helmsdeep.org: Craig Holyoak

Confession in Everyday Life

Craig Holyoak — Sun, 16 Feb 2025 13:00:00 +1000

I’m sure we can all imagine this typical Hollywood scene: the darkened church, the shadowy stall, the priest obscured behind a screen. ‘Bless me father, for I have sinned.’

Is this the image we have in our mind when we think about confession? A ritual and transactional exchange of words to absolve us of our misdeeds? Or is there more — or less — to confession in the Biblical picture?

The New Testament word for confession (homologeō) conveys the idea of a declaration or acknowledgment. It’s in this broadest understanding that we ‘confess [Christ] before men’ (Matthew 10:32). It’s also, literally, a shared word, or agreement. An example of this is the Westminster Confession, a collection of statements about God that one might confess or proclaim individually as true, but which also binds people together through that shared confession.

Even though these may not be how we typically conceive of confession, they serve to highlight a key aspect of all forms of confession: that a confession is ultimately a statement, an agreement, of truth. Sometimes that might mean saying that ‘Yes, Jesus is Lord!’ Other times that means saying that ‘Yes, I am a sinner,’ or perhaps more pointedly, ‘Yes, I was speeding when I crashed into the parked car.’

So when James instructs us to ‘confess [our] sins to each other’ (James 5:16) what he is saying is: be honest and open about your sins with each other.

But what does this look like? What might a church look like when we’re open and honest about our sin? What might we need to be wary of?

Firstly, Jesus, while sinless himself, openly acknowledged the sinfulness of his followers. This led him to clash with the Pharisees who were under the misapprehension that they had no sin to confess themselves, and were scandalised that Jesus fraternised with prostitutes and tax collectors. But as Jesus said, the healthy don’t need a doctor; he came to heal and forgive sinners. That means us — which is good news! We should never be afraid to declare this openly, as it’s the heart of the Gospel. We should not lose sight of the fact that the Church is a collection of sinners. Yes, sinners saved and washed — but we remain ‘recovering sinners’ (to steal the parlance of Alcoholics Anonymous).

Secondly, while we ought to be open about our sinfulness, we should never wear the label proudly or boastfully. This can especially be a temptation in today’s therapeutic and narcissistic culture where we focus on our ‘brokenness’ and our flaws can be worn as a badge of honour, defining our identity. I’m thinking here of ‘confessional’ style interviews or public testimonies that can seem to relish in the recounting of past misdeeds. Sin, while confessed, is not necessarily regretted or actually repented of, instead conferring on the sinner a form of status through hard-won wisdom. But sin is always a shameful thing, and nothing to be pleased about, even in hindsight. The glory in our forgiveness belongs to God, for his grace, not in the size of the debt we have accumulated.

Thirdly, we need to emphasise the way confession applies to our relationships with each another. The image of a penitent parishioner in a private confession stall emphasises our sin before God. Of course this is true, but if that’s all we imagine confession to be, we can lose sight of the fact that we sin against other people as much as we sin against God. I think this is why James encourages us to bring our sin not only to the elders but to one another. It isn’t just that we need our brother to be an ‘accountability partner’ to keep us honest and help us deal with our sin. Our brother often isn’t just a neutral third party, but is the one we have sinned against, and we need to seek their forgiveness! Consider how programs like Alcoholics Anonymous not only encourage sharing sins and struggles among fellow addicts (co-travellers, yet third parties to the sin) but also confession and reconciliation with those who have actually been wronged and hurt. Both aspects of confession are important. James 5 can be seen as a mirror to Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 18. Where James focuses on the sinner and calls them to take responsibility and acknowledge their sin, Jesus focuses on the one who is sinned against and calls on them to seek reconciliation by drawing attention to the other’s sin. In both these instances the purpose isn’t just airing grievances or empty words. There is a concrete goal in mind: restoring and building relationships.

The New Testament call to confess our sin isn’t simply a call to ritualistic transactions. It is a call for us to be honest about our sin, and our capacity to sin, with God and with one another. This honesty then works to build relationships, both with God and each other. I think this can be best illustrated by the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector (Luke 18:9–14). The Pharisee had nothing to confess, and so was boastful and proud — nothing was changed by his prayer. But the tax collector was broken and humble. His only prayer was, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ Yes, I am a sinner. Yes, I have hurt you. I am sorry, and I will do better. Will you forgive me? Let us be reconciled. That, Jesus said, was a prayer that changed things — his standing before God; but also, one suspects, the hearts of any who heard him.

