Missionary Elenctics and Guilt and

Shame
DAVID J. HESSELGRAVE

I HE MOTIF of guilt and shame constitutes one of the points

at which missiological, anthropological and psychological
concerns converge and diverge.
Geoffrey Gorer has written,
I should choose 1895, the year of the publication of Freud and Breuer's Studien
Über Hysterie, as the year in which the scientific study of individual psychology
was born, and 1934, the year of the publication of Ruth Benedict's Patterns of
Culture, as the birth year of the scientific study of national character (1943:247).
It is both intriguing and instructive that the authors of two
seminal works, one in personal psychology and the other in
cultural anthropology, emphasized guilt and/or shame in their
writings, because these motifs are foundational to biblical
missiology. Elaborating on this point, we will focus on the ideas
of Freud and Benedict and their successors, emphasizing
particularly the bearing that guilt and shame have on missionary
communication and counseling.
Guilt and Freudian Psychopathology
Up until the middle 1880s, Sigmund Freud's thinking was not
greatly different from that of his contemporaries. From Josef
Breuer he had learned a new variation in hypnosis called
catharsis. But it was not until the late 1880s and 1890s that he
began self-analysis in a significant way and introduced a theory
of psychoanalysis which proved to be world shaking. The year
1895, therefore, is important not just because of the publication

David J. Hesselgrave teaches at the School of World Missions, Trinity

Evangelical Divinity School. His published works include Planting Churches
Cross-Culturally and Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally.

