Confession & The Book of Mormon
In the article, From the Archives: Methodist Camp Meetings and Revival (The Asbury Journal 68/2:160-164,© 2013 Asbury Theological Seminary 160), we read:
By 1820, Methodists were holding around 500 camp
meetings a year. …
… As Methodists moved from the ecstatic revivals among the poor and lower classes to become pillars of Victorian society [in the 1900s] at the height of political prominence, the traditional camp meeting also changed.
In the document Book of Mormon Atonement Doctrine Examined in Context of Atonement Theology in the Environment of Its Publication, author David S. Wetze explains that confession was about confessing that Christ is Lord followed by baptism. On page 42-43, he writes:
… For [Thomas Campbell], the works required at man’s hands included receiving sacraments, such as baptism. He explained:
the act by which we put on Christ, the act by which we come to Christ, the act by which we confess Christ, the act by which we become disciples of Christ, the act by which we receive the pardon of our past sins, the act by which we come into the actual enjoyment of the salvation of Christ in this present life - is the act of immersion into the name of Christ: which act presupposes faith in him. . . . while I contend that salvation is of grace, proceeding from the pure, unbought, and unsolicited philanthropy of God, exhibited in the mission and gift of his Son, the only begotten, I do not suppose it to be in reason, nor according to scripture, incompatible with the idea of pure favor, that we must receive the
salvation, or that we cannot be saved.[89]
Neither did Campbell limit man’s role to baptism only. He taught that man’s role also
included the fruits of a virtuous life. Still arguing for baptism, he explained:
“Pardon is ascribed to the blood of Christ as the worthy cause; but it is connected with, because promised through, certain actions. . . . If neither our confession nor our prayer, nor our forgiving those who trespass against us, precludes the idea of grace, nor impairs the value of faith in obtaining remission, baptism can impair neither the one nor the other, when proclaimed for the remission of sins.”[93]
As he argued for baptism, Campbell compared the need for this ordinance to the need to live according to Christ’s teachings.
In other words, repentance was not about one-on-one-confessionals, but a confession of faith (faith in Christ); and repentance was forgiving others and seeking forgiveness, and turning away from the wrong path to get baptized and onto the right path.
Wetze explains that the Book of Mormon (from now on BofM) within the context of deists and Universalists in the 1800s, quoting the BofM it is clear that repentance is always mentioned in the context of the revivalist camp meetings: repent (show public remorse, change your mind and commit to reform), confess belief in Christ, and be baptized. On page 74-76 the article admits:
… “Rather than holding that repentance has salvific value intrinsically, the Book of Mormon teaches that it brings individuals to Christ, and that Christ saves. … Alma’s phraseology indicates his understanding that full repentance is expressed through baptism. … Just as the Book of Mormon connects faith to repentance in receiving the atonement, so it connects repentance to baptism. … As remission of sins comes strictly through the atonement of Christ, these verses indicate that repentance and baptism are necessary steps that bring individuals to the full saving power of Christ. Moroni recorded words that the Lord declared to him: “Therefore, repent all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me, and believe in my Gospel, and be baptized in my name: for he that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved” (Ether 4:18). Faith leads to repentance, and repentance to baptism.” … Alma aptly summarized that faith, repentance, baptism, and receipt of the Holy Ghost brings about spiritual rebirth, each of which are necessary steps to access the saving powers of the atonement: “Now I say unto you, that ye must repent, and be born again: for the spirit saith, If ye are not born again, ye cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven; therefore come and be baptized unto repentance, that ye may be washed from your sins, that ye may have faith on the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, who is mighty to save and to cleanse from all unrighteousness” (Alma 7:14). …
… [according to Christ in the Book of Mormon] the things an individual must do to receive the gospel [are simply]: “Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day. Verily, verily I say unto you, this is my gospel” (3 Nephi 27:20). … the voice of Christ taught him “After ye have repented of your sins, and witnessed unto the Father that ye are willing to keep my
commandments, by the baptism of water, and have received the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost. …” (2 Nephi 31:14).