This article first appeared in InterSections, February 2025.

The Subversive Power of Prayer

Craig Holyoak — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 14:00:00 +1000

‘Thoughts and prayers.’ A phrase so often uttered in response to a tragedy. Perhaps sincerely. Perhaps cliché. Perhaps cynically. After all, aren’t they often just hollow words offered in the place of action? Shove your ‘prayers’ in a sack, mister; we want you to do something!

But far more than empty words offered in place of meaningful action, prayer in itself is meaningful action. Powerful action. Indeed, prayer alone gives at least three meaningful and tangible outcomes—regardless how God chooses to answer.

Firstly, when we pray we are acknowledging our own powerlessness. Those who presume to have all the answers to society’s ills, or who believe that all our problems can be solved by an act of human will, or human knowledge—the right science, the right policy settings—such people have no use for prayer.

In contrast, when we ‘cast our cares on Him’ (1 Peter 5:7) we are acknowledging that these things are, at least to some extent, beyond our power and wisdom. This is a profound act of humility. Even if we begin without this humility, prayer trains us to be humble, if we allow it to. The choice to pray reminds us to see our limitations and the need for action and power beyond ourselves.

This leads to prayer’s second outcome: through prayer we acknowledge to ourselves and the world the power of God. I am powerless, but God is powerful. I don’t have all the answers, but God does. This is especially challenging when it seems like God’s willingness, if not ability, to act is so absent or random. Why was this person’s illness healed, but not the other’s? Why doesn’t God punish my enemies who continue to prosper? If God can fix the world then why doesn’t he?

It’s easy to fixate on instances where God apparently does not act instead of those where he does, whether we identify them accurately or not. ‘Remember that day when God didn’t let a meteor fall on my head,’ said nobody ever.

But do we, or do we not, believe that God is intimately involved in every aspect of His creation, causing the sun to rise and set, and bringing the rain, yes, on the unrighteous as well as the righteous? If God is not involved, of course prayer is pointless. But if God is involved, prayer makes perfect sense, whether or not we understand the response.

This is why prayer first calls us to be humble, to recognise that God’s actions are often beyond our own understanding. Prayer is not transactional but relational. It forces us to reckon with the times that God (despite our persistent pleas) chooses not to remove the thorn in our flesh because, in his wisdom, his will may be done somehow through its remaining.

This is not to say that God necessarily wills for all kinds of atrocities to persist even though we might consistently pray for them to cease. But we must recognise two alternatives: that there is some mystery in God’s purposes that tolerates them or, much more confronting, that their existence doesn’t indict God, but indicts us—both individually and collectively as a people.

Which leads to prayer’s third outcome, which seems paradoxical given the first: time spent in prayer calls us to act and to change. Yes, I am limited and weak. But God is powerful, and I am God’s instrument. Prayer reminds us of our agency as beings created in God’s image. Much evil persists in the world because of people like me, so I must first repent for my own culpability, great or small.

I may not have committed adultery, but I have lusted in my heart. I may not have committed murder, but I have hated in my heart. I may not have declared war, or sabotaged peace, but I have remained embittered with my neighbour and friend. These acts are small and seemingly insignificant in isolation, but taken together across all peoples and all times, who would begrudge God his righteous anger at mankind? And it starts with me.

But just as my own sin—our own sin—contributes to the world’s ills, so too does my goodness—our goodness—bring light into the world. And when prayer helps me choose between the two, it changes the world.

David often prays in the Psalms, ‘teach me your ways’ (e.g. Psalm 25:4; 86:1). If we focus on the ‘teach’ then maybe prayer is nothing more than a subjective intellectual exercise and deserves to be viewed cynically by unbelievers. But if our focus is on the ‘ways’ we realise that prayer prompts us to act. And to do so in accordance with God’s will as he has made it known to us.

In a world full of blame shifting and power games, prayer is a subversive act. It operates from a different paradigm of power, agency, and responsibility than we are used to. Contrary to worldly powers, genuine prayer declares that we aren’t perfect and don’t have all the answers. It declares that God is powerful and in control. And it reminds us that we each have a part to play with our own actions, be they good or bad.

