Religious Shaming

As a person of faith, all too often in church I hear the words 'you should be ashamed'. More often, it is implied rather than directly said, but the message is still the same.

You should be ashamed because you're gay.
You should be ashamed because you're not a virgin.
You should be ashamed because of who your parents are.

This humiliation and formation of some moral hierarchy really, really grinds my gears, particularly when it happens in the name of a higher power. Jesus didn't die so that I/you/anyone could be shamed for being themselves, He died so that we didn't have to feel ashamed. I know quite a lot of people who have rejected faith because they felt pressured and defamed by it, and who were actually made to feel inferior due to this integrated 'shame culture'.

Many pastors/church leaders seem to try and disguise this shaming with making people humble. Humility is not hiding who you are because you feel embarrassed. Humility is having a modest and rightful view of your own importance (which in the grand religious scheme of things is either not very important, as God is so much greater than us, or pretty important, as He did decide that the world needed one of you), which is very different indeed to shame.

Another way this religious 'shaming' is masked is as repentance. As a Christian, repentance is very important; confessing what you've done wrong to God and accepting His forgiveness. Repentance is, once again, not shaming. As a 21st-century human being, you do not need to repent for what is called 'original sin'; Adam and Eve's mistake of eating the apple. Original sin is a very difficult concept for me to understand, and I don't think that it is an issue that we should be dealing with nowadays, even as 'good' Christians (also wtf is a 'good' Christian? Any Christian is a 'good' Christian). If I have done something which I see as sinful, I will repent and ask for God's forgiveness. I told neither Adam nor Eve to eat the apple, so (assuming that the story is literal) why on earth should I be punished for it?

Jesus was (and is) all about forgiveness, all about compassion, all about love. Heck, He is love (see 1 John 4:8). I don't think it's very compassionate to force someone into feeling ashamed for something that they can't control, e.g. original sin or being gay, therefore it isn't very Christ-like to do so either. And we all know that the number 1 goal for Christians is to be Christ-like (see Matthew 11:29, 1 Corinthians 11:1, Ephesians 5:1-2, 1 Peter 2:21, 1 John 2:6, and the entire rest of the New Testament).

So I will not be ashamed for something I should not be ashamed for. I will boast in Christ, I will tell of His gifts and His love for me and for you, and I will not be silent because you have told me I should be.

So yes, the Bible does say that we're all sinners (Job 15:14). But also yes, the Bible tells us to 'Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed' - 2 Timothy 2:15. If your church/pastor/family is shaming you (especially in a religious context), feel free to come at them with any of this scripture. Or if all else fails, just tell them to stop being judgey. You know who's the only judge here? God.