There are quite a few sites and blogs which offer good advice concerning the sacrament of reconciliation. It seems to me that there are a number of priests (and even some lay people) who address this issue, each with his own advice to the penitent for how to best prepare for the sacrament (e.g. how to best examine one's conscience) and how to make a good confession when one has actually entered the confessional. Today, for the first time, I have finally found some bad advice concerning the sacrament, though it is of course doled out by a Protestant who would contest confession's sacramental nature.

Yet, it is not the fact that she is a Protestant which makes the advice of Ms Julie Clawson so bad. I have know a handful of Protestants who did believe that confession was at the least a valuable thing to do; every one of them recognized that confession involves confessing--that is, admitting guilt for one's sins.

This is, of course, the traditional view of confession, which is why one or another of the Sojourners--Mrs Clawson in this case--sees a need to attack it:
"The definition of confession that I have always heard restricts it to admitting particular sins. You told a lie, you confess it. But that view of confession doesn’t truly cover all the ways we have participated in the disruption of true Shalom. It makes confession all about us and an easy checklist of do’s and don’ts instead of our relationship with God and others and our call to participate in the kingdom of God....But in truth guilt should have nothing to do with this. Confession comes from a desire to serve God and see God’s will done. Yes, we may feel bad or sorry for our actions, but change comes from positive vision, not negative feelings."

Some portions of her essay begin to approach a description of the difference between perfect and imperfect contrition, but she misses that the whole point of perfect contrition is that we are sorry for having offended God. If we have no guilt, there is no need to apologize, and if we do have guilt, then there is a need to apologize if we have sinned, then we wave guilt, and if we haven't then we do not.

What Mrs Clawson misses in all of this is that in apologizing, we really are seeking to get back in the right with God, which is to be justified. As an example, consider the following apologies; which is more sincere? "I'm sorry, I had a mis-orientation of my love. I'll change so that my love is better." The person to whom you are apologizing would likely walk away from that conversation in a state of confusion; he could also (rightly) see it as an avoidance on your part of actually owning up to the fact that you wronged him in some way. Contrast this with, "I'm sorry for having lied to you, it was wrong of me; how can I make it up to you?" The latter is, of course, what we do in a proper apology, and it is also what we do in the confessional.

At some point Mrs Clawson states that "it’s not about acts of individual sin; it’s about an orientation of love." This is the crux of her argument, and it is also the very point on which she gets it wrong. For what is sin, but to act against God's Will, and to rebel against His love? Moreover, the very effect of sin is to weaken our own ability to respond to God's love, and this is done in a different manner for different sins. Thus, we really do need to apologize for our sins by name, and in so doing ask for God's grace to help us overcome our own particular, individual sins. In so doing we will also be implicitly (if not explicitly) recognizing God's greatness by contrasting our imperfections with His incomparable perfection. This will also give homage to the Lord's mercy as revealed in the boundlessness of His generosity and in the limitlessness of His love.