It is the generic character of sin that makes confession of sin a communicative task, something we may owe to another and not merely brood on within ourselves. “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed” (James 5:16). The mutuality of the exercise turns on the discovery of community in sin, a discovery only possible, breaking free of the separations and demarcations of judgment, when we know ourselves to be a community of God’s forgiving and restoring grace. This is the knowledge that makes moral teaching a central element of Christian community, free of
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