Brief#60 Confession, Absolution, and Repentance

0:00Welcome everyone, you are listening to a brief history of power. Before we begin, we want to remind you about Memento. Check it out at Memento70.com. The first man's only Lutheran devotional builds to meet the challenges of the modern man head on, powered by state of the art technology, making it easy to access right from your phone or computer. Restoring the ancient disciplines of the church, fasting prayer, scripture, and brotherhood, rooted in the liturgical calendar with daily devotions for every day of the year. Check it out. Memento70.com. That's Memento70.com. Welcome to a brief history of power. This is Dr. Kuhn's coming to you with a question that has long sat in our hopper of such. There are dozens and dozens in there, but we're always happy to get more. So if you've got one, please send it into the show. We love to hear from you. We love to hear what you're thinking about. This question is about what is called the seal of confession, or I find more often, just

1:04for your search term usage, the confessional seal. And this is the listener's question. I'm going to read it in full so you can hear his thoughts and where they're tending, and that will affect just the way that we answer the question. I was wondering what the Orthodox Lutheran understanding is of this seal of confession. This topic specifically interests me in light of Catholics complaining that some states are working to make priests mandatory reporters. I understand a seal of confession in most cases, but in the extreme, I am unsure. For example, if a fellow pastor confessed they had molested children within their congregation, obviously they are no longer fit for their duties and have committed a horrible crime, is the pastor, I assume he means the one here in the confession in this case, meant to pronounce forgiveness and nothing further. Would it be wrong to give counsel to him afterward to come forward and step down from his duties? If he refuses to come forward and step down, would it be sinful for the presiding pastor

2:09that is the, what's called the confessor, the one here in the confession? To break this seal in order to get him defraught and even arrested. If the answer is that he must never speak of the confessor sins again, even in the cases above, how do we justify letting others suffer in the name of maintaining this seal? If the answer is that there are exceptions such as the one given above, then where is the line? If a layman confessed to adultery but refuses to tell his wife, would it be wrong to tell her? Thank you for taking time to read this. I look forward to your response. Well, thank you for writing in and I want to answer your question just by clarifying first of all what is meant by the seal of confession. Let's say both legally and that's how we're going to start just to give the context that you're giving to flesh out that context a little bit more and then we'll speak about this theologically because that is going to affect the way that I answer this. There are some terms missing usually, not just in the listener's question, but in the way that this is discussed publicly that I find are very key to answering the question I

3:15think fairly clearly. I don't think this is really all that complex what the confessor and I'm going to use that term again and that means the one hearing the confession, the confessor or the pastor hearing the confession, what he is actually supposed to do. It's not really that hard, okay? Framework wise, of course, it's hard emotionally whatever you might want to say, but it's not complex, okay? Under the concept of mandatory reporters that has to do with being required by virtue of your position to report particularly cases of sexual abuse, okay? So that already exists in several states. It exists in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for example. What also exists in practically every state as well as the District of Columbia is the

4:15recognition of what is called a wide variety of things, but usually something like clergy, clergy penitent or priest penitent privilege, meaning not just that there is an expectation of confidentiality that you're not supposed to do, that you're not, you cannot be required to divulge what you have heard in a confession, but also that you're not even required to say that a confession took place. You're not even required to say that this conversation, maybe even in a counseling situation to which these things have often been extended, these kinds of privileges, not even that in a counseling situation that that particular session or discussion or conversation or meeting in your office occurred, okay? So there is an emergent conflict between the concept that if certain heinous acts are committed, you must report them to the authorities, that's mandatory reporters.

5:18So that has to do with in the specific question the confessor's duty to report what has occurred to the authorities, okay? It's kind of a separate question from the nature of the seal of the confession which in a Lutheran context has to do with the nature of absolution, okay? And so I want to handle those things separately in beginning to talk about this theologically and I will use the specific instances that the listener gave for the sake of clarity, okay? One is being a mandatory reporter is entirely conceivable to me, certainly in certain heinous instances, where in this case I would want the one making the confession to report with me, that is, and this is why I don't find this extremely difficult, there are always fruits in keeping with repentance. Often the cases the listener used of a pastor whom a lested children, obviously not a

6:22big theoretical question, a very practical question, God help us currently in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Senate, or of a man confessing adultery but unwilling to tell his wife, I want to go to the affected party or the relevant party in the case of the one who's confessing to malice station, I want to go to the authorities with him, in the case of the man confessing adultery, I want to be in the room with him when he tells his wife this to make sure that it happens because there are always fruits in keeping with repentance. And when you hear John, for instance, admonish people in Luke's gospel when they ask, what should we do, how should our lives change since we are repentant? He gives them clear and concrete answers, there is nothing un-pastoral about doing that. The reason I would want the person to go with me is because if we are in a situation where

7:23I am willing to tell the authorities what he has done and he is not willing, spiritually that is far more grievous from my perspective, that he is so bold as to go through a church ritual without the desire to face the consequences for what he has done. In a way that is far worse than if he had not come to me. So I don't really see a conflict between these two things, absolution and fruits in keeping with repentance. I don't find that the Bible sees a conflict there either. It's really kind of simple. Confession has two parts, first that we confess our sins and second that we receive absolution from the pastor that is from God himself. Really pretty simple. We can receive absolution and forgiveness of sins from direct confession to God. We can receive it in the general confession and absolution. But in this specific case of private confession and absolution, imagine how great is the glory of hearing personally after the confession of certain things that those sins are put

