Trail Seeker

The last bishopric I had was teaching the youth, that would include my daughters, that shame was a product of sin, I was so upset that they were reinforcing shame and I was not happy with this bishop, which my oldest daughter caught onto.

Shame and guilt are different things, and I don't think it is fully understood by leaders in the church. Guilt is the understanding the self is good, but the behavior is bad or wrong in some way, were as shame is the opposite, it is seen as the behavior does not matter so much as the core of the person is defective. I think we get alot of disfunction in our society from shame.

Ed Gardiner, Ph.D. has this to say about shame: Over many years of teaching and counseling adolescents, particularly the youth of the LDS Church, I have become convinced of the connection between the use of shame in efforts to control behavior and the destruction of the agency of the person so controlled. I have seen this be most true with those people who have an innate desire to be good,"

"There is no virtue in doing good when there is no other choice." Anon