Trippin' on guilt

[Vlad!]

So today during Bible study at church, the leader mentioned (as sort of a side point) that he hates it how much guilt is used as a weapon within the church. Obviously it's used because it's so effective, but it really bothers him when people try to use guilt to get others to do things. However, a member of the congregation chimed in to say that guilt is a sign of something wrong, and that if there is guilt, this is a warning sign. He used the example of someone sleeping in and skipping church on Sunday. He didn't elaborate on whether he thinks the person should be made to feel guilty if the guilt isn't already there.

I think that guilt can either come from the Holy Spirit acting as our conscience or as a learned behavior. Is it necessary for the church to impart guilt, i.e. to tell someone "you should feel guilty about this", or should the church leave this to the Spirit? If the latter, doesn't this open the church up to a lack of accountability, such as "I don't feel guilty about this, so I'm going to keep doing it"? If the former, is the church leadership taking upon itself a role reserved for the Holy Spirit?

I'm still thinking through how I feel about this. I feel like the church can err on the side of using guilt to coerce obedience or to inspire specific actions. However, I also feel like the goals of the church include holding one-another accountable and challenging the believers.

This subject makes me think of how, when the elders at Jerusalem were considering letting gentiles into the church, they gave four rules for them to follow (Acts 15:28-29, Acts 21:25). One of these rules was "You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols". But then later, in I Corinthians 10:23-31, Paul institutes what appears to be a don't ask, don't tell policy, where you don't have to feel guilty about possibly eating meat sacrificed to idols, but if someone tries to make you feel guilty about it then don't do it--for the sake of that person's conscience.

Another rule is "abstain from blood", but I definitely don't feel guilty about eating a super-rare steak.

On the other hand, I feel in my heart that sexual immorality, a third rule given by the elders, is wrong in all its many forms--fornication, pornography, masturbation, adultery, etc.--and thus do abstain from it. If a person were to claim to me that he doesn't feel guilty about this, what implications does the 1 Cor 10 passage have? Am I trying to reflect my conscience onto this other person to cause feelings of guilt where none existed? If I'm at a believer's house and I see porn lying around, and I call him on it, am I using guilt as a weapon to force my own views on a brother?

I guess that might be an extreme example since the Bible is fairly definitive about sexual immorality, at least in the abstract, but I hope you get my point.

I'm still not entirely sure where my thoughts are on this. I feel like I have at least a moderately firm understanding intuitively, but I'm having difficulty expressing exactly where the line is between making people feel guilty for stuff that's not a big deal and thus tarnishing the reputation of Christianity as a huge guilt trip and helping correct those whose hearts have hardened and who honestly need an external perspective to let them see the guilt that was really there all along in their own hearts.

[enemy anemone]

I think pointing out error is (or should be) very different from using emotional guilt trips as manipulation.

[Vlad!]

I think pointing out error is (or should be) very different from using emotional guilt trips as manipulation.

But how can I know that I'm doing the one and not the other? For example, I think that fellowship and mutual encouragement is important and necessary in the Christian life, so if I had a friend who was coming to church once a month or so and sleeping in the rest of the time, I would have a discussion with this person about why I feel that way. But which category would this fall in? Obviously I want this person to do something (come out to church more) and my argument (that it's Biblical and necessary) could possibly be construed as a guilt trip.

[chrisnu]

I think there's a line that has to be drawn between approaching someone in a legalistic way, and doing so out of genuine concern. If I knew someone who had been attending church regularly, and they started to attend more inconsistently, my first reaction would be to ask how they're doing. That in itself may be taken as an accusation, even if the intentions are right. However, finding out if I could do anything to help or encourage them would be on my mind. There could be some burden they're trying to shoulder themselves, that they feel ashamed of, and they've been waiting for someone they can confide in. On the other hand, maybe not. I wouldn't know the reason or motivation behind them not attending church. The danger, for me, would be trying to assume something that's not necessarily true.

[enemy anemone]

I think it's important to distinguish between two ways the word "guilty" is used. one can "be guilty" of wrongdoing and one can "feel guilty" (or not) for doing something that may or may not be wrong. I think the "feeling guilty" thing is very problematic, and trying to "make" someone "feel guilty" could actually be contributing to the hardening of the person's heart.

[chrisnu]

I think it's important to distinguish between two ways the word "guilty" is used. one can "be guilty" of wrongdoing and one can "feel guilty" (or not) for doing something that may or may not be wrong. I think the "feeling guilty" thing is very problematic, and trying to "make" someone "feel guilty" could actually be contributing to the hardening of the person's heart.

I agree. Also, I'm not sure that making someone feel guilty for a sin they have committed is my job, either. It's the Holy Spirit's job. (John 16:7-11) Yes, I can be used to confront someone about sin. However, I would need to pray that my motivations and my methods are godly. It's the goodness of God which leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4), not my insistence for remorse, nor disapproval of someone's actions.

