12/07/2025 08:30
- 10:45
HALL: Seminar Room 06
Proponent:
Alfsvåg K.
Chair:
Kessel T.B.
Speaker:
Alfsvåg K.,
Kessel T.B.,
Lund A.J.,
Rasendrason A.
Jesus started his ministry by admonishing his listeners to repent, and practices of repentance and penitence has for a long time been central for Christian Churches worldwide. Controversies concerning repentance were the starting point for the Reformation, the confession of sin is a central part of the liturgy for many Churches, and repentance and penitence are still seen as helpful for people whose lives are burdened in different ways. At the same time, the theology of penitence presupposes an understanding of humans as sinners that many find challenging. What we want to explore in this panel is how historically informed and contextually sensitive practices of penitence and repentance can be maintained in our day, and whether and in which way they still can be seen as liberating for people struggling with different kind of challenges.
One of the papers in this panel is historically oriented, investigating the understanding of penitence in the early years of the Lutheran Reformation. The other five papers discuss contemporary issues. Three are related to the Scandinavian and Norwegian context. One discusses the confession of sin in creation-care liturgies, one investigates a shift in the content of the confession of sin that has taken place in the liturgy in the Church of Norway in recent years, and one discusses the understanding of penitence in the Church of Norway by investigating liturgies for the Day of penance and prayer. Two of the papers discuss issues related to other contexts. Has the church anything to learn from the Japanese ritual of mizukokuyo (a Buddhist ritual for women who have experienced abortion), and what is to be learned from the practice in the Malagasy Lutheran church of using rituals of repentance in the treatment of substance addition? Hopefully, these papers will give us relevant perspectives for an updated theology of repentance.