The Lost Gift of Confession and Forgiveness and How To Get It Back
The Lost Gift of Confession and Forgiveness and How To Get It Back: On Being a Self-Referenced Believer (Believing Ourselves and Believing in Ourselves), Many Christians and Atheists Alike Tell the Same Story
We tell ourselves a significant story: the more you tell yourself you are fine the more you will find yourself fine. The more you tell yourself that you will be fine, the better chances become that you will be fine.
Wellness today depends a lot on this referring to our own dispositions and definitions of not only our circumstances but also our personal feelings and thoughts about ourselves. We rally resources to help us in the effort, perhaps the most significant “resource,” for Christians at least, being God.
We hear rumors that God loves everyone without qualification and work to apply this to ourselves as another layer, this time a religious one, of positivity if not approval.
A few things about that.
1. “We hear rumors”: we most often don’t attend to the written or spoken witness. We don’t read Scripture and we don’t attend religious Services. We too often simply know there is this thing called Religious Faith that tells of a God who is loving.
2. “God loves everyone”: this is where God remains an ideal and an idea, not a communication to you, personally. Not a “God forgives me, loves me” but rather “God is Love” and remains separate from you.
3. “without qualification”: this one is impossible for us to swallow. It’s too good to be true. In addition, and no small thing, we refuse it because it would mean what we do and what we believe is of no value and we are taken out of the game of salvation. You heard right. No value. What you do bad doesn’t hurt you. What you do good doesn’t help you. So, we say “without qualification” but that is a pipe dream that we refuse to believe even though we say we believe it and even though it is true. That is how deep our separation from God (call it Sin) really is: we don’t simply not want God to judge without qualification, we hate God for doing so.
4. “applying it to ourselves”: try as we might to do this, it never quite holds since we always question our own motives and honesty and qualifying factors.
So, is it impossible to receive this Love?
Not at all.
But watch how all of the above items need to be engaged.
1. Go Beyond Rumors: Hearing it rather than hearing about it is what gets the ball rolling.
2. The love is to you, about you, for you, directly yours.
3. Qualifying: this “being taken out of the game of salvation” is a pivotal thing. It’s key that we tell the truth about not wanting God to just out and out save us without as much as a nod to our loveliness. This is called Confession of Sin (unfaith), confession that we cannot and will not trust God. Not confession of sins, things done or left undone.
All that stuff is easy. But confession of Sin (mistrust, unfaith) that we never are not in a state of mind and heart that will not trust God.
4. Application: once we confess that we don’t love God and trust God and never will love and trust God we are ready for the only way that love and trust (faith) is going to happen to us. We can’t do it. Somebody else needs to step in and give it to us. This is where a church service finds it value. Church worship is not a time and place for your convictions about God to be pumped up and activated, but rather where and when God’s unconditional forgiveness and love is declared again to you so you can hear it from an outside source (God!) instead of conjuring up thoughts and feelings about it yourself.[i]
So, there is nothing wrong with relying on God’s love if that’s what it actually is. The trouble is it is never actual reliance on God’s love but it’s rather a reliance on the hope that God will look upon us with approval instead of disdain because of all our internal if not external loveliness. On top of that, it’s something we keep being told we need to tell ourselves and when we tell ourselves we by definition have nothing to believe or believe in than ourselves. We believe in ourselves. We believe ourselves.
Folks who believe in God would normally not tell you that they believe in their belief in God. They tell you they believe in God, not in themselves. But ask them if their believing that God exists and that God has done something for them (e.g. saved them from something) and their receiving any benefit from this is contingent upon whether they revere God or simply acknowledge God they will likely tell you that yes, it is contingent. They have a responsibility to say yes to God. They have an ability to respond, and they should. And it is necessary. They have a “responsenecessity” (not a word, but I like it!) to respond. What this means is that they believe in their belief. They do not believe in God. They believe in their belief.
Believing in your belief rather than believing in God is the usual Christian way of doing what I described above as “telling yourself you will be fine will not only improve things for you it will also give you a better chance of overall improvement.” In other words, many Christians and Non-Christians, including Atheists, normally are all doing the same thing: believing in their belief.
Contrast this believing in belief with believing in God. What could believing in God actually mean?
Steven Paulson writes, in a significant discussion on Martin Luther’s work on the nature of faith that includes references to King David (cf. Psalm 51) and the Roman Centurion talking with Jesus (Matthew 8),:
“if you grasp God in his word of Promise, then it will be for you as it was for the Centurion or David – I believe God is pleased with me, and look, it is true! But this is not because the assurance of faith is placed in itself, subjectively. Luther is not making faith into a self-reference, as has often happened in Protestantism since Luther. To the contrary, ‘As you believe, so it is done’ refers faith to the external promise that faith grasps.
If you do not grasp God in this promise, then just as you feared, God really is angry at you.” (The Outlaw God, Volume 2: Hidden In The Cross, Steven Paulson, Fortress Press, 2019, p. 297)
“Making faith into a self-reference” is our normal and regular pattern of telling stories about our personal glory, the things about us that are our qualities that are virtuous and commendable that can push back against anything found in us that is bad form, or darker, despicable. The Mistrust, that is, Sin, that we simply and profoundly will not trust God to settle our score or care for us not only in the end but also in the daily occurrences of setbacks and hard times, is turned into the Mistake of Sins: we are incorrect (we make mistakes), we are incorrigible (we do bad things). Or it’s not quite that bad. We are only deprived, or lacking of better insight, awareness, mindfulness, rest. We are deprived of something that needs to be better supplied. And once we are better supplied we will be delivered and experienced and will be transported to a better place.
The reason the market for soul restoration solutions in practices like mindfulness, yoga, meditation, fitness focus, retreats and the like is so strong and growing is because we refuse to name Original Sin (that Mistrust stated above) and instead muddle around in petty sins that call for correction and reform.[ii] To clarify how it is that Confession and Forgiveness, that the Church is tasked with delivering, is actually not antiquated or old-fashioned and out of touch with our sophisticated 21st century sensibilities and intelligence, we need new language.[iii] Calling ourselves “sinner” is biblically correct but contemporaneously inadequate and misunderstood. Maybe this: not “sinner” but rather “self-referenced believer” or a “person of self-referenced faith.” Doesn’t have the same bite as “sinner,” to be sure, but its accurate and would at least get people wondering instead of dismissing the whole church practice of Confession and Forgiveness as out of touch and out of hand.
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[i] The moment you have faith given to you is the very same moment you confess you have no faith at all. In fact, you don’t get that faith given to you until you admit, confess, state that you have no faith. This is not a sequential thing, as in “confess first, then receive” but rather a simultaneous thing, as in “confessing no faith is the faith.” That is a little awkward to say because the faith given is actually given in the forgiving word given after confession. But, awkward or not, the truth is that the thing is simultaneous. And, too, this “faith given” is not now some add on to your wonderful self. It’s a new you. What you’ve said in saying you have no faith is said that your wonderful self may be wonderful in getting things done in your daily life but you are empty when it comes to getting anything done with God. And, not incidentally, this “new you“ (it’s what we mean by being resurrected from the dead, not resuscitated from the dead) is something that happens every day, every time you confess and are forgiven. It’s not something that is done one time and then improves over time. It’s total every time, every day.
[ii] BTW, I regularly practice yoga, fitness, retreats and the like. I write not to disparage these practices, but only to displace them from their position of a spirituality to where they belong: excellent activities that foster mental and physical health.
[iii] The Confession used most often in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (my denomination) liturgies
“We confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.
Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, to the glory of your holy name. Amen.” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Augsburg Fortress, 2006)
A Proposed New Confession for worship liturgy
We confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot and will not free ourselves. We have sinned against you in thought, word and deed, principally and fundamentally by not trusting that you love and accept us without qualification but instead trusting that our belief and behavior make us acceptable to you. In addition to this mistrust we violate our relationship with you by things done and left undone. We will not love you and we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. For the sake of your Son, have mercy on us. Forgive us, renew us and lead us, so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, to the glory of your holy name. Amen.
