[b]Protestants embrace confession[/b]Americans are flocking to confess their sins as Protestant churches have joined their Catholic counterparts in modernising the sacrament of penance.Thousands of people are attending confession at weekends and just as many are posting their repentance on videos that are played back to congregations or shared on websites such as YouTube.New technology is fuelling the boom, but so is clever marketing by Churches that are portraying confession as a form of self-improvement always popular with Americans rather than some sort of punishment.Church leaders also attribute the boom to the fashion for self-analysis peddled by daytime television programmes such as The Jerry Springer Show and to a wider theological trend in which Christians are looking for firmer moral guidance. ...read more: www.telegraph.co.uk
_________________SI Moderator - Greg Gordon
Isn't this just a way of introducing reality tv into churches, but giving it a spiritual name instead of recognising it is really a form of voyeurism facilitated by exhibitionists?The saddest thing about any such trend, is that some people will really go through with God and move on, and those who see it as pure entertainment, might thus miss a golden opportunity to become numbered with the saved.God knows the hearts.
But define Protestants? I can see Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, The United Churches, flocking to the penance chambers, though they are Protestant Churches, yet they all are like the Catholic Church.Now if the report said that Baptist and Pentecostals were seeking the confession closet, then I would be shocked.
Compliments said
if the report said that Baptist and Pentecostals were seeking the confession closet,
Getting spooky out there.Just found this article and also looking at the right hand side-bar of "Related News".http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=11189
Hi all.As I was reading here, I am wondering if there isn't a proper and Biblical understanding of public confession and or acknowledgment of sin?Would be repulsed by the idea of this being some sort of spectacle too. But still we don't want to neglect something that is right because it is abused?Something that came to mind,"John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. And there went out unto him all the land of Judea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins." - Mark chapter 1 verses 4-5(KJV)I don't think this means they were all saying exactly what it was they had done wrong, but still there is the idea of a public acknowledgment?I remember reading somewhere also that when an Israelite went to the Temple to offer sacrifice that he was making a similar public declaration of sin.Not suggesting here we have to go around telling about all our sins. Then again it seems wrong to me also that we should hide them from each other all the time too. It seems like there is a danger in that of making hypocrites and playactors of us. Where we wear masks and hide who we really are. And wouldn't that breed a culture of dishonesty among us.Chris
_________________Christopher Joel Dandrow
ChrisJD said
I don't think this means they were all saying exactly what it was they had done wrong, but still there is the idea of a public acknowledgment?I remember reading somewhere also that when an Israelite went to the Temple to offer sacrifice that he was making a similar public declaration of sin.
Dorcas; you wisely said only God knows the hearts. Only God's Son can forgive and only His blood avails to cleanse us of sin and iniquity. So why are they seeking another Advocate or Mediator?? A closeted confession is no confession at all !! :-(
_________________Martin G. Smith
The wages of sin is death. Only one, Jesus Christ can atone for our sin. Doesn't matter how much time has lapsed since the last sin but we must confess our sins daily to have fellowship with the Father through Christ. Without Christ we are without hope but wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.KJV