[NewDimension]

I also believe there's a difference between voicing your concern about something, while genuinely being interested in why the person believes/acts/lives the way they do, and pointing out what you believe the scriptures indicate about the circumstance the other person is in; but if you truly believe that someone else is doing something in error of the scriptures and instead of taking the approach of "speaking the truth in love" as indicated in Eph. 4:15, you try to make the person feel guilty about their actions and force your beliefs (and scripture) down someone's throat because that's what you think is the most "effective" way to point someone toward the truth-- even if it's the truth-- imposing guilt on someone is not something that the scriptures say to do. Your aim isn't supposed to be in "making someone feel guilty so they'll want to repent or change their beliefs/behavior," rather you should aim in pointing others toward the truth through the love of God; because ultimately only He can unveil their eyes to see the truth and give them the heart to do His will (which can be the result of godly sorrow, as indicated in 2 Cor. 7:9-10). And even if someone does do something different because you use "guilt" to point them toward the truth and away from their errors, that can also result in someone just doing/saying/believing something because that's what they're told to do, which is really just carrying out another ritualistic act- when God's love should be what motivates that act. If His love isn't the reason why someone is doing something, then ultimately it means nothing. And heaping guilt on people isn't necessarily going to make people repent or do something different. In fact, using that tactic can have a totally opposite effect. If someone feels like they're being coerced into believing/doing something (even if it's what they really should do), sometimes that'll just give them a further incentive to withdraw and avoid doing/believing something, which can cause worse results than if you hadn't said anything to them about that topic/situation in the first place.

At the same time, you can have the best intentions for saying something to someone, you can be very meticulous with how, when, where, and why you express your belief, and no matter how delicate you try to articulate your words and questions, the person can still construe the semantics of your words and misunderstand your reactions and your intent for expressing your opinion (which you believe is Biblical) about something, can result in them feeling like you're imposing guilt on them when that's not your intent. There's no simple way to deal with such situations since you don't really know (with much, if any certainty) how someone will respond (internally or externally) to what you say. The most important thing to do in those scenarios is to use discernment and rely on the Holy Spirit for guidance and wisdom in determining if, when, how, and where you should talk to someone about something. And even if you do that, sometimes the person will still feel like you're being too judgmental and legalistic toward them. It's a tough judgment call.

[Vlad!]

if you truly believe that someone else is doing something in error of the scriptures and instead of taking the approach of "speaking the truth in love" as indicated in Eph. 4:15, you try to make the person feel guilty about their actions and force your beliefs (and scripture) down someone's throat because that's what you think is the most "effective" way to point someone toward the truth-- even if it's the truth-- imposing guilt on someone is not something that the scriptures say to do.

I don't see the difference between the first and the second point. If I come up to someone and say "I think you're in error and here are the scriptures which back me up", aren't I likely to make the person feel guilty even if I have all the love in the world for that person? But then, couldn't that guilt lead to repentance?

I think it's important to distinguish between two ways the word "guilty" is used. one can "be guilty" of wrongdoing and one can "feel guilty" (or not) for doing something that may or may not be wrong. I think the "feeling guilty" thing is very problematic, and trying to "make" someone "feel guilty" could actually be contributing to the hardening of the person's heart.

If you are guilty, it seems reasonable that you would feel guilty. Obviously the problem is when you feel guilty but you aren't, or when you don't feel guilty but you are. The problem is that in the first situation it would be wrong for me to suggest guilt where there shouldn't be any, and in the second situation, if I point out the wrongdoing, would I not be doing so with the knowledge that, if successful, the person will feel guilty about it?

I agree. Also, I'm not sure that making someone feel guilty for a sin they have committed is my job, either. It's the Holy Spirit's job. (John 16:7-11) Yes, I can be used to confront someone about sin. However, I would need to pray that my motivations and my methods are godly. It's the goodness of God which leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4), not my insistence for remorse, nor disapproval of someone's actions.

Sure, but it is clearly Biblical to confront others with their sin when they don't appear to realize that they are, in fact, in sin. Like I said, isn't one of the intended results to inspire repentance? And before repentance, doesn't a person have to realize his guilt?

I agree with what appears to be the subtext of many of these comments, that my heart matters at least as much as my action in cases like this. However, it seems weird to me that doing something with the right heart or the wrong heart would have the same external action, so I guess what I'm confused about is what external actions indicate that the heart behind the action is right versus wrong?

[Rough Draft]

I feel like I have at least a moderately firm understanding intuitively, but I'm having difficulty expressing exactly where the line is between making people feel guilty for stuff that's not a big deal and thus tarnishing the reputation of Christianity as a huge guilt trip and helping correct those whose hearts have hardened and who honestly need an external perspective to let them see the guilt that was really there all along in their own hearts.

