Simon Cozens - Looking Shame in the Eye: A Path to Understanding, Grace and Freedom

As a clinical psychologist, I meet a lot of shame in the therapy room. Shame about body image, internet use or addictions. People who have been shamed for leaving a cult. And deep shame about who we are.

This book reveals biblical insights, including how Jesus dealt with shame. Cozens also describes how communities of Christians can help to get rid of shame and minister to the shamed.

I feel no shame in highly recommending this very helpful book.

Dr Debbie Hawker , clinical psychologist

Shame is everywhere, a powerfully emotional and painfully confusing experience that has the power to eat away at communities, our personal character and our confidence.

In this powerfully liberating book, Simon Cozens not only helps us to understand shame, but points us to the One who heals and restores.

Well written and timely, this book is Simon speaking from experience into a culture and context in which shame is too often hidden or misunderstood. I commend it to all, including those involved in prayer ministry, helping to bring freedom to others.

Mitch (Keith Mitchell) , evangelist and co-founder of Crown Jesus Ministries

Shame is universally debilitating and has crippled humanity since the fall. Simon Cozens brilliant and timely book is theologically rich, culturally relevant, missionally focused and pastorally liberating. Here is hope and help for a crisis of our times.

Simon Ponsonby , Pastor of Theology, St Aldates Church, Oxford

Simon Cozens addresses a feature of human experience that is universal but is so often hidden away. He demonstrates that the experience of shame was no less real for the great Augustine of Hippo as it was for the author himself as a sixteen-year-old witnessing the break-up of his parents marriage. And herein lies the great value of this book: first, it reassures the reader that each individuals inevitable experience of shame places him or her in community. Second, the answer lies in the model of Jesus, who lived to take away guilt and shame because he blew up shame itself (p. 143). Every Christian should read this eminently readable book and should then share its wisdom with non-Christian friends.

Professor Peter G. Riddell , Melbourne School of Theology, and School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

This is honestly one of the most thought-stirring and very possibly game-changing books that I have read recently, and Im a prolific reader. Shame is a significant part of our lives, and Simons book is a much-needed catalyst to bring it more openly to the table for discussion, not only in the church or in how we present the gospel but also in our own lives. Youll want to read this book several times, first to dive into the well-developed, biblically rooted truths that Simon presents, but then again, and probably again, to allow the Spirit to use these truths for his transforming work in your own life.

Susan Sutton , International Director, WEC International, and author of A Quiet Center , A Sure Path , Vision of the Deep and Designer Living

This book is a landmark and original contribution for understanding how shame affects all of us. Drawing richly on his own experience, Simon Cozens weaves stories, biblical insights and thoughtful questions, to force Western readers, time and again, to have another look at the misconception that shame only affect Asian societies. Highly recommended for leaders and cross-cultural workers open to new correlations between our personal and communities shame and the claims of Jesus and the gospel.

Kang-San Tan , Director, Baptist Missionary Society World Mission

Simon Cozens has worked as a computer programmer in the UK, been part of a team planting new churches in Japan and taught prospective missionaries at a Bible college in Australia. While in Australia, he began to explore the role of shame in Asian cultures, in Western society and in his own life. Since writing this book, he has returned to the UK with his wife, Henrietta, and their two children, Caitlin and Luke. He now leads a think tank within his mission agency, WEC International, helping them to explore what mission could look like in the future.

INTER-VARSITY PRESS

36 Causton Street, London SW1P 4ST, England

Email: ivp@ivpbooks.com

Website: www.ivpbooks.com

Simon Cozens, 2019

Simon Cozens has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as Author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or the Copyright Licensing Agency.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version (Anglicized edition). Copyright 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, an Hachette UK company. All rights reserved. niv is a registered trademark of Biblica. UK trademark number 1448790.

The quotation marked net is taken from the NET Bible, New English Translation, and is copyright 1996 by Biblical Studies Press, LLC. NET Bible is a registered trademark.

Every effort has been made to seek permission to use copyright material reproduced in this book. The publisher apologizes for those cases where permission might not have been sought and, if notified, will formally seek permission at the earliest opportunity.

First published 2019

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 9781783599202

eBook ISBN: 9781783599219

Set in Minion Pro

Typeset in Great Britain by CRB Associates, Potterhanworth, Lincolnshire

Printed in Great Britain by Ashford Colour Press Ltd, Gosport, Hampshire

eBook by CRB Associates, Potterhanworth, Lincolnshire

Inter-Varsity Press publishes Christian books that are true to the Bible and that communicate the gospel, develop discipleship and strengthen the church for its mission in the world.

IVP originated within the Inter-Varsity Fellowship, now the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship, a student movement connecting Christian Unions in universities and colleges throughout Great Britain, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. Website: www.uccf.org.uk. That historic association is maintained, and all senior IVP staff and committee members subscribe to the UCCF Basis of Faith.

Acknowledgments

Robert Wadsworth Lowry (182699), How Can I Keep from Singing, public domain.

Introduction: shame uncovered

Ian Watto Watson, Champion Blokes Shed Their Shame! (Woody Point, Queensland: Watto Books, 2015), p. 10.

1 Feeling ashamed of my guilt

Augustine, Confessions , 2:1 (trans. Henry Chadwick) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

Augustine, Confessions , 2:4.

Augustine, Confessions , 2:8.

Augustine, Confessions , 2:1619.

Im exaggerating, but only a little bit. Geert Hofstedes research into cultural dimensions found that Australia came second in his individualism dimension with a score of 90, just beaten by the USA at 91. Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede and Michael Minkov, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind (London: McGraw-Hill, 1991), p. 95.

>.

See, for example, Jack Holmes, The Death of Shame, or the Rise of Shamelessness?, Esquire , 31 January 2018.

Donald Capps, The Depleted Self: Sin in a Narcissistic Age (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), p. 3.

Roland Muller, Honor and Shame: Unlocking the Door (Philadelphia, PA: Xlibris, 2001), p. 52.

Augustine, Confessions , 10:2.

Augustine, Confessions , 10:30.

Augustine, Confessions , 10:30.