The Protestants have a lot to answer for, in my mind. You have the Catholic church, who for many hundreds of years controlled the religion of the masses. There were (and still are, I believe) many ways to sin and many ways to atone for your sins. Make a regular confession to the priest, and declare your mortal sins, your venial sins, say so many Our Fathers and so many Hail Marys and all would be sorted. It is a complex, but also reliable way of fixing all your mistakes, involving a range of rituals of the Catholic church.

Of course, the Protestants protested against this form of religious works, starting with Martin Luther, who in 1517 proclaimed that people can be saved by faith in God alone, and that all we need to know about God can be found through the Bible. The Protestants found that God was not inaccessible, but rather, a God who could be approached and someone who could be merciful on a pitiful sinner. 

Years have passed and sure enough, it seems that somehow the Protestant churches have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. (Not all churches, clearly, but this is my soapbox, and I can be as broad as I want in my assessments.) Now God is seen as a soft-toy deity – someone to cuddle and keep me warm, someone to make me feel good when I’m sad and lonely. But I’ve already got a teddy bear, and a fireplace to keep me warm. And a nice hot Milo is a great pick-me-up. But gone are the days of the Awesome God who was one to be revered and respected.

Now God is awesome in the sense that he is ‘cool’. God is fun and a really great mate to have around. Today’s God never asks me to do something I wouldn’t want to; he would never frown on my indiscretions, because hey, God is just like us, dude. Today’s God is the sort of God you can have around while you’re watching tv with a bunch of friends, eating chips and scoffing bikkies. And who wouldn’t like that? You can feel great when you’re hanging with God. The worship songs in many of the modern churches also portray God as either a wonderful boyfriend, or an inspirational personal trainer who can help me be all I want to be.

I guess the church is just mirroring our society in an age where sin is a dirty word and there is no absolute truth. In an atmosphere of inclusiveness and tolerance we try not to step on anyone’s toes and say that there is a way of life that could be ‘wrong’. I dunno  - it seems like people have forgotten how to feel guilty. Everyone is so darn happy with their lives.

But I don’t know, it sort of leaves me wanting more. I want a God who is ruler of the universe, and as such, is way beyond my comprehension. I want a God who can wield justice in his hands like the trident of Neptune, and throw down bolts of lightning like Thor. I want a God who really does expect a lot from me, who wants me to be a better person, because honestly, there are times when I don’t like myself. I see all the stupid things I do, and I don’t want someone who will justify my actions and enable my pathetic behaviour. I wonder what it would be like to worship in an imposing cathedral, centuries old, its ancient existence contrasting with my fleeting wisp of a life. I want to feel awe; I want to be reminded of what a feeble person I am.

So to pay homage to the Catholic tradition, I figured a good old-fashioned confession is in order. Surely looking at my faults and confessing them is an honourable ritual, an act that makes me realise I’m not as wonderful as I think I am and that the world, strangely enough, does not revolve around me.

There are sins of commission – the bad things we actually do, like killing someone or stealing an old woman’s purse at the train station. Then there are also sins of omission – acts of kindness that we neglect to do. Like, when you won the Lotto and could have donated money to help the people down the road whose house burnt down. Instead, you used your winnings to buy a wide-screen tv. Now, I’m not saying that buying a tv is wrong, per se, unless you’re going to spend all your time watching Australia’s Funniest Home Videos, and then – well, that’s just evil.

In today’s ‘feel good / anything goes’ culture, it is easy to think as long as we have avoided turning into a serial killer and have come by all our money honestly, then we are right to go. Hop on board the gospel train and let me ride to Utopia. But a good confession brings me back to my feeble efforts at respectability and sees through my socially acceptable exterior. So I challenge us all to get down and get dirty in cleaning out the muck on ourselves. It doesn’t matter what your beliefs are; anyone can have a go at confessing the things they regret; the things that rattle around in their brain in the middle of the night when sleep is hard to come by. Sound a bit confronting? All right, I’ll go first…

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned:

Sometimes I couldn’t be bothered to change the toilet roll; instead, leaving two squares of paper draped over the cardboard tube, telling myself that the next person may need just that amount.

Sometimes I leave left-overs in the fridge to go mouldy, because frankly, I didn’t like the taste of the food first time around.

I used to deliberately fill the petrol tank to a dollar figure that would be rounded down, just to give me two cents more of fuel for nothing.

When I was young, I had a sleep-over at the neighbour’s place and wet the bed, and left early in the morning before anyone found out.

Sometimes I eat all the sweet bikkies in the cupboard the night of shopping day, justifying it because shopping is so stressful.

There are people I purposely avoid when I see them coming towards me along the street.

There are times when I think I am better than others.

Once, I pulled out of a carpark and scraped the car beside me as I turned, and didn’t leave a note. Okay, maybe I’ve done that more than once.

When I was a teenager, I thought Paul Keating was pretty cool.

God have mercy on me, a sinner. Amen

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