I'm with the general sentiment of everything that's being expressed, but particularly so with the italicized above. So.. need a concrete example? How about marijuana?

Today, I was talking with my best friend when a couple guys stopped by on their way to a pot-smoking suaree. We had been talking about drug use; both of us had just got out from a blood donation, he in particular was recovering from a spot of nausea, and overall it had been an annoying, nowhere-going sort of conversation.

Now, with the three of them bantering about pot, I was not inclined to make any grand pronouncements on drug use as perpetuating some sort of intrinsic evil. A few moments before, my friend had invited the discussion on drugs--not me--and that hadn't gone so well. So what to do now? I ribbed them about their 'pot party.' I declined their faux invitation to be a co-smoker. I implored them not to use, but not, well, seriously. It was all pretty jocose, and I couldn’t help feeling a bit disingenuous.

The thing is, I don’t really care about marijuana, but it inhabits a spectrum of the world that I'd rather be apart from. Strictly speaking there are few, if any, noxious side effects to marijuana use, but I wonder how possible it is to use marijuana without implicating oneself in the uselessness and hedonism that, for me, characterize drug culture. Furthermore, as a Christian, I am continually at odds with 'useless desires.’

Earlier, when I passed off weed-smoking as a sort of 'pleasure mongering,' my friend chafed at my pejorative tone. Perhaps I'd made it sound as if I was passing judgment on all weed smokers, but this was not my intent. If even this minor attempt at drawing a line is perceived as puritanical and close-minded, what do we do? I don’t care much about marijuana, but I don't care for it either, and if I advise my friends against it it's because I don't think it'll do them any good.

This has less to do with counseling those in the church, but it is applicable, too. In both situations, jeremiads appear ridiculous and over-the-top, but anything less feels like... compromise? Perhaps compromise is necessary, sometimes. And other times, the potential for offense pales next to the urgency of the situation. But the question is whether something as incidental as weed use is worth offending and alienating someone just to inform them of their ‘crime.’ However you parse it, it's a squirmy place to be in.

[Vlad!]

Well, I think when dealing with believers it's a different circumstance than with non-believers. I think it's important to let non-believers know where you stand, but I don't feel like I can adequately defend morality in the absence of religion. If you're a pure rationalist or empiricist or (more likely) agnostic, an argument against smoking pot isn't going to make sense. On the other hand, for Christians I think it's important to say "look, here's some Bible passages that I want you to read and think about".

I think my question is more about behaviors that aren't sinful in themselves but could indicate a deeper problem. For example, let's say I'm trying to set up a weekly sports activity in a local park. I think it would be a great opportunity for bonding and for outreach and for fun, so I invite a friend. He says he can't make it. Well, that's fine, nothing wrong with that, but what if it turns out that this friend never hangs out with Christians outside of church and isn't really making connections? If I point this out, I run the risk of making the person feel guilty...but should there be guilt there? Is the guilt in this case imparted by me, or is it a warning to the person that he's in danger of drifting away and eventually deciding that this whole church thing isn't really worth the trouble?

On the other hand, let's say I ask another friend, and she also says no. The reason she says no is because she's a student and she's got finals coming up. She decided, wisely, that staying in and studying is more important than hanging out and playing frisbee. Maybe she would normally even be glad to come out, if it weren't just bad timing. It would be easy to lay the guilt on and even call her selfish for wanting to study instead of fellowship and outreach, and maybe it would even be effective in getting her to come out, but it would be wrong of me to do so.

Unfortunately, unlike these hypothetical examples where I as the narrator have full knowledge of each person's situation and motivations, in real life these two scenarios can look very similar to the observers and participants.

[enemy anemone]

I kinda think you're placing too much emphasis/importance on the "feeling guilty" thing. I think the guilty feeling arises when we don't live up to a standard we have set for ourselves or that others have set for us. not necessarily a bad thing, but not so simple as "an indicator that something is wrong", either.
I do think there could be deeper things going on that should probably be addressed, but I think this has more to do with the importance of talking and listening to each other than the importance of feeling guilty. yes, the person might feel guilty if you mention something to him about his habits. he might also feel miffed, thankful, angry, or relieved. *shrug* I don't think the guilty feeling is any more or less significant than the other possible feelings.

[Rough Draft]

Well, I think when dealing with believers it's a different circumstance than with non-believers. I think it's important to let non-believers know where you stand, but I don't feel like I can adequately defend morality in the absence of religion.

Perhaps not. That gets into a discussion about religion, however, which is a whole 'nother thorny thicket. I'm plenty tired of talking about religion with people who default on the idea that such questions are unanswerable, it's 'completely subjective,' et al.

