James 5:16 and the Internet

James 5:16 exhorts believers: “confess your sins to each other.” For years, believers followed this teaching, affirming the importance of confession of sins. In the Catholic Church confession of sins is made in private; individuals comes before a priest and privately confess their sins.

In this new century, the church is confronted with something new and different: more and more, confession is being made on the Web and before the whole world. According an article published in Christian Today, more Christians are publicly confessing their sins on the Web.

The following is an excerpt of the article published by Christian Today:

Confessionals in the Catholic Church have seen less foot traffic over the past several decades. Much of that traffic, it seems, has moved to anonymous online confessionals.

DailyConfession.com receives hundreds of anonymous confessions and over 1 million hits each day. The website tells visitors to confess their sins but it doesn't necessarily provide the peace and the forgiveness that a person would find in the church.

Although it categorises confessions by the 10 commandments, it's a secular forum. And while some are serious confessions, a lot of confessors reveal "kooky-weird" habits.

Bobby Gruenewald, pastor and innovation leader at LifeChurch.tv - an evangelical multi-site church with an average weekly attendance of 18,000 - believes people keep secrets because they feel no one else could understand why they did what they did.

Gruenewald was part of a team of people at Life Church that launched MySecret.tv - an anonymous confessions website. Originally intended for its church members, MySecret.tv became widely popular outside the church after launching last August and now has about 6,000 confessions.

Although some Christians are critical of the online confessional, with some expressing concern of voyeurism, MySecret.tv encourages online visitors not only to be prayerful when reading other people's confessions, but to make their own confession a prayer.

This trend reveals that people feel the need to confess their sins. But, instead of finding a
minister or a trusting friend, people are looking for the anonymity the Internet offers. People are desperate for God’s forgiveness and pardon but universal confession on the Internet does not mean that divine forgiveness is assured.

Confession of sins is necessary to our reconciliation with God and with one another. However, an universal audience does not translate into intimacy with God. People cannot just Google forgiveness and find it.

I have a theory why people confess their sins on the Web: I believe people are afraid to approach God and confess their sins. If this is the reason, they should not be afraid, God is there for them. As the Psalmist said:

"I confessed my sins and told them all to the Lord. I said: 'I’ll tell the Lord each one of my sins.' Then the Lord forgave me and took away all my guilt" (Psalm 32:5).

Confessing ours sins to God is better than confessing them to the world, because it is only God’s forgiveness that counts.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Confession, Forgiveness

Confession of Sin: Is It Obsolete?

Here is a good question:

Between Oprah and the therapist's couch, is there any role left for the church confession?

This question was posed by Michelle Boorstein, a Washington Post staff writer. In her article, "A Call to Confession, for It Is Fading: D.C. Archdiocese Opens an Ad Barrage to Revive the Elemental Rite," she writes that the Archdiocese of Washington is launching a campaign using ads on buses, subway cars, billboards, brochures, and radio spots to bring people back to the confessional. She wrote:

Priests and sociologists of Catholicism have theorized about the drop for years. Is it because of a culture that tells us we aren't responsible for what we do wrong? Or could it be something less dark: that the traditional Saturday confession time has simply been gobbled up by youth soccer leagues and errand-mania? Or maybe something more dark: that we don't even know what sin is anymore.

To me, her last suggestion explains the reason people no longer confess their sins: they do not know what sin is.

In the past, when people knew what sin was and understood the consequences of sin, they believed confession of sins was the only path for reconciliation with God. Boorstein wrote:

In the ancient church, punishments were sometimes public. Sinners were ordered to do such things as long-term fasts and in some places were seated separately or banned from the church during communion. Today penances can involve the traditional order to recite (and re-recite) prayers, telling a busy parent to spend more time with a child, or mandating a nature hike for perspective on God's creation.

Today, most people in our society have lost the biblical meaning of sin. Today, ministers preach about the sins of racism, militarism and environmental degradation. Since most people do not have a good understanding of the biblical concept of sin, they ask: "What is it that I am supposed to confess?"

In the world in which we live, people blame the environment, genes, and social conditions for the things they do. For this reason, instead of realizing the need for confession, people emphasize the need for improvement.

Good luck to the Catholic church. People will not recognize the need for confession until they realize that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) and that "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). James 5:16 urges believers to confess their sins, because, as John wrote: "If we confess our sins, he [God] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Confession, Michelle Boorstein, Repentance, Sin