In Christianity there are two different, but related, senses of the word confession. On the one hand, there is a confession of faith - the public and private statement of what Christians believe. On the other hand, there is also a confession of sin - the public and private statement that God is right and his human creatures are wrong. What these two confessions have in common is they both are fundamentally an agreement with God, that he is right and we are wrong.

These confessions carry with them a lot of benefit for the individual human: first, by turning us away from the fake “reality” that God is wrong and we are right and orienting us to true reality, we can know that we are right with God; and second, this right orientation to God’s reality produces psychological comfort as the individual human begins to experience much less dissonance in his life as he moves throughout God’s world.

Chuck and Aaron also discuss the benefits of private confession to God, corporate confession, individual confession with a pastor, and confessing our sins to those we have sinned against.

Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

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Every human belief or opinion is based upon a presupposition - a faith commitment that cannot be proven but can only be assumed. For instance, the difference between Christianity and atheism is not the difference between “faith” and “reason”, between opinion and fact, between superstition and rationality; instead, both positions are based on unprovable, faith-based assumptions - presuppositions. Christians believe God exists, atheists believe God does not exist. Neither can prove their position is correct, so both hold their position based on faith. And starting from those presuppositional foundations, each builds out logical explanations of how the universe works based on those presuppositions.

The question is which presupposition makes for the best logical conclusions; does faith in God or does faith in no-God make best sense of the universe? Does Christianity or atheism make best sense of the inborn sense of justice all humans have? Does Christianity or atheism make best sense of the quest for beauty that all humans strive for?

For Christianity, the logical conclusions of belief that God has revealed himself in Jesus make sense of our world in ways that no other presupposition can.

Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

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Some Christians have held that cremation is not permitted by the Bible, on the grounds that bodies buried intact, or “sleeping”, are a concrete anticipation of the resurrection of the dead on the last day. But the Bible never expressly forbids cremation, and in at least one place cremation is approvingly performed (1 Samuel 31:11-13).

The key issue is the question of what the resurrection from the dead means: if the body has been created by God and is fundamentally good, then our funeral and burial practices must center around and focus on the belief and confession that God will raise all the bodies of his children someday to new life in his new creation, whether they have been buried or cremated.

Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org.

To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep101.