I like schilleriana's distinction. Following somewhat on what she said, even if there should be guilt there, it doesn't necessarily follow that I should ply that guilt in an effort to help my friend with his problem. Perhaps setting another standard by which he may be judged and found faulty is orthogonal to the issue at hand.

By the way, the title of the thread reminds me of Stumbling on Happiness.

[Vlad!]

I don't think the guilty feeling is any more or less significant than the other possible feelings.

I disagree. I think guilt is an important feedback mechanism for moral behavior, and if I'm feeling guilty over something I've done, I definitely need to find out why.

[enemy anemone]

I'm having difficulty figuring out what you're talking about because it seems that you're alternating between Things That Are Wrong and Things That Aren't Technically Wrong and between talking about other people's possible feelings and your own. (I think there is a big difference between "I didn't do something I think I should do. should I feel bad and think about it some more?" and "he didn't do something I think he should do. should he feel bad and think about it some more?")  I also suspect there are different sorts of feelings that we label "guilty feelings". if I feel guilty for eating the last cookie or for eating two when for some arbitrary reason I think I should only eat one, this is different from the sort of feeling that I would get if I told my friend I saved the last cookie for her but then ate it anyway. maybe it is a different feeling altogether or maybe it's a different degree of the same feeling, I don't know. and I suspect that these feelings are not necessarily what another person's experience of "feeling guilty" is.

eh. too much talking about feelings. *uncomfortable*

[Vlad!]

I'm having difficulty figuring out what you're talking about because it seems that you're alternating between Things That Are Wrong and Things That Aren't Technically Wrong and between talking about other people's possible feelings and your own.

Yes, because every time I come up with what seems like a viable answer to one of those scenarios, it doesn't work for another one.

(I think there is a big difference between "I didn't do something I think I should do. should I feel bad and think about it some more?" and "he didn't do something I think he should do. should he feel bad and think about it some more?")

OK, fair enough, but what I get from the Bible is that if you see someone else in sin, you call them on it. If this is a bogus reading then let me know, but it's at least my working hypothesis.

I also suspect there are different sorts of feelings that we label "guilty feelings".

I certainly agree with this. I was thinking earlier today that the feeling I want to promote isn't guilt so much as the "Godly sorrow" of 2 Cor 7. The important thing isn't the feeling itself, it's the action (repentance, reconciliation) that the feeling inspires.

I guess to try and summarize my random confused thoughts in a way that has a higher chance of actually making sense: I don't feel like I'm always capable of discerning which situations are ones where I should be saying something and which situations are ones where I shouldn't. Thus, my instinctive reaction is to never say anything. However, I do feel like the Biblical way of approaching unrepentant sin in a fellow believer's life is to address it, not to let it slide. It's the conflict between my reaction (leave it be rather than potentially make it worse) and what the scripture seems to be saying (help my fellow believers by holding them accountable) that's got me all wrapped up.

[bethany]

The Bible lays out guidelines for confronting sin in another believer's life. Paul also cautions not to "bind the conscience" of others on non-essential matters (eating of meat sacrified to idols, listening to secular music, etc.) It seems that we have the right and responsibility to lovingly point out genuine sin and wrongdoing in a fellow Christian's life, and pray that the Holy Spirit would convict them. On matters that are truly gray areas, it's best to just leave wel enough along, or perhaps tell them what you personally think/why but allow for differences in conviction that are okay. The tricky part is figuring out the difference between what is a gray area and what is black/white.

[Vlad!]

Paul also cautions not to "bind the conscience" of others on non-essential matters (eating of meat sacrified to idols, listening to secular music, etc.)

Where do you see this? In I Cor 10, Paul basically says "yeah, I know you're not supposed to eat meat sacrificed to idols, but don't really get all worked up about it". However, he then goes on to say that if someone else tells you "hey, didn't the elders at Jerusalem say not to do that?" then you shouldn't do it, because otherwise it might cause that person to stumble. I can't say I've fully wrapped my head around this passage and all its implications yet, but it sounds as though Paul was fairly unimpressed by some of the requirements the Jewish leaders put on the gentile believers and thus left the matter up to individual conscience.

It seems that we have the right and responsibility to lovingly point out genuine sin and wrongdoing in a fellow Christian's life, and pray that the Holy Spirit would convict them. On matters that are truly gray areas, it's best to just leave wel enough along, or perhaps tell them what you personally think/why but allow for differences in conviction that are okay. The tricky part is figuring out the difference between what is a gray area and what is black/white.

Agreed.

[chrisnu]

Thought this might be appropriate for this thread, since it is about guilt.

