Week 6: Chapter 5 — Confession and Communion

1.Bonhoeffer opens by observing that many Christians live in a condition of secret sin and private shame, experiencing 'the burden of hidden sin' — confessing to God but never to another person. He argues this leaves people in a kind of prolonged spiritual loneliness. Have you ever experienced the isolation that comes from carrying an unconfessed sin that only God (and you) know about?

2.His central argument is that in confession to a brother or sister, the cross of Christ becomes *concrete* — we experience forgiveness not just as an abstract theological truth but as something spoken to us by a human voice in a specific moment. Why might the *embodied*, *spoken* experience of forgiveness be important, rather than just the internal certainty of it?

3.He warns against two dangers in the practice of confession. First, the danger of making confession into a *psychological* exercise — a form of therapy — rather than a genuine encounter with the grace of God. Second, the danger of the confessor becoming a spiritual authority figure who holds power over the one confessing. How do these dangers show up in contemporary Christian communities?