The animated comments came quickly to a simple email survey. The survey was sent last fall to a handful of seasoned student development leaders of Council of Christian Colleges and Universities institutions. Their answers illuminate the realities of managing student conduct, and maybe more importantly for all of us, it provides insight into current students’ perspectives about sin. “The word sin is rarely used by students,” wrote one vice president. Another added, “I think students may be less likely to take ownership of sin because they might assume that it was more of a personal decision.” If these perceptions accurately illustrate the presiding culture at Christian colleges and universities, then we will need insight and wisdom to lead. Let’s look at how we got here and a potential way forward through the spiritual discipline of healthy confession.
The First Problem: A Bad Theology of Sin
Perry Glanzer and his colleagues noted that a “lack of overt attention to our identity as sinners demonstrates a strange neglect of an important theological truth.”[1] To this point, George Barna, Director of Research at the Culture Research Center, states that only “14% of self-described Christians have a core theology of sin that is biblically accurate,” and only 66% accept that all have sinned. The study also revealed that adult members of Gen Z, currently 18 to 22 years old, are far less likely (41%) to believe that everyone sins than are members of the three older generations (49% of Millennials, 53% of Gen X, 57% of Baby Boomers).[2]
So, how did we get here? Coming into prominence in the West during the Enlightenment, the tenets of secular humanism continue to impact how we think and act. According to N. T. Wright, there have been three movements over the past two centuries that have occurred in Western thought that shape our understanding of reality: the Romantic movement, emphasizing the importance of inner feelings; the Existential movement, highlighting the notion of authenticity, where one rejects external structures that impair human freedom; and the Emotivist moment, where moral rules shift to moral attitudes.[3]
A recent iteration of this philosophy is what Charles Taylor suggests is a culture of authenticity. The culture of authenticity is one where “each one of us has his/her own way of realizing our humanity, and that it is important to find and live out one’s own, as against surrendering to conformity with a model imposed on us from outside, by society, or the previous generation, or religious or political authority.”[4] Here external moral codes, including the Christian concept of sin, can be seen as inherently oppressive and in conflict with the expressions of the modern self. Therefore, devoid of a theological meta-narrative, concepts like sin are lost or neutered. This loss or deadening of a prevailing and public acceptance of sin impedes one’s ability to appropriately pursue forgiveness and restoration with others, our communities, and God.
The Second Problem: An Anemic Theology of Sanctification
There is a second challenge that Christian higher educational leaders need to be attentive to. In current Christian spaces, individuals may acknowledge sin’s existence, but because of a poor theology regarding the sanctification process, they lack direction and agency regarding what to do with their sin. Richard F. Lovelace, in his seminal text Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal, offered insight into our modern evangelicals’ poor understanding of sanctification that was shaped within the context of the historical renewal movements, specifically those occurring in the Western Protestant Church over the past 300 years. Specifically, Lovelace proposed that there is confusion regarding the process of sanctification among modern evangelicals.
The sanctification gap, as he defines it, has its origins in the teachings of 19th-century revival leaders, where problematically “the whole of sanctification had been inserted into conversion.”[5] Later, this errant collapse of sanctification into conversion was eventually met with an overreaction by church leaders, who “disconnected sanctification from conversion…. (yet) They failed to reinsert sanctification in its proper place in the development of the Christian life … and the sanctification gap was born.”[6] Ultimately, the impact of an erroneous understanding of sanctification leads the believer to either see sanctification as somehow necessary for the assurance of salvation, or it blurs the believer’s perspective on how a healthy sanctification process gives freedom and depth to their relationship with one another and their savior.
A Way Forward: Owning Our Sin and Engaging in Healthy Confession
Sanctification in a Christian believer’s life is a continual process. Even though the believer is given grace and justification by “faith alone” at conversion, the transition into complete restoration and holiness is protracted primarily due to sin, specifically “residual sin” in a believer’s life here on earth. In her Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, Adele Calhoun reminded us that salvation comes in a moment, but the healing sanctification process of taking off the old “false” self and putting on the new “true” self. [7] Over fifty times, the apostle Paul describes a Christian’s life as being sanctified in various ways; it is a process.[8] The reformers were in complete agreement that sin exists and will remain a challenge for the believer in this life and can never be entirely eradicated while in ‘mortal flesh.’ The work of regeneration is affected not in one eventful experience but throughout the life of a Christian.[9]
Returning to Lovelace, his remedy was to reestablish a balance of embracing both a proclamation of the believer’s justification by faith alone and firmly coupling it with a commitment to sanctification. As Christian leaders reestablish the importance of sanctification, they must communicate the gospel in a way that penetrates personal “defense mechanisms, uncovering hidden sin and leading people—Christians and unbelievers alike—to repentance.”[10] He cautioned, though, that “These tools must not be employed to move people once more into obedience to cultic legal codes.”[11] Believers should be “allowed to walk as those liberated by the work of the cross, freed from human regulations and entrusted to the communion of the Holy Spirit, who guides believers through the application of biblical principles and precepts.”[12]
One additional insight from Lovelace’s research is worth highlighting: the significant and central role of the Holy Spirit. He suggested that modern-day evangelicals, in general, lack a complete understanding of the Holy Spirit’s role in the work of sanctification. Last, freedom and grace abound when believers continually accept and experience God’s grace through the sanctifying process of repentance, specifically in the confessional process. Therefore, let’s turn our attention to confessional practices.