This "street preaching" ticks me off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhZ52vm8-7Y

This is nothing but a series of perfunctory questions used to set up and hammer home points which the person being interviewed largely agrees with! Unfortunately, I think the interviewee is being judged on 1) his appearance, 2) his statement that he doesn't judge (even while being judged on quick-point answers), and 3) his answer to whether he is a good person or not. No respect is paid to his opinion (even if it's being disagreed with). He is then goaded into getting angry about a series of questions regarding whether he is a sinner or not. He doesn't appear to be angry because he is being convicted of things he doesn't want to admit; he appears angry (like me) because he is being reduced to a series of things he has done wrong, in order to conjure feelings of guilt. Sure, the truth is being presented, but I believe it's being done in a finger-pointing way, rather than a compassionate one.

Rant over.

[murlough23]

Guilt is a particularly ineffective motivator against me. I just don't "do" guilt. Period. That's not to say I'm an unfeeling bastard with no conscience - it's just that I need to see the reasoning, need to understand how a particular action would hurt someone or show disrespect to God in some other way, before I'm going to go to great effort to avoid doing that particular thing. I've seen false guilt used to manipulate people too many times, so I tend to only respond when I can tell someone is confronting me out of genuine concern for me or for someone I'm hurting. If it's just to maintain their sense of rules and order, I'll probably just blow it off or have some unkind words for the person, depending on my mood.

But then there's the flipside - how I respond when people hurt me or hurt those that I care about. And I've been guilty of that manipulation at times - not even necessarily because someone "sinned", but because they did something that was kind of ass, like invite me and my wife to lunch and then call us after we arrived at the restaurant to say she was instead going somewhere else with another group of people that had invited her at the last second. My usual response is either passive/aggressiveness or I just give them the cold shoulder and avoid talking to them for however long it takes me to cool down. And I know I need to cut that shit out. If I get so livid when people use it on me, I should remember that and not delight in making them squirm when they know they've slighted me.

What's most helpful to me when someone needs to communicate a "don't" is when it also comes with a "do". That provides an interesting, alternative approach rather than just a restrictive boundary. Hard to think of a specific example at the moment, but it's a positive reinforcement sort of thing - "Here, try this instead".

[RedcoatJones]

Your statement about offering a "do" was sort of reinforced by our pastor this weekend. Our church just finished a very cool day of service (instead of an actual service, we split out into different community service projects). It got started when he kept getting "suggestions" of what types of service the church should offer the community. He finally got everyone together and said, "Yes, we do need such-and-such outreach. Put together a plan, and we'll do it on our service day."

Challenging them to do something instead of just complain about it got some cool things done.

[murlough23]

Your statement about offering a "do" was sort of reinforced by our pastor this weekend. Our church just finished a very cool day of service (instead of an actual service, we split out into different community service projects).

We did that a couple times. We knew of people in our church's neighborhood that needed some assistance around their homes (just simple stuff like painting, washing windows, etc. for eldery or infirm people who couldn't do it on their own and were living in rather drab environments as a result), and we figured it shouldn't be too hard serve the local community if we can send people halfway around the globe for missions! It was a good idea and it went well; I'm not sure why it didn't evolve into a yearly thing after the two times we did it.

Though as it pertains to this thread, it's really more of a question of who gets to carry out the "do". There's not really a "don't" there.

[Vlad!]

Guilt is a particularly ineffective motivator against me. I just don't "do" guilt. Period.

I think that intrinsic guilt is an important motivator. I have found that there are cases where the Bible isn't clear one way or the other and ultimately the call is left up to us. I think to some degree that which we call guilt is simply a natural way for our conscience--and the Spirit--to prompt us to reflect on our actions and to realize that what we've done is wrong.

However, the problem with conscience is that we can ignore it. Repeated rationalizations can dull the edge and repeated offenses can harden the heart and drown it out entirely. The problem I've found with taking the approach that you mention is that for me it's insufficient. Although it should work in theory, in practice I was hurting or offending others and then explaining to them how rationally they're wrong to be hurt or offended. This is a silly way to live.

Thus, extrinsic guilt. Yeah, it can be used to hurt people. But in my own life I feel like I've benefited from having people who aren't afraid to say "you should feel bad about this" as sort of a heart check.

Here are a couple examples. These are based off of real-life situations, but as always reality is more complicated than it needs to be so I've tried to pare these down to their essence without losing the important lesson each one contains:

The other day a friend came up to me to confess something. She was obviously very upset about it. Although I agreed that this was something that she needed to confess, I felt like she already realized that it wasn't a good thing for her to have done, so my focus was more on "have you talked about this with the right people" and "how can I help you not do this again". There was clearly no need for extrinsic guilt because she already had an attitude of repentance

On the other hand, another friend had a problem with his attitude towards someone else. When asked about it, he replied that she knew he was joking and everyone was OK with it. However, there still seemed like something was wrong, so the people who were helping him suggested that he think about not saying hurtful things even in jest. After talking about it with the person, he eventually discovered that even though she told him she knew he was joking and that she was OK with it, she still felt hurt by his attitude. She just didn't feel comfortable telling him so because she knew that he would just explain again that it was a joke and she shouldn't feel hurt. If others hadn't told the guy that he shouldn't do something that he didn't feel guilty about doing, he would have kept on hurting this person without even realizing it.

