Honoria's recent post on confessing our sins (the devil loves secrecy) got me thinking. I'm a fairly open person and don't find it all that difficult to share my struggles (not sharing... now there's a challenge!) but I'm thinking increasingly that it's unhelpful to talk about some sins. If I confess that I am struggling with, say, hateful thoughts, and everyone else in my bible study group says 'yeah, me too', I stop thinking that hate is such a dreadful thing. It's been normalised. Unless there is a very godly woman in my group who will take us to a passage and show us that murderers etc will not inherit the kingdom and then ask us all to repent and bring the gospel to us, nothing good has been gained.
Bonhoeffer wrote about this kind of thing. Men in his prison were talking openly about how scarred they were during air-raids. Bonhoeffer thought fear was sin and ought to be concealed. I think his point has applications for other sins. What do you think?
Bonhoeffer wrote about this kind of thing. Men in his prison were talking openly about how scarred they were during air-raids. Bonhoeffer thought fear was sin and ought to be concealed. I think his point has applications for other sins. What do you think?
"I've been thinking again over what I wrote to you recently about our own fear. I think that here, under the guise of honesty, something is being passed off as 'natural' that is at bottom a symptom of sin; it is really quite analogous to talking openly about sexual matters. After all, 'truthfulness' does not mean uncovering everything that exists. God himself made clothes for men; and that means in statu corruptionis many things in human life ought to remain covered, and that evil, even though it cannot be eradicated, ought at least to be concealed. Exposure is cynical, and although the cynic prides himself on his exceptional honesty, or claims to want truth at all costs, he misses the crucial fact that since the fall there must be reticence and secrecy."Deitrich Bonhoeffer Letter and Papers from Prison p.41
Thanks for this post, I found it helpful. I have found more and more that some 'confession' can be quite selfish, in an Iv'e got rid of my burden, now you can deal with it' kind of way.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, I think it can be pretty helpful to have a close friend, probably of the same sex, who you can discuss and pray about certain things with, that it may not be constructive to discuss with your spouse. I don't think that is being secretive, I think it is being wise.
btw I liked that line: 'truthfulness does not mean uncovering everything that exists.'
Yes, I was going to say that I think you make a point, but I still think Archie's quote is great. Earlier in the year I found myself thinking about something which I knew I shouldn't perhaps be, but which was gnawing away at me and festering all the same, so I shared it with ONE person, who I knew would keep it in the vault, they talked a bit more sense into it, and it worked wonders and prevented me lying in bed at night being eaten away.
ReplyDeleteBut I think that is a different scenario to going to bible study every week and telling the whole group everything you're struggling with just for the sake of sharing. (Though few things in this life are less encouraging than a person who NEVER admits to any sort of struggle.)
Thanks for this simone. feels similar to the way proverbs thinks about the wise person. it's what they often don't say that makes them wise.
ReplyDeleteas another one who finds appropriate reticence and silence not always easy I've found this other DB quote a help. it gives at least one place to voice the things we may not voice to others.
"Prayer means nothing else but the readiness and willingness to receive and appropriate the Word, and what is more, to accept one's personal situation, particular task's, decisions, sins and temptations. What can never enter the corporate prayer of the fellowship may here be silently made known to God." Life Together p64 Dietrich Bonhoeffer
ben and ali, amen.
ReplyDeletec. ta.