A friend of mine recently was wondering what my thoughts are
on repentance. This is a tough question for me because I don’t really believe
in sin anymore. So I am going to approach this in the viewpoint I had when I
did believe in sin. I will attempt to use the scriptures that I had growing up
in the LDS church to explain my reasoning. There are some scriptures which I
was not happy with (namely some of the scriptures in the D&C [Doctrine and
Covenants]) because I did not feel that they fell in line with the teachings
that should be prominent in Christianity.
First I will say that sin is one of my biggest qualms with
religion. People will refer to the Ten Commandments as their moral code. Others
will refer to the Bible as a whole for their moral code. I don’t understand how
either of these can be used to create a moral code. The Bible (namely the Old Testament,
but parts of the New Testament) can be used to justify incest, slavery,
polygamy, and one could even argue that it justifies genocide. Most people who
defend the Bible as the word of God will claim that polygamy and murder of
women and children are very evil deeds. It only takes one read through and you
will find countless examples of both (All links are to the KJV that the LDS
church has online):
I give these only as a few examples. The LDS church has an
official explanation for the polygamy thing and as to why Joseph Smith
practiced polygamy and several other LDS prophets after him until the
official
declaration was released, and later added to LDS cannon. I just want to
make the point that the Bible is full of things that are not considered by
modern society as moral things, but yet modern Christianity has set the Bible as
its source of righteous standards and morals.
Why we have Ten Commandments in front of courthouses I do
not know, but I’m not upset about it. I just think that it is more of a symbol
than actually standing for a moral code. After all things like worshiping other
gods, lying (when not in cases of perjury or fraud), saying the name of God in
vain, committing adultery, not honoring your parents, coveting, making graven
images, and not honoring the Sabbath day are all perfectly legal. If we count
bearing false witness as in the case of perjury or fraud then there are in fact
only three out of the ten that are illegal within the US.
Whether you agree with me on this or not, I don’t really
care. I just have come to the conclusion that morality and ethics are
determined by society and individuals. What “God has said” can change, and very
well has changed over time and between religions. For some drinking is a sin;
yet Jesus himself drank wine as it was the custom for his time. Some say that
only being a drunkard is a sin, but if you read
Noah the prophet
got quite drunk one night and it is argued that
Ham sodomized his father.
When Lot’s daughters seduced him he was also too drunk to tell they were his
own daughters suggesting that he also did his fair share of heavy drinking.
So as I was growing up I was told by the church what was and
what wasn’t a sin. This was a long list of do’s: go to church, read scriptures
daily, say prayers daily, pay tithing, serve in the church, etc… as well as a
list of do nots: no sexual acts of any kind before marriage, don’t rebel
against the church or your parents, don’t drink/smoke/drink coffee or tea/do
drugs, don’t work/shop/do “worldly” things on Sunday, don’t lie/cheat/steal,
etc… This is all along with a list of cultural do not’s and do’s which are not
official commandments according to the church, but are implied either by being
taught by a prophet of the church or just a cultural thing or “suggestions”.
These include: not watching sports on Sunday (Kimball
The Miracle of Forgiveness),
not
watching rated R movies (there are several talks on this, I only linked
one), not dating until you’re 16 (
For the
Strength of Youth), no caffeine or sometimes just coca-cola, other taboo
things like sleeping with someone of the opposite sex even if there are no
sexual acts performed.
I was a confused young man in a world or so many do’s and do
not’s that I felt like I had lost sight of what was really important. Jesus
often criticized the Pharisees for their strict obedience to the law as opposed
to following a
higher law
or the most important commandment which was to love God and to love your
neighbor. So why is it that we put so much emphasis on the laws and
commandments which Jesus is not found preaching in the New Testament, and
instead focus on things that are only covered by a few verses in the entire
Bible? I had often struggled with this, and therefore struggled with the idea
of repentance. If forsaking sin is a stipulation for repentance then how am I
ever supposed to repent if I have to worry about doing so many things all the
time? I don’t think I ever fully grasped the idea of repentance because I was
always stuck on feeling horrible about myself, instead of focusing on making
myself a better person.