These may not be perfect examples, but I think they illustrate well enough what it is that I'm talking about.

[murlough23]

I think that intrinsic guilt is an important motivator. I have found that there are cases where the Bible isn't clear one way or the other and ultimately the call is left up to us. I think to some degree that which we call guilt is simply a natural way for our conscience--and the Spirit--to prompt us to reflect on our actions and to realize that what we've done is wrong.

True. But there's a difference between the guilt I feel myself when I know I've wronged someone or done some other sinful thing, and the guilt others try to impress upon me. I've seen the second type of guilt abused to force people into a very restrictive, legalistic way of life that leaves them constantly fretting about what boundaries they might have overstepped. That's no way to live. (Neither is saying "screw everyone" and just running rampant, of course.)

However, the problem with conscience is that we can ignore it. Repeated rationalizations can dull the edge and repeated offenses can harden the heart and drown it out entirely. The problem I've found with taking the approach that you mention is that for me it's insufficient. Although it should work in theory, in practice I was hurting or offending others and then explaining to them how rationally they're wrong to be hurt or offended. This is a silly way to live.

I think a person has to be teachable for this to work. If you're just going to boil it down to strict, black-and-white "right and wrong", you miss a category of actions where you may not have done anything technically wrong, but you're still not dealing with a situation in a Christ-like manner. For example, someone might take offense at a comment I made in jest, not realizing I was joking, and my usual response is to get indignant about that, because I feel like I know what I meant and I've got reasoning to back me up and show why they shouldn't be offended. But what I've had to learn - and am still learning - is that just 'cause I didn't mean it doesn't mean it didn't genuinely hurt. And maybe there's something graceful I could do to help ease that hurt, instead of getting an attitude (because hey, technically I'm not wrong!) and making the person feel even more belittled.

Thus, extrinsic guilt. Yeah, it can be used to hurt people. But in my own life I feel like I've benefited from having people who aren't afraid to say "you should feel bad about this" as sort of a heart check.

For me, the key is that those people who can perform that "heart check" need to have built up some trust with me first. That way it's clear to me that love is their motivation and they're not just trying to control me or maintain some puritanical and unnecessary sense of order or whatever. There's a big difference between someone who's known me for several years calling me on my crap, and someone who doesn't know me from Adam calling me on it. Both of your examples involve friends, and this is key. If you care about someone, you don't want them to mope around feeling guilty. You want to help them live a better life. If you don't care about someone, you're likely to not be worried about whether you just made them angry or made them hate themselves or made them want to go home and kick their dog. (Unless you're really sensitive about animal cruelty, I guess.)

[Vlad!]

I think a person has to be teachable for this to work. If you're just going to boil it down to strict, black-and-white "right and wrong", you miss a category of actions where you may not have done anything technically wrong, but you're still not dealing with a situation in a Christ-like manner. For example, someone might take offense at a comment I made in jest, not realizing I was joking, and my usual response is to get indignant about that, because I feel like I know what I meant and I've got reasoning to back me up and show why they shouldn't be offended. But what I've had to learn - and am still learning - is that just 'cause I didn't mean it doesn't mean it didn't genuinely hurt. And maybe there's something graceful I could do to help ease that hurt, instead of getting an attitude (because hey, technically I'm not wrong!) and making the person feel even more belittled.

No, I don't agree. If you say something that hurts someone else, that was wrong, regardless of your motivation. I agree that you can't divide actions into right and wrong absent any context, but I believe that when you add context to a situation then you can make that call. Some things might fall on the right side in some situations and the wrong side in others, but that's just how life works.

For me, the key is that those people who can perform that "heart check" need to have built up some trust with me first. That way it's clear to me that love is their motivation and they're not just trying to control me or maintain some puritanical and unnecessary sense of order or whatever.

I definitely wasn't saying that anyone should be able to confront anyone else. If we could all live by the theoretical, rational standard you described earlier then yes, anyone could come in and describe rationally why you're wrong and you would judge not by the person but by the words. However, things just don't work that way so it requires understanding.

An example for this that comes to mind is a time soon after I moved down here and started going to the church I go to. I had made some pretty good friends, but there were also a lot of people I didn't know. I was hanging out with a group composed of some friends and some unknown people. A friend and I were joking around, which apparently involved saying some things that taken out of context would seem pretty hurtful. One of the people I don't know pulled me aside later and said "you know her, right?", and I confirmed this, and asked if he thought I was out of line. He said that he knew she was fine with that sort of joking, but not everyone would be, so he wanted to make sure that I was behaving in that way because we were friends, not because I behaved that way to everyone. I felt like he approached the situation very well, by admitting that he didn't know me or the circumstance and finding out about it before making a judgment.

