Relearning the Art of Confession

Or, Why Accountability Partners Just Aren’t Cutting It.

Recently I featured a piece of audio for the station I work at about the legitimacy of the Roman Catholic Church’s theology within christendom. While the major debate on the program revolved around a piece of doctrine from the Council of Trent stating that those who confess that we are saved by faith alone are anathema, the debate raged on in the comment section on Facebook.

I am no stranger to Evangelicalism’s discomfort with Catholics. For starters, we did kinda define ourselves in protest to what some of the theological tenets of Catholicism were in the 1500’s. On top of that, I grew up in a country that was heavily influenced by Spanish Catholicism — intermingled with folk animism over the decades. To me, Catholics looked more like a proto-religion, obsessed with knowing the different deities to pray to to bless their efforts in life.

All that to say, to the best of my understanding, the number of ‘born again’ Catholics was a tiny number, and they were probably just misguided or forced to follow the silly motions that were never talked about in the Bible. At the time, I didn’t have room in my theology for a group of people who followed the rules and regulations of a kingly pope.

Having grown up in the Sola Scriptura camp, I was unfamiliar with much, if any, church tradition. It was only when I came to college and started learning about church history that I discovered that for half of the Church’s existence the only Christians were Catholics. Then in 1054 things began to get messy due to the Great Schism between East and West, Giving us the Roman Catholic Church of the West, and the Orthodox Church of the East. Over, interestingly enough, papal authority. Luther’s revolution didn’t happen for nearly another 500 years.

I also learned that so many of the Church’s divisions were as much a result of socio-economic conditions, nationalism, and politics as it did about theology. (As a side note, I think that rising globalization is actually one of the best things to happen to aid the progress of church reunification, otherwise know as ecumenism.)

What I didn’t know until more recent reflection is that part of what it meant for me to be an Evangelical growing up was just as much in opposition to Catholicism, as around the unique theological positions that we stood by. Sure, we affirm the Bible alone, but we also definitely weren’t going to have statues of heroines of our faith because that is Catholic, and we would be worshiping idols. We wouldn’t be reciting creeds or memorized prayers on Sundays because that wouldn’t be true religion, it would be rote memory, devoid of any devotion. Also, we definitely wouldn’t be going to confessional any time soon. How backwards to think that a mere human had the power to forgive sins right?

As I have written before, I am still in the Evangelical camp. Sometimes it feels like I am in due to technical definitions, but all the same, I am in this camp. Unlike many of my Evangelical brothers and sisters however, I believe that our religious practices are severely malnourished due to our trying to distance ourselves from what Catholics believe.

One of those biggest areas is confession.

Believe me, I know that Evangelicals talk about confession quite a bit. We often emphasize the need to be a part of a small group, an accountability group (sorted by gender), or a mentor/mentee relationship. We explain that in these contexts we are to follow through on scriptures like James 5:16 to make a practice of confession to one another in corporate life.

Now, due to the priesthood of all believers, and due to the fact that we are all members of the body of Christ, we have the opportunity to confess our sins to any other believer, and have hope and assurance that in that confession Christ is before us, while also simultaneously interceding on our behalf in the presence of God the Father. However, I think we do ourselves a disservice when we remove the pastoral role of shepherding the flock in confession as well.

I still don’t really know how to confess my sins to my brothers and sisters in Christ. Am I supposed to strike up conversation with my coworkers around the coffee pot about how I was a total jerk to my wife last night, or about my struggles with pride and stewardship? Maybe, but as Ecclesiastes teaches us, there is a time and a place for all things, and I’m not sure that’s it.

Just as there is a place for all believers to speak the truth of God and His word to one another, and a special place for our clergy to proclaim the word to the flock on Sunday, I think that there ought to be an example of confession to our pastors. I’m not an expert, and I know that there are going to be some areas where we differ from our Catholic brothers and sisters on how to go about it, but I fear we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater when we ban confessional closets. (is that what they are called? I have no idea… just confessionals? Got it.)

We ought to take the sacrament of confession seriously as Evangelicals because we actually believe that we are Christ’s very body to one another. When we withhold the opportunity to confess our sins to one another, we fall into the trap of focusing more on the world of our senses rather than the world of faith. It is going to be hard, as we can see by our low confession batting average, but we ought not make it harder by removing the guidance of the individuals we have submitted to the leadership of. If we trust our leaders with the spiritual well being of the congregation, we ought to extend that role to confession as well.