Confession to others and Bonhoffer
One of our members, Chuck Horne wrote me this email recently. He’s reading Bonhoffer on “Life Together” and came across a section on confessing our sins to each other. Here’s what he wrote and my response.
I have just read the section on confession of sins to one another and was wondering where our church stands on this practice. I have never really heard it brought up since being at CCC. He brings up some interesting points about sin and a “pious community” saying that this type of community permits no one to be a sinner. Therefore we remain alone with our sin. He says that sin must be brought into the light and by confessing our sins to one another sin loses all its power. It becomes revealed and is judged as sin.He makes another interesting point about the difference between asking God to forgive our sins and confessing to one another. Confessing concrete sins instead of “sin” in general and the cycle of self deception; self forgiveness. “The other believer breaks the circle of self deception. Those who confess their sins in the presence of another Christian know that they are no longer alone with themselves; they experience the presence of God in the reality of the other. As long as I am by myself when I confess my sins, everything remains in the dark; but when I come face to face with another Christian, the sin has to be brought to light.But because the sin must come to light some time, it is better that it happens today between me and another believer, rather than on the last day in the bright light of the final judgment. It is grace that we can confess our sins to one another. Such grace spares us the terrors of the last judgment.”
I have always looked at confession as a “catholic thing” and have never really heard it talked about other than in that context. Where does it fit into CCC’c practices?
This is a great question Chuck. I believe I might have touched on this very briefly when we went through James earlier this year. In James 5, it says “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.” The problem that I have with the traditional, catholic approach to this is not that believers are asked to confess their sins to each other but that it becomes a required formality that is done only ( I think) with a priest. There isn’t a big emphasis on it in the Scriptures but it most definitely is there. So I think we should practice it but not turn it into a ritualistic thing in which a priest hears your confession in a confessional both and assigns you a penance to do. I have people I confess my sins to and I often have people come to me to confess their sins. It’s just that we do it a little more organically. I like what Bonhoffer writes about it and it makes sense to me. There is something that is not only biblical but healthy and especially helpful about the practice of confession as a spiritual discipline. I encourage it. There has to be some wisdom about what is shared and to whom but a healthy community of Christians will be a place in which confession to each other is a regular practice. I believe this happens in our church more than you might think.
Larry is the senior pastor at 
This is an encouraging read to me. I’ve had multiple conversations recently about how deadly secret sins can be and how freeing it is to bring our specific sins into the light. I have many examples of the power of this concept in my own life. It’s key in the passage above to note that James calls believers to confess their sins to ONE ANOTHER…this is not practiced in the Catholic tradition of confessing to a priest.