Thus, one is born again and sanctified through repentance (turning from your life of sin, meaning "missing the mark") and witnessing to commit to Jesus’ Way, which is accomplished by your baptism! As we see in 3 Nephi 1: 23:
… Nephi went forth among the people, and also many others, baptizing unto repentance, in the which there was a great remission of sins. And thus the people began again to have peace in the land.
In God's Brush Arbor: Camp Meeting Culture during the Second Great Awakening, 1800-1860, author Keith Dwayne Lyon writes:
At Cane Ridge, an “intelligent deist” verbally accosted Barton Stone for ministerial fraud, to which the preacher responded “mildly.” “Immediately” afterwards, this proponent of rationalism “fell as a dead man, and rose no more till he confessed the Savior.”[86] …
… Hempton adds, “Moreover, religious insiders and outsiders heard noise differently…but what can be stated with confidence is that the Methodist message was inexorably bound up with the medium of oral culture. Itinerants preached, exhorters exhorted, class members confessed, hymns were sung, prayers were spoken, testimonies were delivered, and revival meetings throbbed with exclamatory noise.”[5]
… Further, many renowned camp meeting ministers readily offered autobiographical conversion accounts of divine grace rescuing them from alcohol and it's train of wickedness. One of the Midwest’s most formidable Methodist itinerants, James
B. Finley, drifted between relative dissolution and religion for some time before undertaking his illustrious clerical career.87 As mentioned previously, Texas circuit rider
A. J. Potter unstintingly asserted his past as a notorious imbiber, brawler and troublemaker prior to his utterly transformative camp meeting salvation. He wrote, “On the Sabbath-day, large crowds under my leading would assemble at the grocery, and drink, get drunk, blaspheme, fight, gamble, and horse-race.”[88] His biographer, in an otherwise virtually hagiographic account, refers to the pre-conversion Potter as “an
unlearned, wicked sinner, denizened with the slum and garbage of the world.” [89]
Unquestionably, these formative experiences served the famously tough and fearless
Potter well throughout his itinerant career on Texas’ wild frontier.[90] In this vein, many camp meeting preachers functioned effectively—to say nothing of remained safe and
alive--in part because of their earlier, intimate familiarity with the rural male subculture in which alcohol-driven behavior flourished.[91] While never much interested in drink, the redoubtable Peter Cartwright knew this milieu well and confessed to having been “a wild, wicked boy” who “delighted in horse-racing, card-playing, and dancing.”[92] As a
revivalist, he consequently excelled at handling the disorderly young men who
frequently invaded services and campgrounds intending frolic and mayhem.
… exhorters forcefully urged members of the enormous crowd to repent their sins, reform their lives and embrace salvation. …
… As McGready remembered:
Of many instances to which I have been an eye-witness, I shall only mention one, viz. A little girl. I stood by her whilst she lay across her mother's lap almost in despair. I was conversing with her when the first gleam of light broke in upon her mind—She started to her feet, and in an ecstacy of joy, she cried out, "O he is willing, he is willing—he is come, he is come — O what a sweet Christ he is—O what a precious Christ he is — O what a fulness I see in him—O what a beauty I see in him- — O why was it that I never could believe! that I never could come to Christ before, when Christ was so willing to save me?"
Then turning round, she addressed sinners, and told them of the glory, willingness and preciousness of Christ, and plead with them to repent; and all this in language so heavenly, and at the same time, so rational and scriptural, that I was filled with astonishment. But were I to write you every particular of this kind that I have been an eye and ear witness to, during the two past years, it would fill many sheets of paper [sic throughout].[34]
In The True Points of My Doctrine, Noel B. Reynolds writes in his abstract (words in bold for emphasis):
Repentance is turning away from the life of sin by making a covenant to obey the Lord and remember him always. Baptism in water is the public witnessing to the Father of that covenant. The baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost is a gift sent from the Father in fulfillment of his promise to all his children that if they will repent and be baptized, they will be filled with the Holy Ghost [Sacred Pneuma]. It [baptism] brings the remission of sins with its cleansing fires. The recipient of these great blessings must yet endure to the end in faith, hope, and charity in order to obtain salvation, or eternal life.