(As a footnote to this story, the person who pulled me aside and I are now great friends as well and he gives me at least as much of a hard time as I was giving my other friend at the beginning of the story, so it's not that he's overly sensitive or anything, he was just legitimately concerned that the situation could have turned out be hurtful).

[murlough23]

No, I don't agree. If you say something that hurts someone else, that was wrong, regardless of your motivation.

Really? In all cases? If i was making fun of the person, maybe, but let's say I wasn't even making a joke. I was having a conversation about something completely unrelated to the person, and they took it the wrong way, assumed it was about them, and got offended. I'm talking about situations that honestly are misunderstandings - where I didn't mean to say or even hint at anything negative about a person, but my words got taken out of context. Is that wrong? I sure hope not, because I'm gonna say stuff accidentally that others misunderstand. It's bound to happen. But that's not the same category as something I said where I meant well, but it was just an insensitive thing to say and I probably should have known better.

I'll give you an example. I had a female friend in college whose boyfriend was visiting campus one night. They were walking down the hall of one of the dorms, hand in hand, looking at the different decorations people had hung on the walls and basically being so engrossed in their own conversation and their own little lovey-dovey world that I remarked to another friend that they were like little kids. What I meant by that was that being so in love gave them a sort of innocence and wide-eyed wonder that I thought was charming, because you don't see that sort of thing in grown-ups everyday. It was a compliment.

Fast forward a few weeks. I went over to my friend's dorm to visit her. The boyfriend was there, he saw me through the glass door, and next thing I knew he was storming down the hall, ranting and raving at me with unprintable threats. (Our interactions up until that point had been thoroughly friendly. We often hung out in groups and he didn't seem like the type of guy who was insecure about his girl having other male friends.) His girlfriend rapidly ushered him upstairs and out of my sight, presumably to talk some sense into him. Later, when I knew he was off campus and it was safe to approach her, I asked my friend what the hell had happened. Apparently my comment had gotten back to him, only in a way that made it sound like he was acting childish or something like that. He took it as an attack on his maturity or his manhood or whatever.

Now obviously this was a huge misunderstanding - and even a humorous one apart from the threat of my getting pummeled by the guy - but did I do something wrong in that situation? No. However, I could have clung to my knowledge that I was in the right, and gotten indignant about it, and just said, "He's a jerk, that's his problem". But I wanted to make it right. It bugged me that he was so bent out of shape and I knew I could probably just explain it and apologize for the misunderstanding and he'd be fine. I asked the girlfriend a few weeks later if I could talk to the guy to fix things, but alas, I never got the chance. They had broken up by that point. (Probably due to unrelated issues, but man, if the guy got that bent out of shape over a misunderstood comment made in passing, I can see why it didn't work out for them.)

The lesson to take away from that is that while I wasn't guilty, I still felt a sort of moral obligation to make things right. I don't have to be the one who made things wrong to play a part in making things right. Only so much I can do, I suppose, if someone is hell-bent on taking me out of context and wanting a reason to kick my ass, but I can at least try to be gracious.

An example for this that comes to mind is a time soon after I moved down here and started going to the church I go to. I had made some pretty good friends, but there were also a lot of people I didn't know. I was hanging out with a group composed of some friends and some unknown people. A friend and I were joking around, which apparently involved saying some things that taken out of context would seem pretty hurtful. One of the people I don't know pulled me aside later and said "you know her, right?", and I confirmed this, and asked if he thought I was out of line. He said that he knew she was fine with that sort of joking, but not everyone would be, so he wanted to make sure that I was behaving in that way because we were friends, not because I behaved that way to everyone. I felt like he approached the situation very well, by admitting that he didn't know me or the circumstance and finding out about it before making a judgment.

And I'd venture to say that if you were behaving in a way that was understood and accepted among friends and not taken by any of those friends as something hurtful or intended to degrade that person, you were probably fine, but that it was still a good idea for your friend to approach you about it just to be sure, and probably a good idea for you to clear up any misunderstanding that may have resulted from it.

I can think of situation somewhat similar to yours. I was in a Bible Study group a few years back that was doing one of those "white elephant" things for Christmas. One of the guys in the group got stuck with a particularly feminine-looking purse at the end of the exchange, and in a mildly humorous attempt to be helpful, I suggested, "Hey, you could always re-gift it to your mom for Mother's Day". Nobody said anything, but that comment didn't exactly get the chuckles I was hoping for. I later found out through a mutual friend that the guy's mother had passed away not long before that. AWKWARD! And hey, how was I supposed to know? He's my age; it's a reasonable assumption that he'd still have his mom around. But I felt bad, because it probably looked to some folks like I was making a joke in extremely bad taste. I don't remember if I ever talked to him to make sure he wasn't offended, but I probably should have. I didn't do anything "wrong", but it definitely would have been wrong to make that comment if I'd known more about him than I did at the time.