If church is for sinners just like a hospital is for sick
people, then how come we focus so much on the sins in church? It’s like going
to a hospital to receive chemo for your lung cancer, and instead receiving a
long lecture series on how smoking causes cancer. I feel that we (or I felt
that we) focused way too much energy as religious
people in condemning and defining sin that we lose the big picture or becoming
better people. I feel that one of the biggest reasons that pornography is such
a “huge problem” in the LDS church is because you talk so much about it. Guaranteed
that a normal 13 year old boy that hears someone talking about the stuff he saw
the other day on the internet is going to go home with only more desire to look
at it.
“A change of mind and heart that brings a fresh attitude
toward God, oneself, and life in general. Repentance implies that a person
turns away from evil and turns his heart and will to God, submitting to God’s
commandments and desires and forsaking sin. True repentance comes from a love
for God and a sincere desire to obey his commandments. All accountable persons
have sinned and must repent in order to progress toward salvation. Only through
the atonement of Jesus Christ can our repentance become effective and accepted
by God.”
I think that repentance is about a change of heart (and LDS
doctrine agrees) more than a change of behavior. A change of heart is not
something that is given by a list of commandments or things that one must do to
repent. If you don’t feel bad for doing something you cannot by definition repent.
If you feel bad for doing something you’ve already started to repent
automatically. One can’t just have a “change of heart” because they hear a talk
in church or their bishop/priest tells them to. If you tell someone who is gay
that they “must have a change of heart” or they’ll go to hell is like walking
up to a democrat and telling them they must vote republican or when they die
they’ll lose all their estate to the government (I use the term is like, there
are obvious differences I’m just making a quick analogy). You’re asking someone
who feels good about what they are doing (because that is what their natural
inclination is) to stop doing what they feel they want to do.
It’s true that one could argue that almost no one is repentant
because almost everyone feels good doing some kind of sin. I’m not trying to
say that, I’m trying to say that if you feel BETTER keeping a commandment that
you feel comes from God than sinning, that would indicated true repentance
because you had a “change of heart”.
Feeling guilty for doing something is very different than
feeling guilty for doing something you feel is bad. There is a difference
between doing something that is wrong and worried about it affecting your
salvation/church status/condemnation and feeling sad that you did something
innately evil/upset God. Some people go to church because they fear hell; I’d
argue that that person with that attitude wouldn’t make it into heaven because
they feared God not loved him. The same could be said about the repentance
process we have in churches, we fear the shame/punishment more than we feel upset
for doing something wrong.
I sometimes hurt other’s feelings with the things I say. I
genuinely feel bad because I hurt their feelings, but it would do no good to
feel bad if it was just because I feared the social/economic repercussions of
offending someone. Just like the brown-nosers are really annoying in a
corporate world, I’m sure that Jesus would feel the same about those in the religious
or spiritual world. The crazy thing about most people’s beliefs in modern
Christianity is that God knows the intentions or your heart as well as your
actions. In my opinion merely “going through the motions” isn’t repentance, it’s
just trying to brown-nose God. So that’s probably why step one in repentance is
having a change of heart because you can’t really do the rest properly without
that part.
So how can one truly feel this “change of heart”? Well
according to LDS doctrine everyone receives what is referred to as the
light of
Christ which the Book of Mormon prophet
Moroni
teaches is basically our conscience. So God gave us this inherent gift to
know what is right and wrong. Once you are baptized into the LDS church, you
are given a further gift: the gift of the Holy Ghost which is like the light of
Christ on cocaine (or whatever your stimulant or choice is). This often
confused me because I was told that people that live in remote areas and aren’t
taught Christian values are treated as innocent in the eyes of God. This as an
answer to my question if you don’t believe in pre-destination and God is a fair
God then what about people who aren’t taught about the truth and are evil
(cannibalistic tribes, warlords, etc…). I was told they would still have a
chance (and according to Mormon doctrine it will be in the spirit world in the
life hereafter) to accept the truth. Other Christians have told me that they
will be judged on what knowledge they were given. But according to LDS doctrine
everyone is given the light of Christ which will help us determine what is good
and what isn’t good. So then how come there are so many different opinions on
righteousness and sin? I still have that question, and am waiting for a good
response (if you think you have a good response, I’ve probably already heard it
and don’t find it convincing).