Missiology: An International Review, Vol. XI, No. 4, October, 1983

DAVID J. HESSELGRAVE
Missionary Elenctics and Guilt and Shame
462

of Studies on Hysteria, but also because it was during that year that
Freud began self-analysis.
Freudian psychology (with its conceptions of the id, ego,
super-ego and Oedipus complex) as it developed over the next
near half century is too well-known to be elaborated here. Many
readers will also be aware of his attempt to extend these ideas
and to show that the basic elements of religion originated in a
"parasitai act" in which primitives killed their fathers in jealousy
over their mothers and then developed beliefs and restraints
connected with a father-god by way of repentance (Totem and
Taboo 1919). Bronislaw Malinowski countered that in the
matrilineally organized Trobriands the Oedipus complex did
not exist as Freud had explained it (The Father in Primitive
Psychology 1927). Freud was over-generalizing — in fact,
universalizing. As a result of this and other criticisms, most
psychoanalysts came to accept a more culturally relativistic
position in which the id and super-ego represented personality
and sociocultural conditioning, and in which ideas of normality
and abnormality were in large measure culture specific.
David Bakan argues that Freud saw himself as a modern-day
messiah leading men away from the moral bondage imposed by
the Hebrew people and the Mosaic Law. According to Freud,
many of man's social problems and all of his psychic disorders
grow out of the internalization of the law into the super-ego or
conscience. Guilt itself is evil. It is the problem of the neurotic. Its
removal is good. Moreover, "if God is the guilt-producing
image, then the Devil is the counter-force" (Bakan 1961:37). In a
very real sense, Freud aligned himself with the Devil, according
to Bakan.
No less a Christian and astute observer than Paul Tournier,
however, claims that in some respects Freud was an ally of
Christianity (1965:230-231). In contrast to Pierre Janet's
psychoasthenic and similar theories which said that patients
suffer inner conflicts because they are ill (have a primary
deficiency), Freud insisted that patients are ill because they have
inner conflicts. This is precisely what the Bible claims. It is what
Paul described so graphically in Romans 7. In fact, Tournier
insists that the p r o b l e m s m e n t i o n e d in Freud's The
Psychopathology of Everyday Life can, without exception, be
categorized under the four types of sin described in the Sermon
on the Mount (1965:230-231). In a day when men's basic
 463
problems are being analyzed as illnesses for which they bear little
individual responsibility, this aspect of Freudian psychoanalysis
does have a Christian "ring." Nevertheless, the part must be seen
in connection with the whole.
Guilt-Shame and National Character According to Ruth Benedict
As it is well-known, inPatterns of Culture (1946), Ruth Benedict
used the Nietzeschean distinction between Dionysian and
Apollonian ways of arriving at the values of existence as a point
of departure for explaining the difference between Pueblo and
other Indian groups in North America. Benedict found that
American Indians as a whole, including those of Mexico, were
passionately Dionysian. "They value all violent experience, all
means by which human beings may break through the usual
sensory routine, to all such experiences they attributed the
highest value" (Benedict 1946:73). Whether by motionless
concentration, arduous torture or frenzied ritual, they sought to
break through the bounds of the five senses to supernatural
illumination and power. The Pueblos, on the other hand,
distrusted all of this. Staying within the known map of law, they
did not "meddle with disruptive psychological states."
Interestingly enough, Ruth Benedict had little opportunity to
do field work among most of the Indian tribes to whom she
referred (except the Zuni) and took most of her information
from Frank Boas and others. Her book occasioned a storm of
protest among anthropologists, primarily because of its
generalizations. Nevertheless, her insights were deemed of such
value that during World War II her services were engaged in the
attempt to analyze cultures of special military significance,
especially Japanese culture.
In The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture
(1946), Benedict differentiated guilt cultures and shame
cultures, characterizing Japan as a shame culture. A few years
before (1940) her first graduate student at Columbia
University, Margaret Mead, had described traditional or
"puritan" American character type as being guilt-oriented. The
child takes the values of the parent as its own and learns to act as
if the parent were present even when the parent is absent.
Failure to do so results in a retrospective discomfort which
technically can be called guilt. Conformity is reinforced by the
system of rewards and punishment. The picture is completed by
DAVID J. HESSELGRAVE
Missionary Elenctics and Guilt and Shame
464
a conception of deity which sees God as backing up the parent
and primarily concerned with moral behavior. Mead believed
that North America was experiencing a shift in moral emphasis
from parental guidelines to "age-grade standards," in which the
disciplinary force would shift from guilt to the shame of peer
group disapproval.
Once again Benedict made a perceptive, if overly generalized,
analysis without the benefit of field study. Drawing upon Mead's
analysis, she categorized Japanese culture as a shame culture in
which ideal behavior is determined by an elaborate system of
obligations to the larger society and its included groups.
Conformity to the resultant expectations of society brings
approval. Failure to live up to those expectations results in
disapproval and shame. By carefully cataloging and illustrating
the various types of obligations and the attendent system of
rewards and punishment, Benedict described Japanese national
character and made otherwise enigmatic behavioral patterns
more understandable to the West.