Page 30-32:
Jacob cites the great knowledge of the truth the Lord has given his people as a reason for them to "lay aside [their] sins" (2 Nephi 10:20). Alma uses the same approach, saying, "And now, my brethren, seeing we know these things, and they are true, let us repent" (Alma 12:37). Mormon explains the success of the first mission to the Lamanites in terms of the "success in bringing many to the knowledge of the truth," which brought converts "before the altar of God, to call on his name and confess their sins before him" (Alma 17:4; cf. 2 1:1 7). In his reverse mission to
the Nephites, Samuel the Lamanite makes the same connection, telling them that if they would "believe on his name," they would "repent of all [their] sins" (Helaman 14:13). He then goes on to use the converted Lamanites as his proof:
Ye do know of yourselves, for ye have witnessed it, that as many of them as are brought to the knowledge of the truth, and to know of the wicked and abominable traditions of their fathers, and are led to believe the holy scriptures, yea the prophecies of the holy prophets, which are written, which leadeth them to faith on the Lord, and unto repentance, which faith and repentance bringeth a change of heart unto them, are firm and steadfast in the faith. (Helaman 15:7-8)
So it is that the first fruits of faith are repentance and baptism as the convert to Christ turns from his sinful ways and covenants with the Father to obey his commandments and remember the name of Christ always. The gospel message tells the person who has just learned the truth of Christ how he can respond to receive God's grace. If he will repent and covenant not to sin further, and (... baptized of water, he is promised that he will receive the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost, which brings "a mighty change" of heart:
And according to [Alma's] faith, there was a mighty change wrought in his heart. ... And behold, he preached the word unto your fathers, and a mighty
change was also wrought in their hearts. (Alma 5: 12-13)
… The requirement of faith (trusting or relying on the Lord) is never completed
in the way that repentance and baptism are. It [faith] must become the permanent mode of one's existence, or one will not be able to endure to the end.
He points out the public nature of confession on pages 37-38:
.. the wicked Nephites in Zarahemla who were converted by Samuel's preaching seek out the prophet Nephi, confess their sins to him, and desire "that they might be baptized unto the Lord" (Helaman 16: I; cf. 16:5). When the sign of Jesus' birth is given five years later, many of those who denied the prophecies are "brought to a knowledge of their error and … confess their faults" (3 Nephi 1:25).
In his survey of key practices in the Nephite church, Moroni describes the process for disciplining members that fell into iniquity, specifying that "if they repented not, and confessed not, their names were blotted out, and they were not numbered among the people of Christ" (Moroni 6:7). This seems to be a policy that parallels the admission practice whereby new converts are baptized only after they have "witnessed unto the church [publicly] that they truly repented of all their sins" (Moroni 6:2). … All these references to repentance assume the basic notion that repentance means turning away from the worldly life to the way defined by Jesus Christ. Samuel's formulation balances the turning of the sinner to God with God's turning of his anger away. Similarly, Abinadi warns King Noah and his people that "except they repent and turn to the Lord their God," they will be brought into bondage (Mosiah I 1:21; d. II :22-25; 7:22-23; 20:21-22). Alma calls upon his sons to "turn to the Lord with all [their] mind, might. and strength" and not to seek "after riches nor the vain things of this world" (Alma 39: 13-14). The Savior echoes this wording when he instructs the Nephites not to cast sinners out of their synagogues in the hope that they yet might "return and repent, and come unto me with full purpose of heart" (3 Nephi 18:32). And so he commands "all ye ends of the earth" (3 Nephi 27:20) to repent and come unto him. He specifically invites the Gentiles to turn from their "wicked ways" and to repent of their evil doings and come unto him (3 Nephi 30:2).
"Confessing to the church" meant the Body of Christ, the group of Christians. Repentance and confession was about acknowledging your wrong choices and turning away from the path of wickedness as you changed course and committed to the path of goodness. That is all that confession and repentance means in the Book of Mormon. "I was on the wrong path and admit it, now I wish to walk the straight and narrow." Also note that the good path includes avoiding making money your god and not being self-centered, elitist, greedy and non-equitable; which is less emphasized in the Brigamite sect than is modesty and "sexual purity," which in turn is rarely discussed in Scripture, and when it is mentioned, it does not mean what the Brighamite sect says it does.