So we’ve got the point now that we have to have a change of
heart, and that magically comes from God through our conscience, the light of
Christ, or whatever you want to call it. So after that what are the steps? Well
Jesus taught a pretty good lesson when he said
“Go
and sin no more”. Obviously not doing the sin again is a very good measure
of how repentant one is. But does that mean if we commit the sin again we aren’t
repentant? The truth is I don’t know. I don’t believe that any man is at
liberty to speak or to judge.
Romans 14:13
expresses my best feelings on the topic, don’t judge but only work towards
helping others towards their goals of righteousness. After all Paul argues
earlier in the chapter that we will all stand accountable to God at the last
day for our own actions, so why should we be concerned with others?
It is exactly this topic that I want to bring up another
step in the repentance process: confession. In
1 John 1:9 we
read that confession leads to forgiveness from God. I agree with this, because
it is part of being honest with ourselves. If God knows everything, then
denying something to God means that we don’t accept that we ourselves have done
something. I view confession to God as something more for us to accept what we
have done rather that the need of God to hear our confession. After all if God
is all powerful and all knowing why would he need to hear a confession from us?
But confession is brought up typically in a sense of confessing to God, so why
do Catholics confess to a priest and why do Mormons confess to a Bishop?
Well
James 5:16
seems to be the only evidence that one should confess publicly within the
Bible. So as to the Catholic belief in confession I cannot speak to as I am neither
Catholic nor did I grow up Catholic. Therefore I have no opinion on that
matter. The LDS idea of confession does hold some scriptural value if you
believe in the LDS cannon of the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants.
The
high priest Alma was given the commandment from God to go and basically demand
repentance of those in the church who had “been deceived” into sinning. In
this case he basically was given authority to excommunicate from the church
those members who would not confess of their sins and show a repentant
attitude.
D&C
59:12 refers to the same type of thing as James 5:16 that we should confess
our sins to other members of the church. So of all the mountain of scriptural
verses, only three clearly state you need a public confession (I lied, it’s
actually four. There’s another story just like the Alma story above). But the
point being why is it required for repentance if it is only stated four times
in LDS scripture. On top of all that, the two from the Book of Mormon point
more towards serious and open sinning rather than sin that is not open and more
discrete.
It is my opinion (and kind of was as a believing member of the church) that sins are
not required to be confessed to a Bishop because it really doesn’t have any
doctrinally sound base. If the LDS church would actually be open about what
they accept as doctrine and those things which are “the opinions of men” within
the church leadership then it would be much easier to accept it as doctrine
(although if the church accepted what all church leaders taught/implemented it
would also open up a Pandora’s box). In fact confession to the bishop is in the
LDS leadership handbook without a reason other than “someone along the line was
inspired to put it in there”. The official stance of when to confess is very
blurry, and the handbook contains information on what is required to confess to
the bishop. Instead of going into detail I’ll just say it’s mostly “serious”
sins such as anything sexual in nature or more serious word of wisdom problems
(drinking, smoking, etc…).
This
article gives a really wishy washy explanation of when confession is
required. Basically it says if you feel bad about it you need to confess.
Also this article gives the reason for confession: it is to
relieve you of the burden of the sin. I have heard countless stories from
bishops and in conferences about how much better everyone feels after
confessing to the bishop. I can admit I have felt better after confession to
the bishop. But why did I feel better? It’s because I was TAUGHT that in order
to be forgiven I had to confess. Honestly I felt like God and I were good and
that there was no need to confess to the bishop other than “that’s what you do”.
