diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/deprecate-shell-checksum.yml b/changelogs/fragments/deprecate-shell-checksum.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..040f23d3bab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/deprecate-shell-checksum.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+deprecated_features:
+  - "The ``ShellModule.checksum`` method is now deprecated and will be removed in ansible-core 2.23. Use ``ActionBase._execute_remote_stat()`` instead."
diff --git a/lib/ansible/plugins/shell/powershell.py b/lib/ansible/plugins/shell/powershell.py
index 6ee43cb23d2..6b5d368cea4 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/plugins/shell/powershell.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/plugins/shell/powershell.py
@@ -24,6 +24,10 @@ import ntpath
 from ansible.executor.powershell.module_manifest import _bootstrap_powershell_script, _get_powershell_script
 from ansible.module_utils.common.text.converters import to_bytes, to_text
 from ansible.plugins.shell import ShellBase, _ShellCommand
+from ansible.utils.display import Display
+
+
+display = Display()
 
 # This is weird, we are matching on byte sequences that match the utf-16-be
 # matches for '_x(a-fA-F0-9){4}_'. The \x00 and {4} will match the hex sequence
@@ -320,6 +324,10 @@ class ShellModule(ShellBase):
         return self._encode_script(script)
 
     def checksum(self, path, *args, **kwargs):
+        display.deprecated(
+            "The 'ShellModule.checksum' method is deprecated. Use 'ActionBase._execute_remote_stat()' instead.",
+            version="2.23"
+        )
         path = self._escape(self._unquote(path))
         script = """
             If (Test-Path -PathType Leaf '%(path)s')
diff --git a/lib/ansible/plugins/shell/sh.py b/lib/ansible/plugins/shell/sh.py
index 5b215d4d897..3724bf6c7e0 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/plugins/shell/sh.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/plugins/shell/sh.py
@@ -14,6 +14,10 @@ extends_documentation_fragment:
 """
 
 from ansible.plugins.shell import ShellBase
+from ansible.utils.display import Display
+
+
+display = Display()
 
 
 class ShellModule(ShellBase):
@@ -43,6 +47,10 @@ class ShellModule(ShellBase):
     _SHELL_GROUP_RIGHT = ')'
 
     def checksum(self, path, python_interp):
+        display.deprecated(
+            "The 'ShellModule.checksum' method is deprecated. Use 'ActionBase._execute_remote_stat()' instead.",
+            version="2.23"
+        )
         # In the following test, each condition is a check and logical
         # comparison (|| or &&) that sets the rc value.  Every check is run so
         # the last check in the series to fail will be the rc that is returned.
@@ -67,11 +75,7 @@ class ShellModule(ShellBase):
         # "one-liner".
         shell_escaped_path = self.quote(path)
         test = "rc=flag; [ -r %(p)s ] %(shell_or)s rc=2; [ -f %(p)s ] %(shell_or)s rc=1; [ -d %(p)s ] %(shell_and)s rc=3; %(i)s -V 2>/dev/null %(shell_or)s rc=4; [ x\"$rc\" != \"xflag\" ] %(shell_and)s echo \"${rc}  \"%(p)s %(shell_and)s exit 0" % dict(p=shell_escaped_path, i=python_interp, shell_and=self._SHELL_AND, shell_or=self._SHELL_OR)  # NOQA
-        csums = [
-            u"({0} -c 'import hashlib; BLOCKSIZE = 65536; hasher = hashlib.sha1();{2}afile = open(\"'{1}'\", \"rb\"){2}buf = afile.read(BLOCKSIZE){2}while len(buf) > 0:{2}\thasher.update(buf){2}\tbuf = afile.read(BLOCKSIZE){2}afile.close(){2}print(hasher.hexdigest())' 2>/dev/null)".format(python_interp, shell_escaped_path, self._SHELL_EMBEDDED_PY_EOL),  # NOQA  Python > 2.4 (including python3)
-            u"({0} -c 'import sha; BLOCKSIZE = 65536; hasher = sha.sha();{2}afile = open(\"'{1}'\", \"rb\"){2}buf = afile.read(BLOCKSIZE){2}while len(buf) > 0:{2}\thasher.update(buf){2}\tbuf = afile.read(BLOCKSIZE){2}afile.close(){2}print(hasher.hexdigest())' 2>/dev/null)".format(python_interp, shell_escaped_path, self._SHELL_EMBEDDED_PY_EOL),  # NOQA  Python == 2.4
-        ]
+        cmd = "({0} -c 'import hashlib; BLOCKSIZE = 65536; hasher = hashlib.sha1();{2}afile = open(\"'{1}'\", \"rb\"){2}buf = afile.read(BLOCKSIZE){2}while len(buf) > 0:{2}\thasher.update(buf){2}\tbuf = afile.read(BLOCKSIZE){2}afile.close(){2}print(hasher.hexdigest())' 2>/dev/null)".format(python_interp, shell_escaped_path, self._SHELL_EMBEDDED_PY_EOL)  # NOQA
 
-        cmd = (" %s " % self._SHELL_OR).join(csums)
         cmd = "%s; %s %s (echo \'0  \'%s)" % (test, cmd, self._SHELL_OR, shell_escaped_path)
         return cmd
diff --git a/lib/ansible/utils/hashing.py b/lib/ansible/utils/hashing.py
index 81258f7685c..b10a5fc1494 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/utils/hashing.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/utils/hashing.py
@@ -59,7 +59,6 @@ def secure_hash(filename, hash_func=sha1):
     return digest.hexdigest()
 
 
-# The checksum algorithm must match with the algorithm in ShellModule.checksum() method
 checksum = secure_hash
 checksum_s = secure_hash_s