Page 40-41:
We can get further illumination on the subject of repentance by examining the Book of Mormon treatment of the opposed concepts of hardness of heart, blindness of mind, and stiffness of neck. These phrases all betoken the opposite of "a broken heart and a contrite spirit," which is the hallmark of a repentant person. … the Book of Mormon prophets see two choices open to those who have been called to repentance. If
they will not repent, they choose to "reject the Spirit of God on account of the hardness of their hearts and blindness of their minds" (Alma 13:4), and, like Korihor, they "resist the spirit of the truth" (Alma 30:46). Jacob urges his people to hear God's voice and not harden their hearts, "for why will ye die?" (Jacob 6:6). After his conversion, Amulek could explain the psychology of refusing to listen to the Lord's voice, for it explained his own earlier resistance:
I did harden my heart, for I was called many times and 1 would not hear; therefore I knew concerning these things, yet I would not know; therefore I went on rebelling against God, in the wickedness of my heart.
(Alma 10:6)
In other words, repentance and confession was admitting to living a wicked (unhappy) lifestyle and covenanting to live a righteous lifestyle. It was not confessing a list of sins to a clergyman in a closed room, but acknowledging to the congregation as a whole that you were walking the wrong path and then committing to walk the upright path. The confession to the congregation was an act of covenanting so the community can hold you accountable. It was not about penance or absolution, which the next document by Reynolds makes clear.
In the document, The Language of Repentance in the Book of Mormon by Noel B. Reynolds, we learn on page 1 that:
In contemporary English-speaking cultures, references to repentance can usually be equated with expressions of remorse, confession of sins, efforts at restitution, performance of penance, or conversion to a religion or a moral way of life. While all these attitudes or actions are mentioned somewhere in the Book of Mormon, the Nephite
prophets did not usually emphasize any of them when they spoke of repentance.
Rather, their teachings about or calls to repentance described it as God’s invitation to all men and women to make or renew a covenant with him to take his name upon them and to keep his commandments.
In other words, repentance is not about proving your purity before clergy, or performing piety to merit a "worthy" status. It was not about penance (confession for absolution) but a change of mind and to commit to putting on Christ. Reynolds explains on page 2:
The universal tendency is to explain the Book of Mormon teachings by reference to what is generally known from Christian traditions or the teachings of church leaders or to just assume that everyone already knows what it means. The findings of this paper call those assumptions into question and provide a more
complete and coherent foundation for discourse that references Book of Mormon teachings about repentance.
On pages 5, 7-9, Reynolds writes:
The overall finding of the first half of this paper is that with few exceptions[6] Book of Mormon discussions of repentance are fully compatible with the
prominent use of the Hebrew verb shub that scholars have identified in the Old
Testament. The Nephites repeatedly speak of repentance as turning or returning to God—to walk with him in his way, in the path of righteousness. Nephi had labeled repentance and baptism as the gate by which believers could enter the covenant path that leads to eternal life. This explains why the gospel or doctrine of Christ is referred to even more frequently in Book of Mormon discourse as the path or the Way. [7] And it helps us understand why the Book of Mormon prophets relied so frequently on the ancient doctrine of the two ways in their preaching.[8]
… Translators of the Old Testament have used repent/repentance as the
translation of two different Hebrew words –– naham and shub. … The New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology … on shub recognizes naham as a synonym that can underscore “the personal relationship of God and people” when the verb means to “be sorry, change one’s mind,” and “nuances the emotional dimension of remorse in making a change.” Significantly, “the root nḥm, . . while used frequently with God, is used sparingly of persons.”[14]
The primary meaning for shub as a verb of motion is “to turn or return.” … In its negative forms it is translated metaphorically as “backsliding” or “rebellion/apostasy.” … Far better than any other verb it combines in itself the two requisites of repentance: to turn from evil and to turn to the good.”[16]
Footnote 13:
In a recent article that offers a comprehensive definition of repentance grounded in
Latter-day Saint scriptures and teachings, Loren and Tina Spendlove provide a useful survey of the Hebrew and Greek terminology underlying the biblical usage. See their article “Turning to the Lord with the Whole Heart: The Doctrine of Repentance in the Bible and the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 20 (2016), 177–246. One principal difference between their approach and mine lies in their interpretation of biblical calls to turn or turn back as metaphorical references to man’s “natural state” of innocence in the Garden of Eden before the fall rather than to the dominant context of the paths or ways laid out for man in God’s commandments. The Spendloves propose that the rabbinic term teshuva provides a more suitable Hebrew background concept for repentance in Latter-day Saint scriptures. Since then,
David Lambert has raised some serious issues with that strategy by showing how teshuva is really a product of the later Hellenistic culture that had already moved on from the old Hebrew shub to the new Greek metanoeo and metanoia. See David A. Lambert, How Repentance Became Biblical, Oxford University Press, 2016, 178–191.
