Rural Shame Orientation: A Matter of Conscience

In recent years, there has been a considerable amount of missiological literature that has raised interest in assessing a culture's level of shame orientation. Beyond implications for gospel proclamation, shame orientation has a dramatic influence on pedagogy as well as leadership methodology. However, there has been a dearth of research in regard to the shame orientation of specific subcultures and the subsequent impact on contextualised missiology. This article provides a review of literature to demonstrate that a pronounced shame orientation of rural subcultures is conceptually plausible. The contribution of this writing is to provide a more specific understanding of the rural subculture and to introduce a methodology of assessing shame orientation of rural subcultures. Further, the article maintains that rural ministry practitioners should be more intentional about the use of available resources that provide nuanced approaches to gospel proclamation, pedagogy, and leadership methodology in shame-oriented cultures.