The Remedy to Religious Guilt

Last updated on: August 3, 2013 at 9:17 am by Andre E. Johnson

The Remedy to Religious Guilt 2013-08-03T09:17:00-05:00 Andre E. Johnson

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Conversion means change. But when we’re converted, we don’t immediately appreciate the thoroughgoing nature of divine grace—that God works in and through us despite our shortcomings. So change can be slow and arduous, especially if you were raised in a religious tradition that strongly emphasizes the role of human merit.

About this experience, I can speak most specifically from my own background, which happens to be Roman Catholic. Like many who convert to Christ and begin worshiping in an evangelical Protestant context, I quickly realized the profound influence that the Catholic vision of salvation exerted upon my religious mind. For instance, perhaps the most common and spiritually injurious issue is the problem of religious guilt*.* It’s a nagging fear that preoccupies the soul, a root of doubt that questions whether we are truly forgiven in Christ. In bed at night I would often wonder, Has my behavior been good enough to merit divine approval? Like Martin Luther who sought a gracious God, I never knew whether I had produced a sufficient amount of righteousness to be fully accepted.

Throughout his writings, Luther describes his struggle to please God with the German word Anfechtungen. The English language lacks an adequate translation. Sometimes it is rendered “temptation” or “challenge,” but in Luther’s experience Anfechtung included the existential torment of his soul and conscience. Perhaps it is best to let Luther describe it. About his days in the Catholic monastery, he writes:

I was a devout monk and wanted to force God to justify me because of my works and the severity of my life. I was a good monk, and kept the rule of my order so strictly that I may say that if ever a monk got to heaven by his monkery, I would have gotten there as well. All my brothers in the monastery who knew me will bear me out. If I had kept on any longer, I would have killed myself with vigils, prayers, reading, and other works. [1]

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