In his 1958 dissertation at the University of Leiden, William L. Holladay explored all the relevant metaphorical uses of the various forms of shub in the Old Testament and cognate literatures and determined that most (164) of it's many occurrences should be understood as covenantal. While an obvious interpretation of many of these passages would be “change one’s loyalty by turning to God,” Holladay argued that most of these should be interpreted in the context of an assumed previously established or already existing covenant, leading to such translations as “return to God,” or “turn back to God.”[17] It was also used to mean “return from exile,” which could obviously be associated with a return to the covenant. “A return from exile was reclamation as much as a return from any form of sin. That God should permit either return is corroborative of his covenantal faithfulness [hesed].” [18]
Bible scholars today agree that the Hebrew root shub (to turn or return) is
the dominant Old Testament term for repentance/repent in covenantal contexts. …
Reynolds goes on to explain that repentance was about showing remorse through “weeping, fasting, rending clothes, and donning sackcloth and ashes” and thus not about clergy confessionals. Repentance simply meant to turn from evil and to turn to good. On page 18, Reynolds explains
… in The Interpreters’ Dictionary of the Bible: “Within the [New Testament] itself repentance began to shift from a radical turning to God in face of the end time to a remorse over one’s pagan ways and an adoption of the Christian gospel.”[31]
Repentance in the Book of Mormon
Faith and repentance linked together
It is not difficult to find echoes of Lambert’s “shub of appeal” in the Book of Mormon. … it is clearly a covenant
concept in both the Old Testament and in the Book of Mormon … Nephi later quotes the Lord God as the source of this phrasing and explicitly
connects the call to repentance to man’s misplacement of trust in the arm of flesh or human wisdom … It is only by relying on or trusting in the arm of the Lord and his strength that a person can turn to him. Faith is the essential prerequisite for repentance. Without that basic trust, hearkening to God makes no sense and cannot last. Jacob explains that salvation can only come to those who repent “having perfect faith in the Holy One of Israel” (2 Nephi 9:23). Benjamin twice links “repentance and faith” as essential for any person to be saved (Mosiah 3:12, 21). Both Almas assumed the same tight connection between faith and
repentance,[33] and Amulek explained that the atonement of Christ will “bring
salvation to all those who shall believe on his name” as it brings them the “means … that they may have faith unto repentance” (Alma 34:15). … The Lamanite prophet Samuel extends this phrasing to include “the holy scriptures
. . . which leadeth them to faith on the Lord and unto repentance, which faith and repentance bringeth a change of heart unto them” (Helaman 15:7).
Page 22:
He quotes the Father saying “repent ye, repent ye, and be baptized in the name of my Beloved Son” (2 Nephi 31:11). Nephi goes on spell out the requirements of sincere repentance—that one “follow the Son with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God but with real intent, repenting of your sins” (2 Nephi 31:13). Nephi then explains to his readers that through baptism repentant persons witness to the Father “that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ” and “to keep (his) commandments” (2 Nephi 31:13, 14). So, “the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water, and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost” (2 Nephi 31:17). Through repentance and baptism, the
person has entered on the “straight and narrow path which leads to eternal life.”
Page 27:
Repentance, then, is a choice with a covenant to leave one’s own path and to follow the one path provided by the Father and the Son. In these presentations [in the Book of Mormon], there is no talk of penance, compensation, or punishment as steps in the repentance process. Though repentance is usually characterized as a turning or turning back from wrong paths to the correct one, the emphasis on every individual’s freedom to choose the way he or she will go could also portray repentance as a change of mind …
In his twenties, Joseph Smith was partial to Methodism, so that would be the most likely influence on the theology of the Book of Mormon. The article at https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Penance, states:
In early Christianity, Bishops did not forgive but rather declared that God had forgiven the sins when it was clear that there was repentance, and the penitent was readmitted to the community.[Martos, Joseph (2014), Doors to the Sacred, Ligouri, pp. 321–27] …
… per the recommendation of John Wesley, Methodist class meetings traditionally meet weekly in order to confess sins to one another.["Methodist Christianity". The Order of Saint Patrick. 21 April 2017. Retrieved 31 May 2019. The society groups could be divided into smaller groups called "classes" that would provide for even more intimate spiritual support and nurture. These classes were composed of about a dozen people who met once a week for spiritual conversation and guidance. Members spoke about their temptations, confessed their faults, shared their concerns, testified to the working of God in their lives and exhorted & prayed for each other. Every Methodist was expected to attend class meetings.] … in the Methodist tradition, corporate confession is the most common practice … Many Methodists, like other Protestants, regularly practice confession of their sin to God Himself …
Repentance in the 1820s/30s, was based on Evangelical Methodism and Baptists:
In the article "To Remake Society in God's Name": The Second Great Awakening and Its Effect on America, we learn that from 1790 to the time of Joseph Smith in the 1820s, church attendance was low at only 30 to 40 percent of people. The article continues:
… church membership was low, and the influence of Enlightenment rationalism was leading many people to turn to atheism, Deism, Unitarianism and Universalism. …
… In reaction to the secularism of the age, a Protestant religious revival, called the Second Great awakening, spread through the new United States and westward beginning around 1790, and continuing into the early nineteenth century. …
… by 1800, Evangelical Methodism and Baptists, had become the fastest-growing religions in the nation and whose preachers led the movement. …
… still asserting the sinfulness of man, they taught that each person could choose between salvation and damnation. Extending that line of thought further, it is obvious that if people may choose to accept or reject salvation, there is a role for Christians in guiding other human beings to that decision. This theology became known as New School Calvinism. …
… [Timothy Dwight's] theology, like so many before, was based on a confession of faith in Jesus Christ that came from a person exercising free will.
… Lyman Beecher…wrote, “The great aim of the Christian church. . . is not only to renew the individual man, but also to reform human society.” …
… Perhaps the greatest American evangelists of the 19th century was Charles Grandison Finney. …
Revivals, Camp Meetings, and Circuit Riders
Historians argue that, because the Constitution separated religion from the control of political leaders, a series of religious revivals swept the United States from the 1790s and into the 1830s that transformed the religious landscape of the country. …
… Per capita alcohol use was three to four times current levels and public spaces were often slimy with tobacco spit. Popular pastimes included dogfights, cockfights, rats-versus-dog battles, and bullbaiting; the market revolution, western expansion, and European immigration all challenged traditional bonds of authority. Disgust with dirty politics and a debased society did not discourage upright citizens but instead, drew them to evangelicalism, which promised equal measures of excitement and order. Religious revivals spread like wildfire throughout the United States, swelling church membership.
Outdoor Revival in Kentucky ca. 1800
… According to Charles G. Finney, a revival was a deliberately orchestrated event that used a variety of spiritual practices to bring about conversions, especially among the unconverted "youth" (men and women between 15 and 30) in the community. …
Cane Ridge Camp Meeting - 1801
Plan for a Methodist Camp Meeting - Fairfax VA
… The most successful religious utopian community to arise from the Second Great Awakening was begun by Joseph Smith. …
(Source)
In this LDS article, we read:
Some version of the word “repent” appears 360 times in the Book of Mormon. In comparison, in the King James Version of the Bible, the word appears 46 times in the the Old Testament and 66 times in the New Testament. Clearly, repentance is a major theme in the Book of Mormon
The same article quotes this verse:
O all ye that are spared because ye were more righteous than they, will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you? (3 Nephi 9:13)
Note that this repentance is presented in the context of conversion and healing, not confessing to a priest and feeling shame and undergoing some form of ecclesiastical penance. LDS Scripture instead describes a process of a change of mind, admitting wrong and seeking restitution with the person(s) you wronged. You were to publicly confess your mistakes just before you were baptized into the community where you committed to walk the path of bearing each other’s burdens and mourning with those who mourn. The article linked above also admits the following, “[LDS] President Nelson pointed out that the Greek word for repent—metanoeó (μετανοÎω)—means ‘to change one’s mind.” Likewise the LDS Guide to the Scriptures defines repentance as:
A change of mind and heart that brings a fresh attitude toward God, oneself, and life in general.
It then lists these verses:
Make confession unto the Lord, Ezra 10:11.
[Ezra 10:11 (Expanded Bible):
Now, confess it to the Lord, the God of your ancestors [fathers]. Do his will and separate yourselves from the people living around you and from your non-Jewish [L foreign] wives.”]
D&C 133:16:
16 Hearken and hear, O ye inhabitants of the earth. Listen, ye elders of my church together, and hear the voice of the Lord; for he calleth upon all men, and he commandeth all men everywhere to repent.
17 For behold, the Lord God hath sent forth the angel crying through the midst of heaven, saying: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight, for the hour of his coming is nigh
Mosiah 26:
29 Therefore I say unto you, Go; and whosoever transgresseth against me, him shall ye judge according to the sins which he has committed; and if he confess his sins before thee and me, and repenteth in the sincerity of his heart, him shall ye forgive, and I will forgive him also.
30 Yea, and as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me.
31 And ye shall also forgive one another your trespasses; for verily I say unto you, he that forgiveth not his neighbor’s trespasses when he says that he repents, the same hath brought himself under condemnation.
Alma 14:1
1 And it came to pass after he had made an end of speaking unto the people many of them did believe on his words, and began to repent, and to search the scriptures.
Mosiah 27: 24 For, said he, I have repented of my sins, and have been redeemed of the Lord; behold I am born of the Spirit.
(Source)
It's very clear that this language is that of the 19th century Camp Revivals where one had a change of heart, confessed their sins as a sinner in need of salvation, repented to Christ and confessed to others in the camp meeting of their sinfulness and sins, and then were born again, sanctified (made holy), and baptized into a Protestant Sect. This has nothing to do with private one-on-one confession to a priesthood leader behind closed doors for absolution.
The incessant reminders of revival preachers caused young Joseph to "become convicted" and seek forgiveness in the Sacred Grove. Alexander Rider, Lithograph of an 1829 religious camp meeting, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-5818
Source: https://rsc.byu.edu/vol-12-no-2-2011/joseph-smith-hearty-repentance
So are we supposed to believe that the Keystone of our Religion, The Book of Mormon, in over five hundred pages, that mentions repentance over two hundred times, simply left out that repentance means confession to a priesthood holder? Oops, forgot to mention that! That is absurd. The Book of Mormon had a clear definition and meaning of repentance and the early Saints practiced repentance which did not include confession to a priesthood holder in private. Those are the facts. It is indisputable. This is confirmed in the following from the article Confession in LDS Doctrine and Practice By Edward L. Kimball (words in bold my own):
A look at the LDS practice of confession identifies certain variations over time, principally in the decline of public confession and the institutionalization of confession to one’s bishop. But these variations have always been consistent with the basic commandment to confess one’s sins. …
… Statements [in LDS scripture] about confession do not always specify which mode of confession is intended, but it is clear that several forms may be involved. The scriptures say, “I, the Lord, forgive sins unto those who confess their sins before me and ask forgiveness” (D&C 64:7). They also instruct that a Sabbath-day obligation is to “offer . . . thy sacraments . . . confessing thy sins unto thy brethren, and before the Lord” (D&C 59:12). Therefore a duty exists to confess not only to God in all events, but also in certain circumstances to the Church, the organization that God has established for the welfare of his children. The modern Latter-day Saint application of the latter obligation is that “confession to a church official (in most cases the bishop) …
In other words, the modern day mode is confession to the bishop behind closed doors, but this was not how LDS scripture “specify [the] mode of confession,” which was that of “public confession …” This was later replaced with the “institutionalization of confession to one’s bishop.” In other words, the complete Standard Works of the LDS Church “contains 2468 pages' ' (Source), and not one page states one must confess to a bishop in a one on one interview!