Controversy as to the Meaning and Significance of Guilt and the
Guilt-Shame Differentiation
During the past thirty to thirty-five years, numerous dialogues
and debates concerning guilt and shame have occurred among
psychologists (and psychiatrists) and anthropologists. One such
took place in connection with the Ciba Foundation supported
Symposium on Transcultural Psychiatry held in February of
1965 and attended by over twenty leading educators in these
fields.1 One interchange on guilt and shame which took place at
that symposium serves well to characterize typical lines of
agreement and disagreement.
In a paper entitled "Phenomenology of Affective Disorder in
Chinese and Other Cultures" (1965:84-108), P. M. Yap noted
that though the problem of the development of the super-ego is
central to the cross-cultural problem of depression, this area of
study is in chaos. He insisted, however, that it had become
increasingly clear that "the opposition of 'shame' to 'guilt' is
intellectualistic, arbitrary and without empirical justification"
(Yap 1965:100). He held that it is more helpful to distinguish
between unconscious guilt feelings on the one hand, and
conscious guilt feelings and conscious moral shame feelings
"generated by the anticipation of discovery of wrong conduct by
 465
others" on the other (Yap 1965:100). He discounted the notion
that guilt feelings are confined to any particular religious system
such as Protestantism with its doctrines of sin and atonement.
And, he agreed with De Vos that Japanese guilt feelings based on
moral obligations to ancestors and Emperor showed a
development analogous to that inherent in Weber's Protestant
ethic. Whereas in the West, Christianity heightens the sense of
guilt and also reduces it; in the Orient a system of obligations and
rites of ancestor worship or reverence serve the same function.
In the Orient, however,
the absence of teachings of original sin and the supernatural basis of conscience
has also made possible among the elite a rationalistic acceptance of moral
values, with conscious acknowledgement of wrong and the need for further
self-cultivation after the example of the Confucian "Superior Man" (Yap
1965:102-103).
Tsung-Yi Lin disagreed with Yap. He said that when the
definitions of sin and guilt are widened so that failure to fulfill
obligations to ancestors and parents are included, guilt
complexes are apparent among Chinese depressives.
Nevertheless, the kind of sin and guilt complexes associated with
the doctrine of original sin and seen in Christian communities is
rare among Chinese unless we are talking about educated
Christian Chinese (Yap 1965:111-112).
Vera Rubin agreed with Yap's ideas on guilt and shame, but at
the same time recalled her own findings in a comparative study
of Negroes and East Indians in Trinidad (Yap 1965:110). In that
study Negro Christians and East Indian Hindus reported
different reactions in guilt situations. The former reacted with
feelings of guilt when doing something "which they thought
involved guilt" irrespective of whether this had been done in
public or private. The latter reported feelings of guilt primarily
if they had been seen committing the "guilty" act. "There was a
difference between internal feelings of guilt and what might be
called shame" (Yap 1965:110).
Margaret Mead noted that discussions of the guilt-shame
dichotomy are often truncated because the question of pride is
disregarded in personality development* She cited Ε. H.
Erikson's theory that a sense of sin develops very early and is
followed by a period of shame and pride associated with the
development of autonomous feeling, which in turn is followed
by guilt at a still later stage. This reinforces the notion that guilt is
DAVID J. HESSELGRAVE
Missionary Elenctics and Guilt and Shame
466
associated with certain kinds of character formation and
religious ideas. According to Mead, this approach makes a
coherent picture possible (Yap 1965:110).
Yap's paper and the ensuing discussion, therefore, reveal
distinct differences of opinion but provide at least two important
keys for our understanding. First, guilt feelings of some kind or
other are an important factor in "transcultural psychiatry and
counseling." Second, if semantic confusion can be cleared away,
the guilt-shame differentiation has validity.

Contemporary Non-Christian Therapies That Downgrade Guilt and

Shame
Despite the differences that divide them and the competing
therapies that bear their imprimaturs, most contemporary
counselors and psychotherapists, like Freud, minimize or even
anathematize ideas of guilt and shame. Consider two or three
illustrations of the many that could be adduced.
The Client-Centered Therapy of Carl Rogers
The basic assumptions of Rogers' "client-centered therapy"
are that humans have an innate urge to be "fully functioning"
and the ability to work out their own problems when given
proper encouragement, instruction and reinforcement. Rogers
believes that at the heart of therapy is a change in the manner of
the client's process of experiencing. The client moves away from
a state in which his feelings and experiences are remote, his self
concept is rigid, he is remote from people, and his functioning is
impersonal. He moves toward fluidity, immediacy of feelings
and experience, the discovery of a changing self, acceptance of
feelings and experience, closeness of relationships, and
integrated functioning. The most important factor in therapy is
the quality of the interpersonal encounter between client and
therapist:
I would like to share a conclusion, a conviction . . . — whether as a
psychotherapist, teacher, religious worker, guidance counselor, social worker,
clinical psychologist — it is the quality of the interpersonal encounter with the
client which is the most significant element in determining effectiveness
(Rogers 8c Stevens 1967:89).
The qualities of which Rogers speaks are four:
1. Congruence. The counselor must be what he is; he must be
genuine; he must openly express the feelings and attitudes
 467

