Rural Shame Orientation: A Matter of Conscience

ABSTRACT

In recent years, there has been a considerable amount of missiological literature that has raised interest in assessing a culture’s level of shame orientation. Beyond implications for gospel proclamation, shame orientation has a dramatic influence on pedagogy as well as leadership methodology. However, there has been a dearth of research in regard to the shame orientation of specific subcultures and the subsequent impact on contextualised missiology. This article provides a review of literature to demonstrate that a pronounced shame orientation of rural subcultures is conceptually plausible. The contribution of this writing is to provide a more specific understanding of the rural subculture and to introduce a methodology of assessing shame orientation of rural subcultures. Further, the article maintains that rural ministry practitioners should be more intentional about the use of available resources that provide nuanced approaches to gospel proclamation, pedagogy, and leadership methodology in shame-oriented cultures.

KEYWORDS:

• Shame-orientation
• subculture
• conscience
• collectivist
• community
• isolation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 A definition of shame-oriented cultures that reflects the manifestation of the conscience in a collectivist setting is: ‘persons belonging to a group from which a member has infringed on the rules of society will feel ashamed, based on a sense of collective obligation. Shame is social in nature, whereas guilt is individual … ’ (Hofstede et al., 2010, p. 110). In order to avoid overgeneralisation that can be attributed to Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov, it is important to note the variability between contexts and conscience orientations. As Wiher maintains, ‘Shame does not equal shame, and guilt does not equal guilt in different contexts. Shame-oriented consciences conceive of shame and guilt differently than guilt-oriented consciences. Additionally, shame and guilt are more different in a shame-oriented context than in a guilt-oriented culture’ (2003, p. 132).

2 From 2001 to 2003, the suicide death rate per 100,000 in large metropolitan areas was 11.19 and the rate in nonmetropolitan was 15.50 per 100,000 (United States Department of Health and Human Services, 2017, p. 3).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carl P. Greene

Carl P. Greene is an Instructor in the Intercultural Studies Department of Trinity International University, Deerfield, IL, USA, and serves as the Executive Director of the SDB General Conference of USA and Canada, Janesville, WI, USA.