The Spiritual Discipline of Confession
In the mid two thousand twenties, acknowledging one’s sin seems out of vogue, let alone believing there is such a thing as sin. Therefore, in a curated world of manipulated pixels posted on the web that highlight one’s latest accomplishments, confessing sin, especially to another individual, would seem to be an archaic discipline. George Barna prompts us: “Students will remain ignorant when their teachers fail to inform them of critical information and consequences. For an overwhelming majority of Christian churches to suppress the reality of sin, its consequences, and its solutions from the people those churches serve is a travesty.”[13] Scripture, research, and religious writers have reminded us that sin exists and that repentance and confession bring a healing peace. Let’s look at three primary forms of confessing sin.
Let’s start with a person’s private confessions to God. Frederick Buechner wrote insightfully about confessions that are private confessions to the Lord. “To confess your sins to God is not to tell him anything he doesn’t already know. Until you confess them, however, they are the abyss between you. When you confess them, they become a bridge.”[14] This bridge leads us into deeper communion with the Creator and impacts our relationships with one another.
A second confessional practice is corporate confessions. Here, a community publicly states in the presence of each other, that they have failed – in what they have done and have left undone. In an Anglican church, of which I am an ordained, a minister or layperson speaks these comforting words over the congregation after they have corporately and publicly confessed: “Grant to your faithful people, merciful Lord pardon and peace: that they may be cleansed from all our sins, and serve you with a quiet mind: through Jesus Christ our Lord.”[15] Here, a reminder of pardon is spoken to those who confess. Peace is prayed over the parishioners, and there is an invitation to live and serve with a quiet mind.
A third confessional practice is confessing sin “one to another.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran pastor, theologian, and martyred anti-Nazi dissident, illuminates what transpires during a private confession to another believer: “A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person.”[16] This outcome was echoed in Setran and Keisling’s work with college students, where the discipline of confessing to another, empowered by the Holy Spirit, attacks pride, provides an opportunity to hear and experience forgiveness, and restores community.[17]
Bonhoeffer clarified for his readers that confessing to another brother (or sister) is not a spiritual law but instead an offer of divine help. He reminded believers that a Christian brother who hears the confession can represent God’s forgiveness and healing restoration. The occasion of confession also provides an opportunity to give thanks and celebrate God’s forgiveness through Jesus Christ. As to the question of who can hear confessions, Bonhoeffer made it clear that all believers can carry the burden: “It is not the experience of life but the experience of the Cross that makes one a worthy hearer of confession.”[18] Bonhoffer’s work highlights the importance and benefit of adopting the spiritual discipline of confession, and in particular, confession one to another.
The healthy disciple understands justification by faith, but also understands that in their lifetime, they will have to navigate the sanctification process, which includes a healthy understanding of sin and confession after conversion. This means that regularly, the spiritual discipline of confession of sin privately to the Lord, corporate confessions, and private confessions to another believer will provide consistent reminders of forgiveness and assistance. It will also usher into our lives humility and a tendency to forgive others when we have been wronged.
This blog content is based on an upcoming research article to be published in “Growth: The Journal of the Association for Christian’s in Student Development (ACSD).”
[1] Perry L. Glanzer, Theodore F. Cockle, Elijah G. Jeong, and Britney N. Graber, Christ-Enlivened Student Affairs: A Guide to Christian Thinking and Practice in the Field (Abilene University Press, 2020), 13.
[2] George Barna, “2025 American Worldview Inventory – Report #8: Millions of American Christians Deny Their Sinfulness” (Culture Research Center, September 4, 2025), PDF, accessed May 4th, 2026, https://web.arizonachristian.edu/CRC/2025/BARNA_CRC_AWVI-2025-8-Americans-Christians-Deny-Their-Sinfulness.pdf
[3] N. T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (Harper One, 2010), 50.
[4] Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Belknap, 2007), 475.
[5] Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal (IVP Academics, 1979), 234.
[6] Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, 234.
[7] Adele A. Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us, Revised and Expanded (Intervarsity Press Books, 2015), 102.
[8] Bill Hull, Conversion & Discipleship: You Can’t Have One Without the Other (Zondervan, 2016), 104.
[9] Donald G. Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology Volume 2 Life, Ministry, & Hope (Prince Press, 1978), 36.
[10] Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, 236.
[11] Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, 236.
[12] Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, 236.
[13] Barna, “2025 American Worldview Inventory,” 2.
[14] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC (Harper, 1993), 18.
[15] Book of Common Prayer (Anglican Liturgy Press, 2019), 13.
[16] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community (HarperCollins Publishers, 1954), 116.
[17] David P. Setran and Chris A. Kiesling, Spiritual Formation in Emerging Adulthood: A Practical Theology for College and Young Adult Ministry (Baker Academic, 2013), 25.
[18] Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 118.