which are flowing through him at any given moment in the

therapeutic process.
2. Empathy. T h e counselor must reflect an accurate
empathetic understanding of the client's private world.
3. Positive regard. The counselor must prize the client for
what he is. Rogers says that this is love in the agape sense.
4. Unconditionally of regard. The counselor must avoid
making judgments of any kind. He accepts the client just as he is.
He does not impose his own values.
Rogers takes issue with the "Protestant Christian tradition"
that says that man is basically sinful and that his sinful nature can
be negated only by something approaching a miracle. He also
takes issue with Freud and those who follow him in believing that
the id, man's basic and unconscious nature, is a congerie of
instincts which, if allowed to run their course, would result in
incest, murder and so forth. He believes that "the innermost
core of man's nature, the deepest layers of his personality, the
base of his 'animal nature,' is positive in nature — is basically
socialized, forward moving, rational and realistic" (Rogers
1961:91). Rogers' client-centered therapy therefore is
non-directive. Whatever problem the client might have, it is not
sin. Therefore, neither guilt nor shame is warranted. And
whatever the solution might be, it is within the client. God is not
needed.
Ellis' RET Therapy
The rational-emotive therapy (RET) of Albert Ellis is unlike
Rogers' client-centered therapy in that the therapist neither
waits to establish a warm relationship nor hesitates to make
direct, depth-centered interpretations of the client's problems.
Ellis believes that, in spite of the uniqueness of individuals, there
is a "remarkable sameness in the ways in which they disturb
themselves 'emotionally' " (1977:4) and that reeducation is the
basis of behavioral change. He outlines the main clinical theories
of rational-emotive therapy as follows:
1. An A-B-C theory of how people create and uncreate their
own disturbances. At point A we have an activating experience
or event such as getting fired from a job. At point C we have an
emotional and/or behavioral consequence such as depression.
Since C immediately followed A, we incorrectly assume that the
loss of the job was the cause of the depression. Actually, it was not
DAVID J. HESSELGRAVE
Missionary Elenctics and Guilt and Shame
468

A but Β — our "belief — and A. Namely, we like the job and

didn't want to lose it or search for another one. If, however, we
exchange that belief for the belief that the world will not end
with the loss ofthat particularjob and that an even better one will
be available, the depression can be avoided.
2. Irrational beliefs must be detected. We tend to distort
reality by generalizing and over-generalizing on the basis of
limited data. For example, we say, "I'll never find a good job
again!"
3. Irrational beliefs must be the f o c u s o f d e b a t e ,
discrimination and dispute. We debate the irrational belief by
asking for the evidence that supports it. We discriminate by
distinguishing between wants and needs, desires and demands,
rational and irrational ideas. We define our terms more
carefully, as in the statement, "I'll never get a job as good as that
again."
4. The end result is a new "effect" or philosophy. For
example, the conditions that occasioned the loss of the last job
may occur again in a new job. A new job may be gained and also
lost, but that is a problem of living. On thinking things through,
one realizes that he can do differently in the future and perhaps,
in that way, avoid losing another job. But, in any case, he can
cope.
In spite of profound differences, Ellis' approach is like that of
Rogers' in that it is non-judgmental.
The core of rational-emotive therapy consists of teaching the client that no one
is to be blamed, condemned or moralistically punished for any of his deeds,
even when he is indubitably wrong and immoral — because he is a fallible
human and can be accepted as such even when he makes serious blunders and
commits crimes (1977:222).

The rational-emotive therapist ceaselessly attacks, not the client

but the client's feelings of guilt and shame (Ellis and Greiger
1977:222).
He does not wait for the client to be ready for major interpretations; usually
instead, he makes him ready by presenting the realities of the client's
presumably shameful ideas and feelings and concomitantly fighting against the
belief that they need to be shameful (Ellis and Greiger 1977:223).

This is not simply theory; it is also practice. Ellis and those who
follow him actually prescribe behaviors for their clients that are
designed to eliminate shame such as wearing a shirt or blouse
 469
with vulgarities printed on them or propositioning a person of
the opposite sex.
Morita Therapy
For a third example, let us travel to Japan and consider the
"personal-experience therapy" of Shoma Morita, one-time
professor of psychiatry at Jikei University in Tokyo. Morita's
a p p r o a c h b e a r s s o m e s t r i k i n g r e s e m b l a n c e s to t h e
self-actualization approach of Abraham Maslow. However, it
grows out of a conception of human nature and a world view
which are rooted in the cultural matrix ofJapan and are specially
informed by Zen Buddhism. Morita was trained in Western
psychology and psychiatry, and though very critical of Freud,
was, nevertheless, influenced by him. His own training was in the
Kaepelian German orthodox psychiatry. To this he weds a
Buddhist (largely Zenist) view of human personality. He does
not interpret neurotic conflicts, for example, as deviations from
normalcy, but rather as misinterpretations of normal reactions.
His goal is not to increase conscious control over the unconscious
by the ego. Rather, it is to integrate the unconscious and the
conscious so that decisions of living, thinking and acting are
given over to the same unconscious process that organizes the
body. (In Zen, this is called mushin.) In therapy the patient is
helped to interpret his toraware, or state of being, and transcend
it by various kinds of works within a communal setting.
Morita's therapy consists of four phases, usually beginning in
a hospital setting but continuing as out-patient therapy. The first
phase consists of complete bed rest, during which time the
patient is separated from the unnecessary paraphernalia of his
regular way of life. During this time of rest, the patient is able to
reflect on his condition, but more importantly, he desires
stimulation and activity. He already possesses a strong desire to
live, and during rest, this is built up in order that it might be
channelled into constructive activities during the next three
phases of therapy. These three phases are not really distinct, but
consist of light work and activity which gradually become more
and more complicated and constructive. The patient is given few
specific instructions for this activity, but is pointed in a general
direction and told to look for work himself. Throughout the
therapy, the patient is expected to keep a diary which is given to
DAVID J. HESSELGRAVE
Missionary Elenctics and Guilt and Shame
470
the therapist every morning so that he can monitor his patient's
progress. The therapist's counsel is usually communicated to the
patient only through informal encounters during work therapy
or at larger group meetings. The work and the diary are
designed to give the patient positive and constructive oudets for
his desire to live, instead of allowing it to be expressed aberrantly
in hypochondria. Gradually, he learns that he can live
constructively in existing conditions.
This type of therapy fits in well with a "national character" to
which sin and guilt are largely foreign, because it does not speak
to these issues. But, in contrast to Ν ai kan Therapy (see below),
this therapy does not emphasize shame, though it has a
communal orientation not incompatible with it (Lebra
1976:250-258, 273-277).
Contemporary Non-Christian Therapies That Emphasize Guilt and
Shame
Now let us look at a very different view of man and his
problems as viewed by men like Thomas Szasz, William Glasser,
Rollo May, O.H. Mowrer, Inobu Yoshimoto and others. For all
the differences, often deep differences, that one might adduce
upon studying their theories and therapies, a common thread is
intricately woven through the entire fabric of their writings. It is
this: Man amply has not lived up to what he knows to beright,and the
implications of this must be faced in any adequate diagnosis and
treatment of his problems.