I am powerless, yet powerful. Perhaps, far from being a paradox, this is grace. I am limited but empowered. Though I am weak, I can act with boldness in the world through full dependence on God: his power is ‘made perfect in [my] weakness’ (1 Corinthians 12:9).

Such is the power of prayer.

This article first appeared in InterSections, February 2024.

What Does it Mean to Worship?

Craig Holyoak — Sun, 08 Aug 2021 14:00:00 +1000

One of the most startling developments of the last few years, if not the last several decades, is the collapse of trust in our society’s institutions: governments, police, businesses, churches. Across the board, trust has plummeted from post-World War 2 highs. We see all around us the signs of a corresponding loss of authority — moral authority, intellectual authority, and even political authority. The result of this is polarisation, violence, conspiracy theories and aimlessness.

This loss of authority is seen in a concurrent rise of hyper-individualism, a triumph of individual choice over external authority — all this under the banner of ‘liberty’. This includes not just about what might be permissible, but what is true. This attitude is perhaps best summed up by US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, in a 1992 decision on abortion where he wrote:

At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.

In other words, my life, my identity, is whatever I choose it to be. I am defined by myself alone as an individual, owing little or no consideration or allegiance to my family, my community, or anything outside myself — least of all a god or creator.

But is this really true? Is a human just a self-defined, shape-shifting entity that can be whatever it chooses to be? Do we define ourselves? Or are we defined by something, or someone, beyond us?

The apostle Paul describes this kind of person in Romans 1 as people who have ‘suppressed the truth’ and ‘exchanged the truth about God for a lie’ (1:18, 25). The fruit of this philosophy or lifestyle is then made painfully clear in ways that resonate strongly with our own culture and experience: wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity.

What, I think, is at the heart of the error of such people is that not only have they ‘exchanged the truth about God for a lie’, but they have ‘exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being’ (Romans 1:23); they have ‘worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator’ (1:25). In other words, the problem is a disordered sense of what is ultimate.

Paul describes a world with a God and Creator who has fashioned humanity and the rest of creation. That is to say, according to Paul there is a fundamental divide between God, the creator, and humankind, the creation. As Paul writes, losing sight of this is not only ‘foolish’ but destructive in all the ways he describes. Proper worship, or properly directed worship, orients us with a proper understanding of this creator/creature relationship. Perverted worship (because it’s possible to argue that there is no such thing as the absence of worship) turns its back on this relationship and sends the worship impulse into all the wrong places.

Fundamental to this perversion is the elevation of ourselves from creature to creator, not in the sense that our creativity reflects the image of the Creator God in us, but that it supplants that image. We become our own gods, creators and masters of our own destiny.

This is apparent in many controversial issues in our society today, including genetic engineering, abortion, euthanasia, transgenderism, and transhumanism. In all these areas (and more) there is a rejection of the givenness that comes with being a creature instead of a creator. To be a creature implies that there is a specific nature we are created with, an image we are made to reflect: we are created to do this and not that; to be this and not that. But this implies that there are necessary limitations placed on us as creatures, things we cannot or should not reject or change. You can see how this directly contradicts Justice Kennedy’s formulation of liberty, where anything not explicitly chosen by an individual is seen as an unwelcome imposition, burden, or violation of rights.

However, when we reject the limitations imposed on us as creatures, we also fail to see them as blessings in their own right. We miss seeing their very existence as paradoxically liberating. Paul didn’t see the blessing of freedom in Christ as a licence for selfish indulgence (Galatians 5:13–14), or as a removal of obligations towards one another (1 Corinthians 8:9–13). In other words, freedom isn’t the absence of limitations or obligations. Freedom is the grateful acceptance of those limits and the exercise of proper actions within those limits: actions demonstrating love for God and one another. A fish removed from water may have transcended its natural limits but is certainly no freer for having done so.

This is what true and proper worship directs us towards. It’s an attitude of awe towards our transcendent Creator and Father (‘The heavens declare the glory of God’ — Psalm 19:1); it’s having a heart of humility as his creatures (‘what is mankind that you are mindful of them’ — Psalm 8:4); and it’s a life of obedience to his will for us and accepting that will and framework for our lives (‘dominion belongs to the Lord’ — Psalm 22:28).

