modern-day confessional

protestants, by and large, have done away with the roman catholic practice of confession. we retain the place of communal confession within our worship, and we do encourage personal confession to God and even to neighbor (if the situation warrants it), but we have lost some of the ritual of confession - we have lost the weight and depth of personal confession. in terms of the priesthood of all believers, accountability has become something optional, and it has become intensely spiritualized.

but luther himself wanted to preserve the rite (the ritual element) of confession. in his Babylonian Captivity of the Church he writes, "Of private confession, which is now observed, I am heartily in favor, even though it cannot be proved from the Scriptures; it is useful and necessary, nor would I have it abolished; nay, I rejoice that it exists in the Church of Christ, for it is a cure without equal for distressed consciences."

there is something powerful about confessing the specifics. and i think that i am attracted to the personal yet veiled form of confession that the catholic church exhibits: you take account for your sins and bring them to God for forgiveness, confessing them to another human being, yet being given the feeling of anonymity. confessiong to God and to one another with the assurance that neither God nor human will reject you.

i thought about all this while reading through postsecret today.

sometimes i fear that this site is internet exhibitionism/voyeurism.

but at other times, like today, it occurs to me that this site might be a modern-day example of a confessional. the site is obviously secular, and the postcards are often vulgar, inappropriate, or spiteful. but at the same time, this site has given people that same personal yet anonymous confessional. sometimes there is remorse, sometimes not. i'm not trying to say that it does the same thing as Christian confession(spiritually or theologically), but there is in important analogy there. it shows the human drive for confession and even forgiveness; the psycho-spiritual element in confession...perhaps i'm trying to speak to the human condition - a human condition that, in one form or another, recognizes its need for confession. i think that God made us this way on purpose.

on a different, yet related note...what do you think of this particular postsecret? heresy? refreshing honesty? does it speak to the doubts implicit in faith, or is it absolutely inappropriate for a pastor to think this way? or do more pastors deal with this than would ever admit it? i just found it interesting.