***You might want to read part1, part 2, part 3, and part 4 first***
I’m quite certain Don’s chapter on confession is unlike anything you’ve read before. The subtitle of this chapter is “Coming Out of the Closet” and in it Don recounts the experience of setting up a confession booth in the middle of the campus of a liberal secular university with a sign on the outside that said, “confess your sins.” This was supposed to happen during a week in which the campus is shut down so the students can party. That might sound like an uncommon yet bold and arrogant evangelism tactic, but all who entered the booth were in for a surprise.
It was Don’s idea to set up a confession booth but it was Tony the Beat Poet that added the twist. They would build the confession booth as Don had imagined, and they would be in the booth but they would be there to confess to the students. They would be there to own up to the many brutal things that have been done in Jesus’ name. The students expecting to enter the area of the booth where they would confess instead found themselves on the receiving end of the confessions of Christians.
I will tell you now that I don’t believe that all of those brutal things done in the name of Jesus were actually done by Christians. How could they be? These were not merely impulsive acts done in a moment of weakness and frustration; these were events – sometimes years and decades long – that required continual rededication to their completion. But the evidence is staggering and there is no doubt that brutal and murderous things were indeed done in the name of Jesus. And so I think that what Donald Miller and his friends did on that campus was a good thing. It is a refreshing change to outright denial and, much worse, attempts to justify what happened.
“For so much of my life,” Miller writes, “I had been defending Christianity because I thought to admit that we had done any wrong was to discredit the religious system as a whole, but it isn’t a religious system, it is people following Christ; and the important thing to do, the right thing to do, was to apologize for getting in the way of Jesus.”
As the first confessor entered the booth Miller was lacking confidence and wasn’t sure he could actually carry through with his intentions. After a bit of small talk, Miller finally began to confess:
“There’s a lot and I will keep it short. Jesus said to feed the poor and heal the sick. I have never done very much about that. Jesus said to love those who persecute me. I tend to lash out, especially if I feel threatened, you know, if my ego is threatened. Jesus did not mix his spirituality with his politics. I grew up doing that. I got in the way of the central message of Christ. I know that was wrong, and I know that a lot of people will not listen to the words of Christ because of people like me, who know him, carry our own agendas into the conversation rather than just relaying the message Christ wanted to get across. There’s a lot more, you know.”
This is a confession that all but the most arrogant Christian can make. We are all guilty of most of the things Don listed in his confession.
Go to part 6
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Donald Miller’s “Blue Like Jazz” (5) – Confession is a Two Way Street
***You might want to read part1, part 2, part 3, and part 4 first***
It was Don’s idea to set up a confession booth but it was Tony the Beat Poet that added the twist. They would build the confession booth as Don had imagined, and they would be in the booth but they would be there to confess to the students. They would be there to own up to the many brutal things that have been done in Jesus’ name. The students expecting to enter the area of the booth where they would confess instead found themselves on the receiving end of the confessions of Christians.
I will tell you now that I don’t believe that all of those brutal things done in the name of Jesus were actually done by Christians. How could they be? These were not merely impulsive acts done in a moment of weakness and frustration; these were events – sometimes years and decades long – that required continual rededication to their completion. But the evidence is staggering and there is no doubt that brutal and murderous things were indeed done in the name of Jesus. And so I think that what Donald Miller and his friends did on that campus was a good thing. It is a refreshing change to outright denial and, much worse, attempts to justify what happened.
“For so much of my life,” Miller writes, “I had been defending Christianity because I thought to admit that we had done any wrong was to discredit the religious system as a whole, but it isn’t a religious system, it is people following Christ; and the important thing to do, the right thing to do, was to apologize for getting in the way of Jesus.”
As the first confessor entered the booth Miller was lacking confidence and wasn’t sure he could actually carry through with his intentions. After a bit of small talk, Miller finally began to confess:
This is a confession that all but the most arrogant Christian can make. We are all guilty of most of the things Don listed in his confession.
Go to part 6
*****************************************
Click here to subscribe to Michael Krahn: A Mind Awake (What does “subscribe” mean?)
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