The Existential Analysis Therapy of Rollo May

Introduced in the United States by Ulrich Sonnemann and
Rollo May, existential analysis was first developed by two Swiss
psychiatrists, Ludwig Binswanger and Medard Boss. Awareness
of being is held to be the essence of human existence. To be
human is to be a "being-in-the-world" and to be open to
world-disclosing relationships. The readiness to accept all that is
and can be is to be free as a human being. Human conscience
constitutes a call to carrying out and fulfilling the possibilities of
life. One is indebted to one's own existence and obligated to
understand possibilities as possibilities. May feels that the Fall
was "upward." In the revolt against the authority of God, Adam
and Eve experienced shame, guilt, anxiety, conflict and
 471
ejection from Eden. But they gained the "differentiation of
themselves as persons, the beginnings of identity, the possibility
of passion and human creativity" (May 1967:219). Man can now
live and love by choice, "relating to one's fellow men because one
wants to, and hence with responsibility" (May 1967:219).
Rollo May believes that the empty view of mental health
implied in classical psychoanalysis led to the social-conformist
approach of people like Horney and Sullivan. He sees the need
for recognizing that the patient is self-centered and that
neurosis, far from being a "failure of adjustment," is "a
necessary adjustment by which centeredness can be preserved; a
way of accepting non-being in order that some little being may
be preserved" (May 1967:116-117). Treatment involves an
emphasis on the mutuality of freedom and responsibility,
helping the patient face the guilt that has accrued by failure to
live up to his potentialities, and assisting the patient in
identifying and employing his own value system in the
restoration process (May 1967:180-181).
Existential analysis is not concerned with the "why" of
behavior, but with the "why not" possibility of living more openly
and fulfillingly. Recognizing problems is less important than
seeing opportunities for new ways of living and relating.
Classifying behavior is viewed as less significant than removing
restrictions. In spite of these basic differences, analysts use such
common techniques as discussion, association and dream
analysis.
O. Hobart Mowrer's Integrity Therapy (Integrity Groups)
O. Hobart Mowrer is another example of a theorist who takes
exception to the notion that man is an innocent victim of
heredity and environment and the expectation of others. On the
contrary, man's problem is that he does not live up to his own
moral convictions. Men sin and deceive and then make an
inchoate attempt to deal with guilt "by means of disguised
confession and self-punishment, but without clear recognition
of what it is they are punishing themselves for" (Mowrer
1964:129). The problem is not so much disease as "dis-ease."
There is, I submit, something decidedly "corrective" about such dis-ease, or at
least potentially so. If the "hysteric" has sinned and deceived, he has also the
decency (ultimately) to punish himself, in attempted atonement. However, we
DAVID J. HESSELGRAVE
Missionary Elenctics and Guilt and Shame
472
make this process exceedingly difficult for him. We try in our "therapeutic"
ardor,firstof all to assure him that he has not sinned (author's emphasis); and
then we set about preventing him, insofar as is possible, from suffering
redemptively (Mowrer 1964:128).
Mowrer is critical of both Scientism and Protestantism for
destroying faith in man's free will and responsibility, the former
by its determinism and the latter by its cheap grace. Integrity
therapy is based upon notions that will not seem at all foreign to
those who are familiar with the New Testament. Some of the
most basic include the following: (1) Everyone is capable of
making decisions which affect the quality of his condition; (2)
Everyone has a value system and conscience. Guilt results from
violating them; (3) When wrongdoing and guilt are covered up
or denied, imbalance and neuroses result; (4) The way to well
being is that of confession of past deeds before others, the
repudiation of "guilt-engendering behavior," and restitution for
wrongdoing; (5) Finally, "expiatory efforts . . . involve service,
rather than gratuitous suffering" (Mowrer 1964:129).
Naikan Therapy
Let us turn once again to Japan. The Naikan therapy of Inobu
Y o s h i m o t o is largely u n r e l a t e d to any p r o f e s s i o n a l
psychotherapy, whether eastern or western, since Yoshimoto
was a layman. Its deepest debt is to the Joodo-Shin sect of
Buddhism. It is based upon a view of human nature which says
that man is basically selfish on the one hand and benevolent on
the other. Attitude and personality change are affected by a
system of rigorous introspection (nai means "inside" or within,
and kan means looking). Therapy is voluntary. The patient is
placed in a small enclosure and, for seven successive days,
reflects from 5:30 a.m. until 9:00 p.m. with brief interviews with
a counselor every ninety minutes. During these long hours, the
patient examines himself in relationship to others from three
perspectives: (1) the benevolence received from others (usually
beginning with his mother); (2) the benevolence returned to
those persons; and (3) the troubles and worries given to these
persons. All of this occurs after an introductory examination in
which the patient is directed to be as severe with himself as a
prosecutor might be with the accused in a courtroom.
The role of the counselor in Naikan therapy is to direct the
counselee toward meaningful self-examination. He instructs the
 473
counselee in the procedure, establishing and enforcing the
ground rules by directives and persuasion. T h e brief
interactions every hour and a half are designed to ensure that
the patient has followed the introspection cycle, to keep him
from making excuses or rationalizations or from becoming
aggressive toward others, and to lead him to vigorous and severe
self-examination. The counselor is more concerned with
procedure than with the content of the interactions or with the
counselor-patient relationship. Direct contact with the patient is
authoritarian, intensive and highly directive. The therapy does
not rely on warm and personal empathy between counselor and
patient. The counselor's goal is not to understand the patient,
but to direct the patient into understanding himself. Toward the
end of therapy, the patient is expected to respond with
repentance for newly recognized guilt (shame?) and a new
appreciation for the love and kindness of others. Successful
therapy results in a new sense of self-identity and security on the
one hand and improved social relationships on the other
(Murase 1976:259-269).
It is clear that the approaches of May, Mowrer and Yoshimoto
are very different. But among their commonalities are two
which are germane to our present discussion. In the first place,
unlike Freud, Rogers, Ellis and Morita, they do not think of guilt
and shame as reactions to be disregarded or eradicated by new
insights or bizaare behavior. On the contrary, they regard them
as natural responses to irresponsible behavior, as feelings that
must be faced up to and dealt with, as signals that repentance,
restitution and righted behavior are in order. In the second
place, a proper recognition of the vertical dimensions is missing
in their approaches. Guilt and shame are not carefully
distinguished, nor is either of them related to man's condition
before his Maker. What is violated is one's own conscience or the
rightful expectations of others. God is not in view, or more
simply, God is not.
Examples of Evangelical Approaches
Now let us turn to the evangelical Christian approaches of
Paul Tournier and Jay E. Adams. We might logically choose any
number of evangelical Christian counselors for this brief
analysis. However, we could not easily find any two Christian
counselors who have exerted a greater influence in this field.
DAVID J. HESSELGRAVE
Missionary Elenctics and Guilt and Shame
474
Oddly enough, neither of them is formally trained in psychiatry,
psychology or counseling. Tournier's background is in
medicine, and Adams' academic background is in homiletics and
speech. Adams did study under Mowrer, however, and owes a
great deal to his tutelage.
Paul Tournier's Dialogical Counseling
The Swiss physician and counselor, Paul Tournier, does not
claim to have a system. However, before his recent decease, he
wrote a number of books, and he has been interpreted well by
Gary R. Collins (1973). Collins characterizes Tournier's
approach as eclectic and dialogical. It has some significant
similarities to the nondirective method of Carl Rogers in that the
personality of the counselor is more important than his
methodology, and in his methodology he avoids judging,
condemning and giving a lot of advice. He believes that the
counselee should make his own decisions. Tournier also reflects
appreciation for some of the work of Freud, as we have noted
above. He openly appreciates Freud for his insights concerning
the unconscious and his view that the patient is ill because of
inner conflict (Tournier 1965:230). However, for Tournier as
for the Apostle Paul, this inner conflict is the conflict of sin. And
for Tournier, the contrary force, the power of evil, is Satan. In
dealing with his patients, therefore, Tournier attempts to get
beneath the surface and uncover the hidden causes for their
behavior. These causes, some physical, others psychological, and
many spiritual, often produce emotions such as inferiority
feelings, fear, doubt, guilt, shame and rebellion which lead to
even more difficulty. The root problem and the ultimate cause
of all personal difficulties, nevertheless, is sin (Collins 1980:65).
Tournier puts a great emphasis upon confession and
"soul-healing." Soul-healing is effected when a person comes
into personal relationship with Christ. Though Tournier is not
openly evangelistic in all of his counseling, Collins says that he
regularly prays for the salvation, of his clients.

The Nouthetic Counseling of Jay E. Adams

Adams takes a dim view of psychotherapeutic counseling in
general and of the p s y c h o t h e r a p y of Freud and the
client-centered approach of Rogers in particular. He believes
that these approaches are simply ways that unbelievers attempt
 475
to help people handle their problems while ignoring Jesus
Christ. For him, integration of counseling psychology or
psychiatry and biblical counseling is impossible (Adams
1980:153). Adams says that,
all non-organically caused problems are considered to be harmartigenic
(sin-caused). Sinful living (failure to express love toward God and one's
neighbor, as such love is defined in the Scriptures) is at the heart of the
counseling focus (Adams 1980:155).
Change must occur at the deepest level. To help a non-Christian,
evangelism is absolutely essential. Minimal help may be given to
a person with problems in order to clear the way for presentation
of the gospel and inculcate hope, but this is not counseling — it is
pre-counseling. True counseling is designed to lead to
regeneration, the prerequisite for depth change, and from
regeneration on to Christian living under the rule of Christ.
"Pleasing Him (Christ) — not relief from the problem — must be
uppermost. Every counselee is called upon to 'seek first God's
empire and His righteousness' " (Adams 1980:159).
Adams transliterates the Greek word nouthesis in describing
his approach because no English word conveys its full meaning.
New Testament translators have variously rendered it "teach,"
"admonish," "warn," "put sense into," and "counsel" (Adams
1970:15). Nouthetic counseling proceeds on the basis of a
four-step biblical process for change outlined in 2 Timothy 3:16:
the Christian counselee is to be instructed, brought to
conviction, corrected and trained in righteousness. Nouthetic
methods are not to be borrowed from other systems but "must
always grow out of and be designed to effect those ends that are
set forth by God's Word" (Adams 1980:160).
Adams' methods tend to be confrontational and authoritarian
rather than dialogical and include such things as emphasizing
the counselee's personal responsibility before God and his
neighbor, analyzing problems in scriptural rather than medical
or psychological terms, working within the framework of the
church, and planning, prescribing and expecting change
following every session. T h e ultimate goal in nouthetic
counseling is not so much to relieve the problem as to please God. To
the one who seeks God and his righteousness, Christ promises
that all things will be added.
One could hardly imagine that the divergence between the
non-directive eclectic, dialogical approach of Paul Tournier and
DAVID J. HESSELGRAVE
Missionary Elenctics and Guilt and Shame
476
the confrontational, Bible-based approach of Jay Adams could
be more different and still be called Christian. And, yet, the
similarities are much greater, and infinitely more important,
than the differences. Both Tournier and Adams make the
vertical relationship between a personal, loving, holy God and
man to be of the essence. Both take the vertical and horizontal
dimensions of guilt and shame seriously, although to my
knowledge, neither makes a careful, anthropologically-
informed distinction between them. For both, the root of the
human problem is sin.
Guilt-Sham· and Missionary Elanctlcs
Assuming that my readers are well acquainted with the
classical Christian view of man found in sacred Scripture, I will
proceed to a discussion of biblical elenctics and mission.
The Dutch missionary and theologian, John Herman
Bavinck, has made a notable contribution to our thinking about
elenctics in his book An Introduction to the Science of Missions
(1960:221-225),
The term "elenctic" is derived from the Greek verb elengchein. In Homer the
verb has the meaning of "to bring to shame." It is connected with the word
elengchos that signifies shame. In later Attic Greek, the significance of the term
underwent a certain change so that the emphasis fell more upon the conviction
of guilt, the demonstration of guilt. It is this latter significance that it has in the
New Testament. Its meaning is entirely ethical and religious (1960:221).
Bavinck proceeds to point out that "the apologists of the first
centuries were already of the opinion that human reason, the
logos, was the powerful weapon with which they could attack the
heathendom of their day" (1960:223). This position persisted
over many centuries and came to its most clear and systematic
development in Thomas Aquinas' Summa Contra Gentiles.
According to Aquinas, human reason can take people to the
threshold of faith by convincing them that there can be only one
God, that God is a God of justice, that there is life after death.
Bavinck comments,
If we proceed in this manner, one can thus say that reason is necessarily the
original standpoint or basis of elenctics. The latter employs reason as an
opening wedge, or as a level. Pagans neither recognize nor believe in the Bible,
so that appeals to it simply beat the air. Reason is compelling. Well-chosen
arguments open a broad held of possibilities. After the ground is broken and a
certain level of light attained, the revelation of God, as recorded in the doctrine
of the church, can then afford a second base of operation (1960:225).
 477
According to Bavinck, missionary science within the churches
of the Reformation is still strongly influenced by these concepts,
even though the Reformation broke with them in principle. He
insists that elengchein points in another direction. Its primary
reference is to "the conviction and unmasking of sin, and to the
call to responsibility" (Bavinck 1960:226). It can only be
understood when it is correcdy placed in the religious and moral
spheres. "Coming to the light" (John 3:20) is not a yielding to
philosophical argument, but "it is rather becoming convinced of
the sin hidden behind unbelief, the sin of fleeing from God"
(Bavinck 1960:226).
What, then, is the true elenctic standpoint? How can we speak
to the "heathen"? T o what can we appeal? What weapons do we
have in the face of idolatry? How is conviction of sin produced?
Bavinck says that the answers to such questions lie in our view of
non-Christian religions. More specifically, he elucidates several
considerations that he deems essential to his elenctic argument
(Bavinck 1960:227-272):
1. Each person is within the reach of God's common grace.
Deep in the heart even of believers in non-Christian religions
there is "a very vague awareness that man plays a game with God
and that man is always secretly busy escaping from him"
(Bavinck 1960:227-228).
2. We must be very careful in speaking about "moments of
truth" in other religions. Superficial similarities mask great
dissimilarities.
3. In the deepest sense, the subject of elenctics is the Holy
Spirit. He uses the word of the preacher to convince of sin even
where a consciousness of sin is not apparent; to awaken an
awareness of guilt even when it is deeply hidden.
4. The person of the preacher offers a starting point. (Here
Bavinck draws upon Kraemer and Kuyper.) As Christians, we
share a commonality with unbelievers in that we all possess a
"human heart" and, in that heart, "there is the same sensus
divinitatis; that heart is disturbed by the same sin; you are by
nature as heathen as he, the sole difference is the grace that has
been given to you, and that he too can share in" (Bavinck
1960:230). The better we understand the deepest motives of
heathendom, the more we understand ourselves.
5. In using philosophical argument, we face the danger of
expelling superstition without awakening faith in a living God, a
DAVID J. HESSELGRAVE
Missionary Elenctics and Guilt and Shame
478

