Repentance as Remembering

  While I was writing my term paper, I came across the discussion of memory, but in relation to Christian repentance. I quickly became fascinated.

Evidently, to audit the original meaning of an experience (to remember it) and overlay an understanding that the action was sinful isn’t enough to repair the damage caused by the original experience. We can’t be forgiven just by this because the effect of that action ripples outward, propagating.

I find it interesting to tackle this in regard to Christ’s sacrifice. We are still sinning. Our actions still ripple outward. And yet now, because the effects will be cleaned up, we can immediately be forgiven and made clean. Thus an internal acknowledgement of a sinful state becomes sufficient for repentance, no longer demanding penance.

The process is intriguing, and plays into one of the themes of my essay: the effect of the past on the present and vice versa—except this overlays the effect of the future onto both.