Sunday, March 8, 2009

I am not ashamed

My attention was caught by the tag line on an interview with Lily Allen in the sunday paper - I am not ashamed of anything I do.

How can she be so confident that everything she does can stand scrutiny? Because "I'm a well intentioned person".

This is a stance taken frequently these days - in the past, not lamented Big Brother days, those kicked off the show would often proclaim that they were not ashamed or had no regrets. This was often met with approval by the host and cheers from the audience. "I know I'm a good person".

I shudder to think what a world where no one any longer feels shame would be like. If it was a result of no bad things being done, then well and good. But, no shame no matter what you do is a terrifying thing. What they really mean is that they do not hold themselves responsible for the consequences of their own actions.

As the proverb says, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I have done plenty of things to be ashamed about. Good thing then that I need not be ashamed of the gospel (Rom 1:16, Bible).

2 comments:

Kris said...

Great post! Was just thinking along the same lines after seeing a bit about binge drinking and all the associated behaviour that goes with it (the whole ladette phenomenon, etc).

:)

Unknown said...

Another thing that Big Brother contestants used to say when attempting to justify their behaviour was "I've been true to myself". It was always delivered with a kind of finality, as if signifying that no further argument could be entered into. Within their own frame of reference, they were completely right, of course: no God (or, at least, no consistently worked out belief in a God that looks like the God of Abraham) meant that they were the gods of their own worlds, as far as their blindness would allow them to see.

For cases where there's more than one person in the world, though, it doesn't seem to work too well.