redeeming God. To attain to a general notion of God does not

solve such difficulties as trouble and misery, sickness and death,
guilt and punishment.
Before he concludes his argument, Bavinck agrees that,
though elenctics is "innerly bound" with dogmatic theology, it
can also be subsumed under the subdivision of missionary
science known as the "approach." As such, it is informed by the
history, science, psychology, phenomenology and philosophy of
religion. Out of these studies emerges a scientific awareness of a
living approach. From this analysis, we are enabled to deal with
non-Christian belief systems as they really are, with religion as it
is lived out in life, with the mentality and motives of men as
religious beings. But in all, elenctics is controlled by a missionary
motive. It "calls the non-Christian religions to a position of
responsibility, and attempts to convince their adherents of sin
and to move them to repentance and conversion" (Bavinck
1960:232). In this attempt, "elenctics can be conducted only on
the basis of a firm trust in the Holy Spirit who alone is
empowered to elengchein" (Bavinck 1960:231).
Bavinck is concerned about a kind of rationalism in
missiology, about an over-dependence upon a philosophical
approach to adherents of non-Christian faiths, and about an
under-dependence upon the Word and the Holy Spirit. While
he provides numerous cautions concerning the use of
philosophical argument, he says comparatively little with respect
to psychological suasions. He has written much about religions,
less about culture. He does not emphasize ethos, world view,
values and ethical agendas to the degree that we might like him
to do. In it all, his Reformed theology never recedes too far into
the background. Were he to re-write his Introduction to the Science
of Mission after a significant exposure to contemporary
(especially North American) social science and missiology, he
would undoubtedly include some newer emphases. In a sense,
however, all of this is beside the point. As far as Bavinck's
conclusions are concerned, the question comes down to this: Is
his understanding of elenctics in accord with Scripture? Does
elengchein mean what he says it does? Does his view square with
such crucial passages as John 3:19-21, John 16:5-11 and Romans
1:18-32? Whatever misgivings we might have with certain
aspects of his argument, I believe that we must answer these
 479
questions in the affirmative. And if that is so, the implications for
missiology are as far-reaching as they are obvious.
Observations and Conclusions
We live and work at a challenging and critical hour in the
history of the Christian mission. One important aspect of the
challenge can be described in various ways: the eclipse of
rationalism and the rise of experientialism; a turn away from
philosophy and (alas) theology of anthropology and psychology;
a de-emphasis on traditional categories vis-à-vis the human
nature and a heavy emphasis on motives, felt needs and values;
abandoning differentia based on religious affiliation for
commonalities based on spiritual aspiration. Although there is a
plus side to all of this, of course, cautions are in order.
In the foregoing pages, we have dealt with the question of
guilt and shame as viewed from various perspectives —
anthropological and psychological, theological and
missiological. On the basis of the foregoing, I draw certain
conclusions.
First, the guilt-shame distinction made by Benedict and others
would seem to have validity. The distinction is not one that is
generally recognized and utilized in the literature of psychiatry,
psychology and counseling. Nor can the anthropological
distinction which differentiates between cultures on this basis be
said to have biblical support. But whether we be analyzing
personality p r o b l e m s , the biblical record or cultural
characteristics, the difference between anxiety or discomfort
occasioned by a failure to live up to a standard, even in the
absence of the "standard-imposer," and that produced only or
primarily by failing to meet the expectation of "one's immediate
others," is very real. We would argue that anxiety of the former
type is appropriately labeled "guilt"; that it is most compatible
with, if not derived from, the Judeo-Christian view of a holy and
omniscient God as the Author of both the revealed Law and the
human conscience; that conscious guilt of a biblical sort is a
consequence, not only of man's conscience, but also of the
ministry of the Holy Spirit; and that the only completely
ameliorative antidote of guilt is the forgiveness provided by God
in Jesus Christ. Shame and the spector of shame, on the other
hand, are frequently inimical to faith in Christ, because, when a
DAVID J. HESSELGRAVE
Missionary Elenctics and Guilt and Shame
480

sense of shame supplants an awareness of guilt, the respondent

is often so preoccupied with the approval or disapproval of
others that he cannot consider the requirements of God.
Second, we should not confuse "conviction of guilt" with
"points of guilt" and priorities in the "ethical agendas" of a given
culture. The notion that missionaries should direct their
communication to items high on the priority agendas of their
respondents — guilt in "guilt cultures," shame in "shame
cultures," fear in "fear cultures" — is not without merit. Nor is
the idea that conversion experiences have cultural overtones,
e.g., conversion freeing man from existential guilt in one
culture, self-defeating anxiety in another culture and haunting
fear in still another (Wagner 1981:113). T o begin the
communication or counseling process with people where they are
instead of where we are is psychologically and biblically
defensible. That some of the most recognizable freedoms
produced by conversion are in the areas of the most obvious
bondage is not surprising. However, to suggest that guilt before
the true and holy God, shame before departed ancestors and
present contemporaries, and fear before spirits and ghosts are
somehow equal and interchangeable as motivations for
conversion is to err. Insofar as biblical elenctics might involve
shame, the shame must be that shame whjph Adam and Eve
experienced — shame before a holy God. Insofar as biblical
elenctics involve fear, it must be the fear of a just God. Primarily,
however, elengchein refers to conviction of guilt. This is not so
much cultural as it is transcultural and spiritual. Sin and guilt,
atonement and forgiveness — these are not culturally derived
accidents which are seized upon by God. They are supercultural
and spiritual realities insisted upon by him. Wise counselors will
listen to what the Spirit says, and be instruments of what he does.
Note that I speak here of the ultimate missionary appeal.
There can be no doubt that many animists have first been
attracted to Christ as the Deliverer from fear of the spirit world
and that many Chinese and Japanese have turned to him as the
One who in love would accept them when they felt a sense of
rejection by others, just as many contemporary Americans have
been drawn to Christ while searching for meaning and
fulfillment. I do not question the fact that God's Spirit works
through various motivations, some not as worthy as these, to
 481
bring men to his Son. Nor do I question the legitimacy of
missionary appeal to worthy motives. My concern has to do with
appeals that downplay, neglect or even deliberately disregard
the basic need of all men for reconciliation with God through
Christ precisely because we are unrighteous and he is righteous,
because we are sinners and he is the Redeemer, because we are
lost and he is the Savior.
Third, great care must be exercised in the interpretation of
the theories, and in the employment of techniques, of secular
therapists and counselors. It is a mistake to take refuge in the
theories of Karl Jung, for example. The religion of which he
speaks is not transcendental. He does say that of all his patients
over thirty-five, there was not one whose problem ultimately was
not that of "finding a religious outlook on life." But he says that
this has nothing to do with a particular creed or transcendental
religion. No concept of God, no moral law, no religion has ever
come to mankind from heaven. Man creates these out of himself
(Jung 1933:20-21). Jung concludes that a primitive religion is
better suited to primitive people than is Christianity (1933:282).
Similarly, we err by reading Christian meaning into the
language of O.H. Mowrer when he speaks of the need for open
confession, repentance, restitution and service. Mowrer is not
even a theist. He makes it clear that he has no interest in man's
"eternal salvation," but only in his "salvation" here and now
(Mowrer 1964:19). Nor should we rely too greatly on the
techniques of Carl Roger's client-centered therapy. Roger's
system is predicated upon the idea that man is not a sinner, that
guilt and shame are of no spiritual consequence, and that the
client already has the answers to his problems within himself.
Fourth, missionary communicators and counselors should be
prepared to deal with the issue of guilt, whatever the culture of
the counselee and irrespective of the presence or absence of (or
conscious or unconscious nature of) guilt. This is not to say that
every human problem is harmartigenic in its origin. In response
to the question concerning the man blind from birth, "Who
sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?"
Jesus replied, "It was neither that this man sinned nor his
parents; but it was in order that the works of God might be
displayed in him" (John 9:2-3). Still, in another sense, all human
maladies are occasioned by sin. And sin has its forensic side.
DAVID J. HESSELGRAVE
Missionary Elenctics and Guilt and Shame
482

