Brené Brown, shame, and original sin

Jason Ingalls, in the Living Church’s “Covenant”, writes about the connections between Brené Brown, shame, and the doctrine of Original Sin:

Dr. Brown doesn’t go so far as to claim that shame is the root of all evil, but she does seem to imply that with enough shame, most of us could be pushed into all kinds of evils which don’t align with who we want to be (belief #2).

And just because shame is “natural,” in that it developed somewhere along our evolutionary line, there is still the sense that it doesn’t belong in the world. Dr. Brown writes, “In any form, in any context and through any delivery system, shame is destructive” (I Thought It Was Just Me, 62). According to the Christian story, shame had no part in the way God made humanity. Here, too, Dr. Brown can find no constructive reason for shame to exist (belief #3).

Many Christians (liberal or conservative) might hear this and say (either in defense or attack), “Of course the doctrine says we’re flawed, and our flaw (original sin) makes us unworthy of God’s love. Original sin says we should be ashamed!”

But, I don’t think this is right. The doctrine of original sin says that we cannot earn God’s love, that we cannot be perfect. Shame breeds perfectionism, not the other way around. According to Dr. Brown, we cannot earn love and belonging from others. Perfectionism only reinforces our shame. The doctrine can be a healthy way for Christians to “speak our shame” because Scripture is clear: God loves his creation first, and therefore sets out to redeem it (John 3:16); and shame had no place in the world God made (Gen. 2:25). God loves us because God loves us, and he shares that redeeming love with us in Jesus Christ. The Gospel is that in Jesus Christ we are completely loved and accepted by God.