eSalvation?

“Half-woken from a dream, I realized the church could start an electronic confessional service, or ePriest. All of your sins are already tracked online, so they already know what you did. After texting you penance instructions, and your pressing 'C' to confirm, you'd be e-mailed indulgence coupons that you can print or swipe from your mobile device to purchase more lapda, uh, sins later.

Jonathan Malone, what do you think?”

This was posted by a friend of mine on Facebook a couple of weeks ago. Because of the Christmas madness and the other pressing responsibilities (I really had to catch up on episodes of “Brooklyn 99”) I did not get to give a good answer….until now The Christmas madness is over, I have watched all the shows that I need to watch, and I’m enjoying the weekend with my in-laws. So now is a perfect time to sneak away and respond to this tongue-in-cheek theological curiosity.

First, let me say that I am glad that my 3+ years of Masters study and 10+ years of doctoral work qualify me for such an important question. I am sure there were many other people that my friend could have tagged via Facebook with such a quandary. Thanks for thinking of me. (The truth is that we were in High School together and I may be the only religious person he knows).

Second, the question is actually a good one that caused me to dust off more than one tome of theological import. Let’s start with the idea that all of our sins are tracked online. I wonder if such a notion would make the presence and purpose of such an app obsolete. If we knew that we were being tracked specifically to keep tally of all of the “bad” or taboo places we went to, things we posted, etc., would not that be enough of a deterrent? I think of Foucault’s Panopticon (via Bentham); the idea of a prison where everyone is watched, or at least believes that they are being watched all the time. Yet we already live in a world of surveillance and we still try to get away with things. We have cookies tracking our actions, browser history letting our spouses and parents know where we have been, and the NSA is no doubt documenting our every keystroke. I’m even told there is some fat man in the North Pole who sees me when I am sleeping and when I am awake. Even with all the surveillance that already exists the majority of the human race, when online, will still try to get away with, sneak, or do something suspect and act as if no one is the wiser. If you don’t believe me I then I have one word for you – porn.

It may be a sad statement on humanity that even the notion of an omnipresent, omniscient God who sees and knows even more than the fat man of the North Pole does not keep us from making bad decisions from time to time to time. So I think my friend is right that we need something for confession because we are going to “sin.”

Yet I wonder about an ePriest that already knows everything you did and just passes out the penance as if it were a tax. Part of the sacrament of the confession is the individual confessing, fessing up, admitting, and embracing the truth. If this is done with a priest or, in my tradition, directly with God via prayer, it is important for the individual to name what he or she believes he or she has done. Not everything we may consider to be a sin is actually sinful (free reign on eating chocolate!), and not everything we consider to be ok actually is (so back off the chocolate!). Add to this the notion of sin as a break in one’s relationship with God, i.e. not doing what God would like to do. The act of penance is to rebuild/regain your relationship with God. So if such an app were to exist it would need to be open ended where the user would have to speak or type in the sins that he or she feels moved to confess.

Third, the notion of indulgences is something that is a bit outside of my tradition. We focus on grace (as given by God) over works (as done by people), meaning you do not need to get a coupon to validate your various transgressions each time you commit them. You only need to accept the actions on the cross once and you are forgiven your sins for all time. That is a serious deal! Those in the more confessional tradition will agree with the grace but probably argue that you need the confession and the assurance of forgiveness (i.e. indulgence) for the sins you continue to commit as you grow in your faith. I agree with such a sentiment, only I would turn again and again to the universal grace of the cross as the indulgence. It is important to confess and to work to be better, but in the end we cannot mete out forgiveness on a mobile device.

In summary, the act of confession (in prayer or in the booth) is a good thing to do. The reminder of forgiveness is a good thing to have. We probably don’t need an ePriest to make it all happen (I haven’t even gotten into the importance of human interaction and real-time ritual).

All that said if my friend is considering creating such a device/application and is looking for the endorsement of said device from a clergy then I am sure there is a way we can make it work. Call me!