Ultimately, no malady can be cured, no wrong righted, and no

problem solved until payment is made. In a discussion of "the
goodness of guilt," John Drakeford writes,
The word guilt has a significant root. Originally it was the payment of a fine for
an offense. It comes from the Anglo-Saxon word "gylt," meaning "to pay." At a
conference on integrity therapy, a rabbi pointed out that in Yiddish the word
"gelt" means "money." Of guilt, Tournier says, "It is inscribed on the human
heart; everything must be paid for." McKenzie asserts, "Guilt must be paid for"
(1967:36).

Missionaries are not primarily concerned with short-term

solutions. Whether sin and guilt be important as causative
factors in any particular human predicament or not, they are
decisive in terms of larger and longer relationships with both
man and God. Only those who recognize their guilt will value the
payment made on the cross; only those who value the cross will
embrace its Savior; and only those who embrace the Savior will
find the ultimate healing.
References Cited
Adams, Jay E.
1980 "Nouthetic Counseling" in Collins (ed)
1970 Competent to Counsel Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing
Company
Bakan, David
1961 "Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition" The Christian Scholar
44:206-222
Barnouw, Victor
1963 Culture and Personality Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press
Bavinck, John Herman
1960 An Introduction to the Science of Mission trans, by David H. Freeman, Grand
Rapids: Baker Book House
Benedict, Ruth
1946a Patterns of Culture New York: Penguin Books
1946b The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture Boston: Houghton
and Mifflin Co.
Collins, Gary R.
1973 The Christian Psychology of Paul Tournier Grand Rapids: Baker Book House
1980 "Tournier's Dialogue Counseling" in Collins (ed) 6
Collins, Gary R. (ed)
1980 Helping People Grow Santa Ana, CA: Vision House
deReuck, A.V.S. and Ruth Porter (eds)
1965 Transcultural Psychiatry Boston: Little, Brown and Company
Doi, L. Takeo
1976 "Psychotherapy and 'Hide and Seek* " in Lebra (ed) 273-277
Drakeford, John W.
1967 Integrity Therapy: A New Directory in Psychotherapy Nashville: Broadman Press
 483
Duffie, David
1968 Psychology and the Christian Religion Nashville: Southern Publishing Association
Ellis, Albert and RusseU Grieger (with contributors)
1977 Handbook of Rational-Emotive Therapy New York: Springer Publishing
Company
Gorer, Geoffrey
1943 "The Concept of National Character" in Kluckhohn as quoted in Barnouw
(1963) 247
Jung, CG.
1933 Modern Man in Search afa Soul New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company
Kasdorf, Hans
1980 Christian Conversion in Context Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press
Kondo, Koichi
1976 "The Origin of Morita Therapy" in Lebra (ed)
Lebra, William P. (ed)
1976 Culture Bound Syndromes, Ethnopsychology and Alternate Therapies Honolulu : East
West Center
May, Rollo
1967 Psychology and the Human Dilemma Princeton: Van Nostrana
Mowrer, O. H.
1964 The New Group Therapy Princeton: Van Nostrand-
Murase, Takao
1976 "Naikan Therapy" in Lebra (ed)
Rogers, Carl R. and Barry Stevens
1967 Person to Person: The Problem of Being Human, A New Trend in Psychology
Lafayette, CA: Real People Press
Tournier, Paul
1965 Thé Healing of Persons trans, by Edwin Hudson, New York: Harper and Row
Wagner, C. Peter
1981 Church Growth and the Whole Gospel San Francisco: Harper and Row
Yap, P. M.
1965 "Phenomenology of Affective Disorder in Chinese and Other Cultures" in de
Reuck and Porter
 ^ s
Copyright and Use:

As an ATLAS user, you may print, download, or send articles for individual use
according to fair use as defined by U.S. and international copyright law and as
otherwise authorized under your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement.

No content may be copied or emailed to multiple sites or publicly posted without the
copyright holder(s)' express written permission. Any use, decompiling,
reproduction, or distribution of this journal in excess of fair use provisions may be a
violation of copyright law.

This journal is made available to you through the ATLAS collection with permission
from the copyright holder(s). The copyright holder for an entire issue of a journal
typically is the journal owner, who also may own the copyright in each article. However,
for certain articles, the author of the article may maintain the copyright in the article.
Please contact the copyright holder(s) to request permission to use an article or specific
work for any use not covered by the fair use provisions of the copyright laws or covered
by your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement. For information regarding the
copyright holder(s), please refer to the copyright information in the journal, if available,
or contact ATLA to request contact information for the copyright holder(s).

About ATLAS:

The ATLA Serials (ATLAS®) collection contains electronic versions of previously

published religion and theology journals reproduced with permission. The ATLAS
collection is owned and managed by the American Theological Library Association
(ATLA) and received initial funding from Lilly Endowment Inc.

The design and final form of this electronic document is the property of the American
Theological Library Association.