I don’t feel that it’s necessary for anyone to confess to a bishop, if it
really scarred you it’s much better for you and more appropriate to talk to a
therapist. OK some people might feel better getting the sin off their chest by
telling a bishop, but I think the number of people who “need” to feel that
relief have the “burden” because they’re taught that they won’t even be
forgiven until it happens. Some people feel the need to confess little things
to their bishop and are told that confession of a sin of that nature is “not
required” for repentance. They obviously felt bad enough about it to confess so
drawing a blurry line of what’s required and what’s not required for repentance
is ridiculous.
So let’s say you do confess to the bishop. What happens
then? Well pretty much anything actually. The bishop has free reign of how to
discipline you, and if he doesn’t feel comfortable about something he refers to
the higher authority a stake president. Well even if I feel repentant the stake
president can tell me I can’t give talks in church or attend the temple for a
year if he feels it’s necessary. So even if you received revelation from God
that he forgave you, a person in authority in the church can receive revelation
contrary to your feelings and discipline you. So you say “it’s ok, he’ll be
judged for that in the afterlife and he knows his responsibility”. Well then
what was the point of you praying and receiving revelation for yourself if
someone else is just going to override it? That’s the problem with this
confession system; it takes away your ability to finish the repentance process
on your own, and puts it into the hands of a “Judge in Israel”.
Another problem I see in the system is in the case of
missionaries and students at church-owned schools. If a missionary at a young
age had sex before his mission once, repented of it (all but confessed), and
was a year and eleven months into his mission he could be sent home by the
mission president for being unworthy. So he did all that work, and you praised
him for having the spirit and being a great missionary all that time only to
send him home because he had missed the confession part. What if he didn’t feel
bad about it until that time in his mission? That means he didn’t need to
confess it according to Elder Grow. There are problems in this system in that
transgressions that were committed prior to a new obligation are counted
towards you as if you had just committed them. Also the discipline is so
inconsistent that it’s sickening.
You see it all just depends on your bishop or stake
president. If you did something bad a long time ago some will say you’re ok,
others will say that you are still in need of repentance. The honor codes at
church schools that one signs are agreements for proper conduct while attending
the school. They are not signed agreements for previous sins. So to send a
student home from a church school because of previous sins (just like the
missionary example) is much less warranted than the missionary example. I have
seen this happen multiple times and it upsets me. If there was a need for
repentance, then why do they need to go home and resolve it with another bishop?
They are confessing to relieve themselves of the burden not to be formally
disciplined right…?
To finish off, I want to talk about the inappropriate nature
socially of confession. When one confesses to church leaders typically you have
to go into discrete detail about the sin. For example I couldn’t just say me
and the girlfriend got naughty last weekend, I’m sorry. I’d have to describe who
touched what and how. That’s all fine and good (albeit creepy) for an adult to
confess that, but when young men and women some as young as 11 are confessing
these things to a sometimes older than 50 year old male it sounds absurd. Since
women can’t hold the priesthood however these young women must go in and
confess in detail their sins to their older male counterpart. I think in any
other social setting that kind of discussion would be completely inappropriate.
So I have talked a lot about what is sin and why I think
confession isn’t needed or appropriate in most cases. But all in all I think
repentance is something that is a personal matter between you and God. If you
feel the need to confess, then confess. If you feel guilty because someone told
you it was required to confess, try to talk to God first and see what he
thinks. After all in the end you’ll be judged by him, and I’ve been told he
tries not to go back on his word. Just like sin is a personal thing between you
and God so is repentance. You do it to please God, not to appease him. In that
sense you should really be doing it to also please yourself if you feel that
pleasing God is a happy thing. If you don’t think pleasing God is a happy thing
then please re-think your religion/religious status.
I will just say that I live my by what Jesus taught
“Judge not, that
ye be not judged”. No matter what you believe or how you feel about
repentance, as long as it helps you become the person you want to become I’m
all for it (granted you do no harm to others). Jesus is kind loving and
Christians believe he died for your sins. I’m pretty sure if he was willing to
die for you and suffer horrible agony, then he loves you plenty enough to not
be a prick about the repentance process.
