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How to deal with shame, accusations, and condemnation

How to deal with shame, accusations, and condemnation

Last updated on: November 19, 2025 at 5:50 pm by Adrian Warnock

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How to deal with shame, accusations, and condemnation 2025-11-19T17:50:08+00:00 Adrian Warnock

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Politics and Personal Life Bring Much Shame to Us. Image: Pixabay

We live in a shame culture now.

In the media frenzy over politics and in our personal lives shaming and cancelling is rife. You can be rejected over even minor faults, which all contributes to relationship breakdown including divorce. Many now live alone, cut off from emotional support from friends and family. Many yearn for the kind of connections seen in the immensely popular sitcoms like Friends and Big Bang. They want to be part of a gang of supportive friends like that. Do you have such a group around you? Are you part of such a group around others? Or are you struggling through hard times alone and feeling overwhelmed, like a failure, and full of shame?

And perhaps no other issue engenders more shame in Christian women than that of abortion. God can and does forgive ANYTHING we do if we turn to him and ask him to.

Is your church a safe place? Is there love and acceptance for everyone whether they are a guilty or a victim of others sin? Or is it a place that adds to the cacophony of rejection many of us hear only too keenly everywhere today?

Help When Life Hurts

This article is part of a growing collection, drawing from Adrian Warnock’s medical and psychological expertise, lived experience, and Christian faith.

Click the type of pain you or a loved one are experiencing right now

General suffering & disappointment
Financial difficulties
Feeling disqualified
Chronic illness & disability
Divorce & family pain
Depression & mental health
Bereavement & end-of-life

See the full list of over 40 articles

See also my roundup Trump vs Harris article

In the USA especially at the moment you are very likely to experience this rejection if you are a Christian who has decided they simply cannot vote for the Trump Cult Leader. The voices of accusation are loud. But democrats also report that in some cases they no longer can speak with people in their own families who are republicans.

Trump deals in false accusations, unkindness and incredibly rude and hurtful comments about the people who he sees as his enemy. I worry that this is normalising similar language about the vulnerable in this world. Immigrants are described as having bad genes and being essentially less than people. I have even seen a Christian book which writes about “toxic empathy!” As though compassion is not a biblical value. A huge debate on how kind the church needs to be has sprung up around my last two posts on politics:Kamala vs Trump: Character Really Does Matterv and The Trump Cult is a False Religion Infiltrating the Church. Someone even said they would be compassionate towards people who deserve compassion! I replied:

NOBODY really “deserves” our compassion or for that matter Gods grace. We are meant to care for the least of these for Christ’s sake. Freely we have received freely give. What has happened to Christianity if I even need to explain that?

My article on the Pharisee and the Prostitute demonstrates that Jesus has more problem with those who think they are perfect and superior than he does with someone who knows that are a sinner.

The more normal, gentler approach of Harris is more in keeping with Christian values than the brashness of Trump. I should not have to say that.

As we hurl accusations about politics around, some of them might land in people’s hearts and hurt. And sometimes even in our personal lives we really do have enemies who have accused us of things. Maybe sometimes those accusations are wholly unjust. Maybe though they are at least partly right on the money and we feel guilt, shame and disgrace. Maybe we feel our enemies want us to just give up and die. Sometimes we get so desperate that is what we want to do too. But I want to share some words from the NIV Bible that blessed me this morning.

I like the use of the word vindication here, because that is what many of us are looking for. We want to be seen to be right. It is an idea that in the Bible often uses the word justification. How can we be declared not guilty? This is only through the gospel as my article on the source of our justification explains. But for now, back to the words from Isaiah:

Isaiah. 50

“Because the Sovereign Lord helps me,
I will not be disgraced.
Therefore have I set my face like flint,
and I know I will not be put to shame.
8 He who vindicates me is near.
Who then will bring charges against me?
Let us face each other!
Who is my accuser?
Let him confront me!
9 It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me.
Who will condemn me?
They will all wear out like a garment;
the moths will eat them up.
10 Who among you fears the Lord
and obeys the word of his servant?
Let the one who walks in the dark,
who has no light,
trust in the name of the Lord.”

I pray these words will be true of all of us today. Here are some declarations you can SHOUT today!

NO DISGRACE
NO SHAME
NO GIVING UP (instead setting out faces like flint and powering on somehow!)
GOD WILL VINDICATE ME EVEN IF I AM AS GUILTY AS THEY SAY I AM
THEY CAN SAY WHATEVER THEY LIKE BECAUSE I AM A FORGIVEN CHILD OF A LOVING GOD
NOBODY CAN CONDEMN ME!
I WILL TRUST IN GOD

HALLELUJAH!!

Trump vs Kamala Harris: Roundup

Pro-Life Voting: Beyond Anti-Abortion, Protecting All Lives

How to Reduce Divorce Stigma in Church

Imperfect Churches Reflect God’s Perfect Glory

The Trump Cult is a False Religion Infiltrating the Church

Kamala vs Trump: Character Really Does Matter

The Pharisee and the Prostitute

What does justification mean? How can we be forgiven?

General Christian

Politics and Religion

Family, Parenting and Religion

About Adrian Warnock

Adrian Warnock

Medical doctor · Published author · Patheos writer since 2003

I have always lived within sixty miles of London, UK where I studied, worked and worshipped for thirty years. I began writing for this Patheos blog in April 2003, making it one of the longest-running individual columns on the Christian Internet. My writing here, on Substack, and in my books is influenced by my medical training, eight years of working as a psychiatrist in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), eighteen years working in medical research in the pharmaceutical industry, twenty-five years of serving as a pastoral leader in a growing multicultural church, and a difficult decade of lived experience with chronic illness, including blood cancer, and the unexpected losses, including early retirement, that resulted.

Together, these all shape a biopsychosocial-spiritual approach which I first wrote about on Patheos in 2013. This model offers us hope, compassion, and healing in all life’s challenges. This holistic approach is based on the idea that all truth is God’s truth.

At times, since my illness, my faith has been faint. I wondered if this was the end of my story. I was not strong enough to live for Jesus the way I wanted to. I could not change myself. And then hope reminded me: The resurrection of Jesus changes everything. Just not all at once. Healing takes time. Compassion and patience sustain us over a lifetime of change. I aim to approach suffering with hope and compassion, and address tough questions including:

What does Jesus’ resurrection mean for you?

Raised With Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything (Crossway, 2010; 2nd edition, Amazon, 2025)
Why is change so difficult? What causes the resistance?

The Traitor Within: Understanding and Healing Our Deceitful Hearts (Amazon, 2026)
Why is change so slow? How does grace lead us over a lifetime?

Amazing Grace: How Faith Grows in the Human Heart (Amazon, 2026)
How do you become a Christian? Can you know if you really are one?

Hope Reborn: How to Become a Christian and Live for Jesus Co-authored with Tope Koleoso (Christian Focus, 2014)

Qualifications

I qualified with an MB BS from the University of London (equivalent to an MD in the United States), hold postgraduate qualifications in psychiatry (MRCPsych) and pharmaceutical medicine (MFFM, DipPharmMed), and took theological training courses run by Newfrontiers.

Connect With me

Substack: adrianwarnock.substack.com (the best way to ask questions)
Twitter/X: @adrianwarnock
Facebook: Adrian Warnock
Email: [email protected] (I may not be able to respond to every message)

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How to deal with shame, accusations, and condemnation

We live in a shame culture now.

See also my roundup Trump vs Harris article

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