Dear Confessors:

Both Augustine of Hippo (354-430) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau of Geneva (1712-1778) wrote autobiographic books containing their confessions. Both contain some pretty racy stuff, but neither is a particularly exciting read. (Although we do learn that Rousseau liked a good spanking—perhaps why the book was published posthumously. Now that I think about it, Rousseau’s work is a bit of a page-turner. But I digress.) 

What brings me to my musing today is the tension between what Augustine and Rousseau thought they were accomplishing through their tell-all, self-disclosive diaries. 

Rousseau was fully aware of Augustine’s work and intentionally piggybacking on the venerated early Christian saint’s title, but his understanding of confession was quite different from Augustine’s. The conclusion of Augustine’s project was his desire to demonstrate absolute dependence upon God. Perhaps the most famous quote from his work was: “You [O God] have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” The catalog of Augustine’s waywardness was to convey the complete inadequacy of his natural state and his need to cling to God’s grace for meaning and salvation.

Rousseau, on the other hand, believed an entirely opposite understanding of the human condition. His quote, “man (sic) is born free, yet is everywhere in chains,” illustrates his notion that we are born into a pure state; it is the error of time and society that stain our pristine condition. The act of confessing is a means to purge ourselves of the unnaturalness of modern society with the hope to regain our innocence. Born and raised in Geneva, much of his work was a reaction against the dour total depravity Calvinism of his youth.

These two approaches illustrate for me the two different ways to approach our weekly prayer of confession. Considering why we confess may change how we confess. Rousseau’s confession is specific; each act of transgression becomes something that needs to be purged to return one to the graceful state of childhood innocence. For Augustine, confession is holistic; specific sins are merely illustrations of the weakness of the human condition, driving us towards our absolute need for God’s imparted grace. As Presbyterians, we are prone to side with Calvin, who leaned heavily on Augustine’s confessional understanding. 

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about these two takes on confession as protesters lay bare the sins of our fathers, churning the compost of historic iniquity. If this is a Rousseauian project, attempting to purge our past into a present perfection, I’m skeptical. I am more optimistic if we are seeking an Augustinian transparency, reminding ourselves that a longed-for purity cannot be found in the past or the present. Recognizing we are all sinners who have done sinful things, perhaps we can move forward seeking community rooted neither in an idolized past nor in a utopian future, but in present grace. Or, as Augustine wrote, “How can the past and future be, when the past no longer is, and the future is not yet? As for the present, if it were always present and never moved on to become the past, it would not be time, but eternity.”

Praying to find grace in each moment, I remain,

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor