Secret Sin

In our class we have read two post-Puritan works of literature about the Puritans: "The Minister's Black Veil" by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Both authors portrayed a culture at once superstitious and excessively focused on sin. There is a contrast between the secret sin of individuals, such as Reverend Hooper and John Proctor, and the sins of the community, such as the church members and the townspeople of Salem. Mr. Hooper's black veil has a multiplicty of symbolic meanings, but for him at least it represents his understanding of his own guilt. At the end of his life, he condemned the people who had shown him no pity and said that when he looked around, "'lo! on every visage a Black Veil'" (Hawthorne 273). The reader can infer that Hooper struggled with his own sin, possibly sin that no one else knew about, and the black veil was at least partly his penance.

In The Crucible, people were publically accused and excuted for what was a secret sin that they almost certainly did not commit: witchcraft. John Proctor, the protagonist, actually does commit a secret sin--adultery--that indirectly leads to the deaths of 20 people. He is the only one who can reveal Abigail's lies about the witchcraft, but his desire to keep his sin secret causes him to drag his feet and when he finally does, it is too late. Further, his adulterous affair with Abigail prompts her to turn on Elizabeth and escalate the witchcraft accusations. Miller says, "These people had no ritual for the washing away of sins. It is another trait we inherited from them, and it has helped to discipline us as well as to breed hypocrisy in us" (20).

What about today? Do we still try to keep our sins secret? Read this article, "Unwed Pregnancy is not a Sin." Do we take to heart James 5:16: "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective" (NIV)? If not, what is stopping us? How would life in the Church be different if we did?

You can respond to the literature, the article, or the overall idea of secret sin and public confession.