As any good Christian ought to know, confession is in integral part of the faith experience. While I don’t think confession ought to be focused on beating oneself up for every shortcoming, especially to the point of mental, emotional and/or physical damage, it’s important that people of faith take a moment to take stock of themselves, their relationships with others, and the world in general— and confess failures, inconsistencies, and blatant resistance to things like the Golden Rule.

There’s an old Scottish proverb that declares that “confession is good for the soul.” Why is that? Confession offers an opportunity for honest reflection, to consider, meaningfully and purposefully, the ways through which an individual— or an entire community— has not lived up to basic elements of faith. For me, rage against some of the signage I encounter on a regular basis comes to mind— and my quick, and not very neighborly, use of certain gestures in response. There’s a house not far from mine that sports large pro-Trump banners, usually with at least one of those banners employing obscene language and/or imagery. When I’m heading to Old South, there’s a small group of old men who are often camped out at a certain intersection with lots and lots of anti-abortion signage, including misleading and just plain wrong information. It’s likely that my gestures in response are not seen by anyone other than myself. Still, I usually take a moment to confess, that that gesture that appears so quickly, and sometimes without any thought, is not in any way productive. And, that’s just a relatively small transgression.

Confession offers something of a mirror to take a good look at oneself, especially at one’s inner life, while also providing a moment for opening one’s heart and mind to God’s love and desire for reconciliation, an assurance of God’s pardon. Confession does the same for a community as well. Without confession, it’s all too easy to lapse into arrogance and a stunted connection with one’s community, with the Divine and with oneself. It is through confession that we are reminded, intimately, that we are not divine and always in need of not only love, but correction.

Although the United States is not a Christian nation— and let’s hope it stays that way— a sort of confession on a national scale is a good thing, and good for the national soul. It’s too bad that all of those supposedly good “Christian” advisors and staffers, along with congressional leadership, somehow haven’t got the memo about confession, and have failed to share with the President the benefits of reflecting on our national transgressions— like slavery.

The President recently wrote on his social media platform, “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been— Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.”

It’s hard to fathom how the President can possibly believe that we should minimize, or even ignore, the complete and utter wrongness of slavery and how it was practiced in the United States, along with the reality that the legacy of slavery continues to make its presence known in our society and culture today. Because of our lackluster and skittish national assessment of the evils of slavery over such a long stretch of time, we remain stuck in this strange and dangerous place, where we cannot experience reconciliation and stronger community connections and relationships.

There is no true accounting of “brightness” without an honest look at the wrongs of the past, along with a confession that acknowledges that the wrongs of the past continue to invade our national identity. If President Trump truly wants to celebrate “Success” and “Brightness,” his so-called Christian advisors ought to remind him that we cannot achieve such a thing without first confessing the horrors we have so brazenly tried to push aside. As the letter of James sums up nicely, “For this reason, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous person is powerful in what it can achieve.” (James 5:16, CEB)