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Joshua Mitchell has made a strong case that religion has returned to public life. In American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time, he argues that growing numbers of Americans are harried and oppressed by unaddressed guilt and shame. The recession of Christianity as the most prominent cultural power in our society deprives people of access to the mechanisms of repentance, atonement, and forgiveness. As a consequence, the guilt-ridden gravitate to the more primitive mechanism of scapegoating, heaping their guilt and shame on the white, heterosexual man, who must be humiliated and purged.
I’m not entirely convinced that identity politics and other disordered conceptions of justice currently abroad in our society can be explained by scapegoating. Nevertheless, Mitchell is surely correct to focus on guilt and shame. When they are not addressed by traditional religious practice, these feelings become a terrible burden. Our therapeutic culture can help us manage guilt and shame, turning guilty acts into “mistakes” and redefining shame as a socially imposed feeling that, once understood, will relax its grip. Yet the deeply felt stain remains, agitating our souls and circulating just below the surface of society.[…]
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