I also know what it's like to be on the other side of one of those misunderstandings, to be the one who blows an innocent, well-intentioned comment way out of proportion and who lets the person have it out of my ignorance. Then, when I find out how egregiously I misunderstood, in a last ditch attempt to avoid looking like a complete ass for assuming the wrong thing, I'll make some snide comment like, "Well, you should have known how that remark would be taken", which really just helps to complete my ass-like appearance. At that point it's the old sunk cost fallacy. I'm in to deep to cut my losses and just fold and say I'm sorry. So I just keep raising the stakes and digging myself in deeper. STOO. PID.

These days, I'm trying to figure out the appropriate Christ-like response to people who notice the little bit of belly fat that my wife happens to have and ask her when she's due. Because my first instinct is to give 'em what for.

[Vlad!]

Really? In all cases? If i was making fun of the person, maybe, but let's say I wasn't even making a joke.

Yeah, you're right, misunderstandings do happen. I retract my recklessly unqualified statement and replace it with one that I've gotten a surprising amount of use out of lately: even when you're right, you may still be wrong. I don't say to put any guilt on you or to suggest that you should spend your conversations second-guessing yourself, but to say that maybe thinking in terms of right or wrong isn't the way to go about it. I love to be right as much as the next guy, but when misunderstandings come up I have never had one satisfactorily resolved by insisting and explaining why I'm right. It always works better when I apologize and explain--from a position of humility, not an "I'm right" mentality--what it was that I meant.

I've been in situations where I apologized for something that wasn't really my fault and situations where I didn't. I've never regretted the former but I do occasionally decide that the latter would have gone better if I had ditched the pride and produced an "I'm sorry" or even an "I could have said that better".

To bring it back to the topic at hand: obviously at the very least it's important to know the person and to fully understand the situation before approaching someone to discuss concerns that may involve the application (intentional or otherwise) of extrinsic guilt.

[murlough23]

Yeah, you're right, misunderstandings do happen. I retract my recklessly unqualified statement and replace it with one that I've gotten a surprising amount of use out of lately: even when you're right, you may still be wrong.

That's essentially what I was trying to say - that it may be prudent to apologize/make amends for a situation even though you're sure you didn't do anything wrong.

I don't say to put any guilt on you or to suggest that you should spend your conversations second-guessing yourself, but to say that maybe thinking in terms of right or wrong isn't the way to go about it. I love to be right as much as the next guy, but when misunderstandings come up I have never had one satisfactorily resolved by insisting and explaining why I'm right. It always works better when I apologize and explain--from a position of humility, not an "I'm right" mentality--what it was that I meant.

I get a lot of cases where I explain what I meant and the person still takes it the same way they took it the first time - either because I didn't realize that they got me just fine the first time and my words were just insensitive, or because now the person's just stuck on their right to be offended and they think I'm just backpedaling. So I've found that when explaining what  meant, I have to also acknowledge that I understand why the other person took it the way they did, and not treat them like they're stupid for taking it that way, which is hard, because I'm usually thinking, "Life would be so much easier if people wouldn't take stuff I say way out of proportion."

To bring it back to the topic at hand: obviously at the very least it's important to know the person and to fully understand the situation before approaching someone to discuss concerns that may involve the application (intentional or otherwise) of extrinsic guilt.

I guess it's relevant to the topic in the sense that someone could approach you to check your motives in a situation where they're not sure why you did something, and the thing itself can't easily be pinned to a moral right or wrong, but the motivation makes all the difference. It can be easy to get offended if you know you're in the clear, so it takes a little grace on both sides and good pre-existing relationship between the two of you.

[Vlad!]

I guess it's relevant to the topic in the sense that someone could approach you to check your motives in a situation where they're not sure why you did something, and the thing itself can't easily be pinned to a moral right or wrong, but the motivation makes all the difference. It can be easy to get offended if you know you're in the clear, so it takes a little grace on both sides and good pre-existing relationship between the two of you.

I also should add, based on my personal experience, that it also takes humility to realize that even if I "know" I'm in the clear, I may be wrong, so I should value the concerns and feelings of the other person.

[murlough23]

I also should add, based on my personal experience, that it also takes humility to realize that even if I "know" I'm in the clear, I may be wrong, so I should value the concerns and feelings of the other person.

Agreed. But I usually take it for granted that I'm better at the whole humility thing than most other folks are.