitions on what could have been considered proper viewing. Today, not only are those words permissible on TV but what is now condoned in the way of language, violence, gratuitous sex and horror is light years from those early proscriptions. What used to solicit a sense of shame in us now hardly makes a dent in our sensitivity. However, we didn’t go to bed on Thursday with a conscience and wake up on Friday amoral. We had to “practice” and cultivate this loss of shame. We deliberately built up calluses on our individual and collective consciences. In attempting to satisfy our voracious appetites it was necessary to start small and keep at it until those minor moral discomforts eventually dissipated and our consciences became seared. (1 Tim 4:2)

Is there any hope for our present condition? My wife and I are re-watching the wonderful 1980s television mini-series, Herman Wouk’s “War and Remembrance.” Yet, the scenes that depict the treatment and disposition of European Jews in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz serve as a reminder that the depths to we are capable of descending is almost unimaginable. Once thing is certain, once the conscience is disposed of we’re lost. Without shame we have become slaves to our appetites and eventual destruction. However, there is one – possible – escape. “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” (Rom 6:17-18) Christ will break those chains around your conscience and set your free. You can’t so it yourself – only He can. Ask Him and He’ll do it. Your choice.