8:26away. How disgusting then would be the presumption that because you have confessed in some kind of church ritual with the pastor wearing his, maybe his purple stole that he uses for such occasions or whatever may be going on that church rituals are sufficient and thereby you evade all consequence in the rest of life. That is not in keeping with repentance. That somehow church is a grand exemption from the rules that govern human life and from the wrath of God worked out through his ministers of wrath, which is why the government does not bear the sword in vain. So in keeping with repentance in what he just told me about his sins, I would say, after the absolution, let's get in the car. We're going to the police station or whatever might need to happen, but I am staying with him so that he knows that he is not abandoned and that God desires him to confess and deal

9:32with the consequences of what he has done. If I let him just leave at that point, I can call the authorities and I may be legally mandated to do so. And certainly the long common law history of priest, penitent, privilege has been already changed by the notion of mandatory reporting. What we do with that and how we handle that and I, for my own part, as a mere matter of opinion, do not have a problem with doing that, but from a pastoral perspective, the idea that I'm calling the authorities alone and they're going to have to come find him after that. That's crazy. It is my duty to him to make him deal with the consequences. It is my duty to those he has just confessed to harming to make him deal with the consequences is also my duty as a citizen to make him deal with the consequences. I can't leave him after that.

10:32And I think that part of the issue here with seal of confession is that we have abstracted the pastor's job to simply pronouncing forgiveness. It's kind of an application with a very hard and terrible legal edge to the, let's say, often to know me an idea that the pastor's real sole purpose is just to tell, just only solely in every sermon, in every act to tell people that they're forgiven by Jesus Christ. It's almost like there is nothing else there. Among the things that the pastor is doing and exercising to call back to the small catechism, the office of the keys is discerning whether this sinner is actually repentant and you have a glaring sign. He's not repentant if he says, yes, I did that, but I don't want to deal with it. Repentance is unafraid to deal with consequence because the repentance center is the one who is forgiven. He is free in Christ to face death for his actions.

11:34He is free in Christ to deal with his wife's outrage at his actions just to give two examples listed by the listener. There really is not anything that difficult here. The difficulty lies in two things. One is, like I said, I think our under or subbiblical understanding of the pastor's duty, which is fidelity to the Word of God, which also includes fruits and keeping with repentance, and the exercise of discernment in his ministry concerning the sincerity of the person he's dealing with. And this is not some kind of psychological mind reading exercise. The person says, I did this. He's forgiven and then doesn't want to deal with it anymore, even though the consequences are great and severe, probably because they are great and severe. There's no mind reading involved. He obviously is not repentant. He just felt for whatever reasons he needed to go through a church ritual.

12:38The other reason maybe is a little bit darker, but it is something observable in the cases where this has been tracked, not so much in the Lutheran church. I don't have such examples, certainly in the United States, but in the cases where this was tracked in the instance of, let's say, the Catholic church or the public education system or all of the testimony, some of which is now being recanted, but you can go find the testimony from the Jerry Sandusky case that is one of the causes of this whole discussion, especially mandatory reporter laws in the United States. One thing you will find is that consistently when an organization is trying to protect evil, it will do that by means of explaining to itself why fidelity to its original mission, the good of the Penn State football program, or certainly the holiness of the priesthood

13:40and the nature of the church's prerogatives over against the state need to be protected. What always gets abstracted in this discussion, and this is why this really is not hard for me at all, very thinkable. What always gets abstracted is what has been done to other people. You're supposed to have infinite patience for the one confessing the sin and infinite patience for the confessor and or the institution of which he's a part, the Catholic church, the Lutheran church, whatever church. And among those of whom infinite patience is demanded are those who are harmed. And that, to me, is absolutely outrageous. It's not the tone or the content of what St. John says concerning repentance. And Zikias who defrauded people or the soldiers who extorted from those under their authority,

14:43were not allowed to say to Jesus or St. John in their respective cases, you know, I'll get around to this one, I get around to this. I'll contact the police when I'm ready. I'll tell my wife when I'm ready. Now the time to do that is now there should always be an urgency about repentance and where the sin has had immediate and sometimes even terribly lasting consequence, you don't wait to deal with that. That's why right out of the confessional, we're going to get in the car and we're going to go deal with this right now because the time to deal with this was a long time ago, long before you went through confession and absolution. So it's really not that hard for me to understand that it would be my duty in this case, if such a heinous thing were confessed, to deal with it directly, set everything else aside, and deal with it directly with the man who said these things. And I think that one of the reasons we don't do that is simply because we don't take

15:47sin very seriously. I don't think we care very much about what it does to other people. That's why we talk about it lightly. That's why we talk about its commission lightly. That's why we also talk as if psychologically and personally speaking, it's not that big of a deal. You can always be forgiven. You can't always be forgiven. But to speak of sin as if it's light always results downstream in its consequences also being handled as if they are light. And if you have been hurt by someone, if you have been betrayed by someone, that's the last thing that their sins are. So I think there is some respect for the souls of those who were harmed among all of the other considerations we might have that would cause you to say what you have confessed to me is put away for the sake of Jesus Christ. That's in the nature of the absolution.

16:49Since those sins are put away, you may face their consequences without fear. And in recognition that it is God's just judgment that when you do certain things, you deal with their consequences. You do not evade them. If he continued to evade after that, then I would probably resort to other things. I would have to bring in other parties. That to me is not a betrayal of what he confessed. He's forgiven for the sake of Christ. It is forcing a sinner as it were to deal with the consequences of his sins and pronouncing against him God's judgment as long as he refuses to deal with that. That really is kind of simple. That really is always part of the pastoral task. That is, the binding key exercised against those who are unrepentant, finally, who do not believe God's word that sin has consequences.

17:51It's really not that complex. I think the only reason that we make it complex is because we're afraid of all the things that we might, might someday and some way have to hide. But in Christ, we live in a daylight world now, and we are unafraid to come into the light. This has been a brief history of power. You can find us at a briefhistorypower.com and on social media. God love you and God bless.