A Short History of Confession of Sin: From the Early Church to Modern Evangelicalism

Abstract

This article will briefly survey the history of confession in the Christian church. Confession of sin is an often neglected topic in evangelical history and theology. As such, a study of the history of confession of sin is helpful in tracing common practices and assumptions found in the theology and liturgy of the modern evangelical church. This article traces the custom of confession of sins from the early church to modern evangelicalism and demonstrates the move from public confession of sin to confession primarily as a type of private prayer.