Is that our experience of worship? I don’t just mean what we might do together on a Sunday morning church assembly. That’s because, in a sense, we can offer our entire life — what we do ‘when we sit at home and when we walk along the road, when we lie down and when we get up’ (Deuteronomy 6:7) — as a sacrifice to God, and allow it to direct us towards proper worship. Does what we sing leave us in awe of our creator? Does what we read leave us humble as his creatures, his beloved children? Does what we speak about inspire us to lives of obedience? Does what we think about as we go about our day lead us to worship our Creator?

Or are we merely listening to what the world around us tells us about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — worshipping only ourselves and other created things?

This article first appeared in InterSections, August 2021.

What Pablo Taught Me About My Sin

Craig Holyoak — Wed, 19 Oct 2016 14:21:12 +1000

I recently finished watching the excellent Netflix series Narcos, which tells the story of the pursuit of the notorious Colombian drug trafficker, Pablo Escobar. It is a powerful reminder of the challenge of justice in the face of seemingly overwhelming and unstoppable evil, and the compromises that are often deemed necessary in the name of “good”.

But what struck me most were the apparent double standards of Escobar’s family. How could they turn a blind eye to the violence, death and destruction that supported their lifestyle? More pointedly, how could they be so indignant when the same violence was turned upon them by the government and rival cartels? They were happy to enjoy wealth and luxury achieved through violence against others, but burned with injustice when the violence touched them. Worse still, that they could do this while maintaining a veneer of Christianity, attending Mass and invoking God’s blessings upon their activities. The same theme runs through other shows, such as The Sopranos, where the nominally Catholic Mafia maintain a semblance of religiosity, all while participating in acts of violence and crime, or condoning those who do.

But while I rolled my eyes at the hypocrisy of Escobar’s family, it occurred to me that we all tend to respond the same way to our own sin. Don’t we all prefer to overlook our own sin while highlighting the sins of others? Too easily we condemn in others what we condone in ourselves. We beg forgiveness for our own transgressions but hold grudges and call judgement upon those who sin against us.

The easiest way we justify these things is by convincing ourselves that our own sins are “no big deal” while the sins of others are monstrous. I deserve forgiveness, but you don’t. Escobar murdered thousands, but I just lie to my family, or withhold income from the Tax Office. We grade and classify sin, with some more deserving of judgement and punishment than others.

I don’t think God sees sin this way. “All have sinned…” (Romans 3:23), and one sin makes us just as guilty as any other (James 2:10-11). Once you concede this, there is no point comparing ourselves with one another; our sins with the sins of another. In this way, I think that sin is fractal. We like to think that sins are different, some worse than others, but if you look close enough, they are exactly the same. Jesus makes this point in Matthew 5. Murder and hate might look different on the surface, but if you look at hate close enough, it is identical to murder. The same is true of adultery and lust, grand promises and white lies. Escobar’s murder and my pride differ only in their outward manifestation. At the heart, the issues are exactly the same. And God cares about our hearts.

When we think about sin this way, we will have to confront the sin in ourselves above that in others. Not only will our efforts be directed where they can do the most good (it’s easier to change ourselves than to change others), but we will also be more forgiving of those around us, regardless of how their sin manifests. We will recognise our own sin in them, building compassion instead of condemnation.

Escobar did horrendous things, as did Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and pick your favourite bad guy. But so have I. So do I. So do we all.

As We Wait Eagerly

Craig Holyoak — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 08:08:00 +1000

It was just over 150 years ago that Queensland’s first telegram network was first used. With our modern technology, it’s hard to imagine just how revolutionary this was, to send a message and actually expect it to be received the same day. Now we expect everything to be instantaneous. We can watch a sporting event live on the other side of the planet. We can order an airline ticket and have it sitting in our email before we have time to look. It almost seems that something like patience is rapidly becoming a quaint product of a bygone era.

But we know that in our Christian walk, there is much we can only anticipate, and must wait patiently to be fulfilled. Yes, sin has been defeated through Christ, but we still struggle with it in this life. Yes, we are in God’s Kingdom now, but we are not yet with God in Heaven. There is much of God’s promises that we must patiently await in hope.

Indeed, the whole creation shares with us in this, as Paul reminds us of our need for patience and hope:

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Romans 8:18-25