Confession and Consequences

[Anonymous]

I’m trying to think of good ways to look at confessions with bishops or authority, why it is necessary, and what the best outcomes are for it.

Let’s take two hypothetical examples:

Quote:

Young woman is very faithful all through growing up years in YW and seminary and has a good testimony. In her freshman year at BYU, she goes through some rebellious periods while exploring her independence and individuality. It leads to some poor choices, including sex with her boyfriend. She confesses to the bishop, is disciplined, reframes from taking the sacrament for several months but doubles her efforts to actively participate in church, work in callings, meets and studies with the bishop weekly, builds her testimony further, and gets a temple recommend to do baptisms. Getting back with her boyfriend after feeling better about things, they make the same mistake again. Her guilt racks her, and her great relationship with her bishop promotes that the first person she turns to for advice is the bishop, confessing again her mistake, with tears of pain and sorrow and guilt. The bishop, having worked with her for months, informs her that her choices make her unworthy to remain at BYU, and she is sent to the Standards Committee, subsequently dismissed from BYU, and sent home.

Quote:

Young man is pretty rebellious, although always active at church and attending all youth activities. At an early age, is drawn to pornography, but tells no one. Passing, preparing and blessing the sacrament almost every week, he continues to attend church. He begins to party when he can, alcohol, smoking, and having sex with several different girls. He tells no one. He gets accepted to BYU, and attends, and continues to have relationships with girls. He never gets caught, and never confesses. His pornography leads to desires to ask some girls for anal sex. One girl complies. He stays at BYU and finishes his education.

Looking at these two situations, “worthiness” to be at BYU seems to only be enforceable if the person is caught, or confesses. Natural consequences of choices will follow a person regardless, but attendance to the temple or to BYU or worthiness in the church is only dependent on a person opening up to a bishop.

From that perspective, is confessing to a bishop really a good thing? Are there situations where a person might work at repentance, and stay in a place like BYU if they’ve slipped up and be better off being there not confessing, or is it always the right thing to confess properly to bishops and just live with the consequences hoping that leads to a more peaceful mind?

Perhaps this all depends on the principle of confession and what the main benefit or power there is in doing that.

Thoughts or views on benefit or waste of confessing to an authority?

[Anonymous]

i think both your hypothetical examples are miscarriages of mercy and justice. Perhaps such things are unavoidable.

From a believing perspective, violation of the law of chastity, explicitly, sexual intercourse, is a serious offense and requires confession. The fact that tithing funds significantly reduce tuition costs to students does put the church more or less in charge of the rules for attending BYU. These are the rules.

In the first case, the guidance, as I read it, should have the bishop applying as much compassion as possible: she is not an endowed member (which makes a difference), and she was very remorseful in her confession — these factors should have been considered. Are they? It completely depends upon the bishop.

In the second case, I met a number of jerks like that at BYU (forgive me for the value judgment here). It happens; but with the idea that someone along his wake of conquests probably will confess, there is some possibility that he would get caught. As for the non-missionary-style of intercourse mentioned in your hypothetical case, I’m not sure it figures in to consenting situations, but it might by some bishops, should the female in that case confess.

Returning to the first case, given the downside of confession, it might be argued, even from a believing perspective, that confession might be delayed as long as she doesn’t go do temple baptisms or seek a TR.

I personally don’t believe that harsh punishment is warranted in the cases of monogamous sexual intercourse with an intended spouse. In ancient israel, betrothal, the commitment to marry, was sufficient to warrant that if the couple did have sex, they were at that point ‘married’. They didn’t have to wait for a formal ceremony to give them license to have sex. Breaking up after having sex (really not done very often) required a payment to the bride’s father for the reduced price she would command no longer being a virgin (or something like that). The point is that premarital sex was NEVER considered NEXT TO MURDER in the law. Adultery was only the case when a married (or betrothed) woman had sex with another man, whether he was married or not. If a married man had sex with an unmarried woman, it wasn’t adultery. It all had to do with the idea that women were prized property, and the rights to the genetics of the offspring belonged to the husband. go figure.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the response, wayfarer.

So what is the upside of confession?

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

Thanks for the response, wayfarer.

So what is the upside of confession?

For the believer with a compassionate bishop, the upside is very liberating.

I was watching “Gran Torino” last night again. Great movie, really. R-Rated, of course — too many F bombs. The movie begins with the death of the Clint Eastwood’s character’s wife. She made a catholic priest commit to get him to go to confession. The Catholic priest is hammered over and over again by the Clint Eastwood character about not doing it. Yet there is a lot said in the movie about confession and redemption. It teaches that confession is part of the repentance process for catholics at least, and it can be for LDS, provided the bishop is really in tune with the spirit of compassion and forgiveness and not hell-fired (yes i mean that) to trigger church discipline. In catholicism, the priest is there for redemption, for forgiveness, not for judgment. confession of even egregious sins before one is married in the catholic church would not require a year-long repentence and calling off of a wedding. Repentence of premarital sex, a mortal sin by definition, is straightforward and never would involve excommunication. (oh, and by the way, masturbation and using a condom are also mortal sins, so I’m not becoming a catholic any time soon)…

I went through a 12-step program, where step 5 requires admitting to my self, to god, and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs. It follows a rigorous personal inventory (step 4), so it is meant to cap off a more thorough process of repentence, although the term ‘repentence’ is never used. It’s a very liberating process, and yet, the person to whom I confess doesn’t have to be a priest or anyone special. It’s another human being. The key here is that the person receiving the confession is there for support, not for judgment.

So, confession has great redemptive value – i believe in it — it’s liberating. I do not think personally that the bishop’s keys or training include the compassion necessary for the redemptive part of confession. The bishop is Judge in Israel, his role is to protect the church, not forgive the individual. In fact, by doctrine, the bishop cannot forgive (only the Lord can), he can only punish. That said, most are decent human beings in my experience, and want to find the most graceful way through the process. But you never know.

So why then confess to an LDS bishop? Because from a true believing point of view, there isn’t much choice if you want to be fully active and participate in temple worship honestly. I imagine it’s possible to ‘live in sin’ in a number of ways if you’re inactive or never ask for a temple recommend. Lately, it seems that policy is that there are a number of callings where temple recommend worthiness is required, and if one is called in for an appointment, the BP could ask TR type questions. So the question might get asked, and if you’re honest…it is what it is. As well, Church Discipline policy and recommendations suggest that voluntary confession is more justified of leniency than forced confession or discovery of behavior. So, for the person who cares about their membership status, is honest, and is also doing things that probably would excommunicate him or her if caught, then early, voluntary confession to the BP seems to be necessary.

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