On Hoarding and Including

I have a problem. It is not a debilitating problem, but it is one that does impact my life. I feel I have to read all of my subscriptions. All of the journals/magazines that I get I need to read. Cover to cover. This means I have issues of Harpers that are more than a year old, I have American Academy of Religion Journals from over two years ago, and my stack of Christian Century’s are piling higher and higher. Like I said, it is not a debilitating problem but one that may make a very interesting issue of “Hoarders": 

Host Psychologist - Jonathan, do you really need this 2004 copy of The Atlantic?

Jonathan - Yes! I’m going to read it! I’m going to get to it! Leave it there in that pile!

HP - What about this American Baptist Quarterly from 1997?

J - There is a very important article about different Baptists in upstate New York and how they were instrumental in starting churches in Utica and Westmoreland. It is very important that I read that article. It will make me a better pastor. Why can’t any of you understand this, it makes me a better pastor to read these things!

(I catch someone taking out a stack of Journals)

Hey! Put that down. Get the f**k away from my journals! I didn’t agree to this! I don’t need this!

(in the corner of the house my wife and children are crying – I look at the camera, swear out-loud, and storm away)

That will be an Emmy-winning episode. I’m calling the producers right away.

The periodicals pile up and I will not throw the old ones out until I read them cover-to-cover. See, I have a problem. Pray for me.

While reading a Christian Century from July, 2013 (not too old) I noticed two articles about the Southern Baptists Convention (SBC). One states that the SBC decided to agree to disagree over Calvinism (big sigh of relief) and the other notes the dropping membership and baptisms in the SBC in the last couple of years. I don’t normally comment on other people’s homes. It is not really my place to critique the Methodists, Lutherans, or Presbyterians (but given the opportunity I will), so on the one hand it may not be my place to comment on the house of the Southern Baptists. Yet they are cousins of a sort so I feel I can make some statements about such articles. In the article about membership drop is the following statement:

“Ed Stetzer, head of LifeWay Research, has suggested that the “Conservative resurgence” (in the 1980s and ‘90s), while affirming the convention’s commitment to the Bible’s truthfulness failed in the area evangelism.”

Probably because in the 1980s and ‘90s the SBC and other conservative evangelicals were busy drawing lines in the sand and making it clear who was welcome and who was not welcome. Other groups (the American Baptists included) were trying to figure out if they were going to let women preach and if they were going to accept gay men and women (or if they were going to fellowship with churches that accepted gay men and women). There were arguments, debates, and fights over hospitality and grace. In the SBC there were not arguments about grace and hospitality but instead sin and exclusion. So it is no wonder that Calvinism rears its head in the SBC.

Calvinism, as it is being experienced in this context, is primarily referring to the notion of predestination. In other words, some people are predestined for salvation and others are not. If you live a sinful lifestyle then it is very likely that you are not predestined for an eternity of bliss with God and there is nothing you can do about it. Isn’t that a happy, cheerful theology?

With Calvinism the perfect people end up being the chosen people who are predestined for salvation. There is not a lot of room for hospitality and grace when slogging through the mire of such theology. The SBC has spent a number of years drawing lines, throwing people out, making sure they are only made up of pretty, perfect Christians, that such an notion of salvation and exclusion was bound to emerge. Now there is tension because the Calvinists do not advocate evangelism (because if it is God’s plan for someone to be saved than that person will be saved so we should not get in the way and bring people to faith only to find that they will not be a part of God’s divine elect), and yet the numbers are decreasing.

SBC folks may look at other denominations (American Baptists included) and note the mess that they have had over homosexuality (it was not pretty) and women in leadership positions in the church and how there still is a very alive tension around such issues and say that they are better for simply taking an exclusionary stand. That may be the case, but I rather be in a messy house that strives to let others in and looks to live in the tension of a broad grace and welcoming hospitality than one that is pristine, organized, and stale. I believe grace flows in ways that we cannot know or understand and it is job of churches to help people experience that grace any way that they can. And while we sit in the mess of a house that tries to bring in all of God’s children I have some journals that people can read.