Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, said that he has “learned to be ashamed again of the Church (of England)” after three weeks of studying the accounts of sexual abuse by Church of England clerics.

How does this compare with Roman Catholic cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who regularly studied the accounts of abuse by Roman Catholic priests in his official role as Prefect of the office formerly known as the Roman Inquisition, following which he was elected to be the Roman Catholic pope in Rome and finally resigned from that position?

Shame motivates most people to action.  What action can we expect to see?

Will we hear the proper application of Christian doctrine?  Will we hear serious discussion of sin, its guilt, its punishment and its forgiveness, or will we hear the usual platitudes and excuses for ‘flawed human nature’?  Will we hear Jesus’ warning about the need of being born again by God’s Holy Spirit and His message that except they repent and change they will also perish?

Links:

Jun 2015: social media shaming: kicking people when they are down.  This is what the ungodly do – and there are many of them.

25 Sep 2017: the power of shame to motivate.

Update:

26 Mar 2018: the word that each side threw at each other in the largest demonstration against an opposition UK leader in recent history was ‘Shame!’  The BBC did not repeat the word in this report nor subsequent ones, but Israel, Labour MP John Mann and others highlighted it.

26 Mar 2018: Australia’s shame over a game.

The Lord Jesus Christ said:

‘Whosoever, therefore, shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed when He shall come in the glory of His Father with the holy angels’ Mark 8:38.

How many people have given thought to this?

6 Apr 2018: From post-truth to post-shame.