Saturday, June 24, 2006

Guilt is NOT the Answer

guilt: the fact or state of having offended; criminality and consequent liability to punishment
guilty: judged to have committed a crime
[Old English, gylt, crime—French, gildan, to pay}

remorse: self-reproach excited by a sense of guilt; repentance.
remorseful: penitent; repentant.
[Latin, remordere, to bite back]

conscience: the faculty by which we know right from wrong
[Latin, conscire, to be well aware]


So many of us feel that to properly atone for something bad we’ve done or to show that we have a conscious, we need to feel guilty? Why? What is that really about?

Guilt is a manifestation of arrogance.
Guilt is the easy way out of any hard decision that we are faced with. Because we lack the courage to face the fact that we have hurt someone else or ourselves or broken relationship with a particular person or community. That we need to acknowledge what we’ve done, forgive ourselves for our transgression and resolve to do better in the future. Instead we choose to feel guilty, which is like the gerbil exercise wheel. We are exerting a lot of energy, but we really are going nowhere. It is so much easier to “beat ourselves up” about the “bad” thing that we did rather than face the consequences of our poor decisions. In this way, we feel that we are “doing something” about the bad thing we’ve done, without really doing anything at all.

To those who say guilt is important because it shows we have a conscience, I say this: we already know we have a conscience. Do you cringe when you see homeless people on the street? Are you shocked when you hear of children being sexually abused? Old people mistreated in nursing homes?

Lack of guilt does not equal lack of conscience.

I think we need to put into everyday use another word instead of guilt: remorse. This word acknowledges our hurtful action


Guilt is not our religious birthright.¹
Perhaps because of our Puritan ancestry, guilt is ingrained into our religious psyche. We make jokes of the Catholics who, we think, are governed by guilt as much as they are God. But are we Protestants any better? If we were to keep a “guilt journal,” we would be astounded by the numerous entries. I smoked a cigarette? Bad! Guilt, guilt, guilt! I lusted after someone at work. Bad! Guilt, guilt, guilt! I got drunk last night! Bad! Guilt, guilt, guilt! I gossiped about people today. Bad! Guilt, guilt, guilt!

If we put as much energy into examining our behavior as we did in drowning in a swirling pit of guilt, we would be much better for it.


Guilt as social control
Some thinkers have theorized that guilt is used as a tool of social control. Since guilty people feel they are undeserving, they are less likely to assert their rights and prerogatives. Thus, those in power seek to cultivate a sense of guilt among the populace, in order to make them more tractable.² For some of us, that has been our experience at church, at school, at work, even in our government. As we watch how these institutions use guilt to herd us like sheep, we turn away from them in anger, bitteress and frustration.

But I think we do them, and ourselves, an injustice by disengaging ourselves from these institutions. When we can, we must confront the use of guilt, in an attempt to challenge others (and ourselves) to come up with more beneficial means of resolving conflict and “crowd control.”


Guilt resolves nothing.
What does feeling guilt accomplish? Does feeling guilt bring us closer to God? I say, “no.” We already feel separate from God due to whatever behavior we have engaged in, now we compound that by draping ourselves in the heavy cloak of guilt. How we reach out to God and ask God for forgiveness and courage to resolve (if we can) what we have done when we are hidden under the suffocating garment of guilt? We cannot. God is still there, ever present, but WE are too busy caught up in the maelstrom of our own ego, oh, yes, EGO, to be able to face what we’ve done, much less ask for God’s help.

What does feeling guilt accomplish? We can satisfy ourselves, and everyone that observes us draped in our proverbial sack cloth and ashes that we are addressing our “issue,” that we are truly sorry for what we done WITHOUT ACTUALLY HAVING TO DO THE WORK.


Where does grace enter in here?
Did Jesus ever feel guilt? About getting to Lazarus’ house too late? About turning away the woman with the demon-possessed child? (crumbs for the dog)

This is one of the issues where we really see if we actually believe in what we say we believe in. Do we really believe in grace? Or do we believe in grace for everybody but ourselves? If we truly accept God’s tremendous gift of grace, we know that our mission is not to allow ourselves to become bogged down with the arrogant notion of guilt but to humbly acknowledge our poor behavior, heal/resolve it (if we can), forgive everyone involved (including ourselves) and use that as the impetus to abstain from that particular behavior. Remorse, humility, forgiveness are the keys to healing, not guilt.

Perhaps then guilt is a component of the healing process. But instead of completing the process, we become lodged in the guilt phase. Using the 5 stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) as an example, one who became “stuck” at anger would be unable to complete the healing process, looping painfully in circles, unable to complete the healing process.


In closing, I would like to say that at times I too feel guilty about things I have said or done. By my words, I am in no way trying to say that I am above feeling or using guilt at times. My hope is that as I continue to grow and change, I will use the 'easy' method of guilt less and less.

Peace.




1. Kari Jo Verhulst, “Guilt-Free Loving,” Sojourners Magazine, July-August 2002

2. http://www.wikipedia.org/