ABSTRACT
With ten characteristics of a full confessional experience in mind, I read some of the historic confessions of the past for comparison. I was interested in their structure rather than their specific content. Did their organization correspond to the ten criteria we just considered? How were they conceived and put together? Were there similar declarations of estrangement from a private story, leading to transformational stories of faith and belief? Was there a similar, discernible movement from one to the other through some relevant response? I was more interested in how these confessions handled core issues of shame and guilt than in particular ideas about what occasioned them. For instance, when I read The Confessions by Augustine, I did not expect to agree with his notions of sexuality as a constant source of shame and sinfulness. My attention was on how the confessional experience developed from self-awareness to faith, rather than upon particular theological understandings or practices.
