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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Bless me, father, for I have sin.
Most Christians1 are familiar with traditional means of confession2, in a booth or face-to-face. Now, the internet highway may be the road to salvation3.
Bearing your soul is just a mouse click away. At this website, ivescrewedup.com, you can type away your sins.
"You know, I mean, you've got a 19-year-old that's struggling with pornography on the web and wants to put it down but doesn't know how."
Troy Gramling is lead pastor4 at the nondenominational Flamingo5 Road Church in Cooper City, Florida.
"No matter how much you or I have screwed up our relationships with God, no long matter how long ago we actually let go of the hand of Christ and kind of walked away to live our own way, it doesn't matter."
Pastor Gramling and several other church members decided6 the internet was a way to reach out.
"You know, I would look at more we're leveraging7 it. You know, in other words, that's the world we live in, as people are doing life on the web. And so instead of trying to fight that, we want to leverage8 that."
But they never expected the reaction. More than 1,000 mea culpas have poured in since the site went up on Easter Sunday. All are kept anonymous9. Church leaders screen them before they are posted. For Ashley Iodice, a church member, it was the perfect form.
"I mean, you can take your laptop and you can just be free to write whatever you want, whatever you feel and you don't have to worry about someone judging you, or someone look at you wrong. So I think that's actually the appeal. That was appeal for me."
One person confessed to stealing $15,000 from family members. Another wrote, "I hate myself, the way I look, the way I think, the way I feel. Everything!" The most common confessions10, you probably guessed, deal with sins of the flesh.
"It seems like the ones people struggle with the most, most are their, as the sexual realm of their life. You know, whether be pornography, whether be adultery. Em, all those kinds of things are what keep coming up and up, over and over again."
There's no way to know for sure which are real and which are jokes. But pastor Gramling says he's confident the ones they post are legit. Some are more painful than others, like this one Gramling believes is from a soldier.
"I killed him only because he shot at me first. The worst was when I buried my K-Bar all the way to the hilt in this guy's throat. I looked into his eyes and as the adrenaline went away I found myself whispering, 'I'm sorry' as the life escaped from his eyes."
"And so it's cool that there are people going, it's cool that we're getting these confessions. But it's, em, it hurts you as you read them because you know there are a lot of people that are hurting and nobody knows."
It is a refreshing11 approach to saving souls says religious studies professor Daniel Alvarez.
"There're many people out there who want to express themselves spiritually. They're afraid to go to the church but here's the church coming out to them. That's vintage Christianity and that should be celebrated12."
Vintage but not completely original. In the movie "Bruce Almighty," actor Jim Carey plays God, and is quickly fed up with the amount of e-mail he's getting.
Unlike Carey, who sends a blanket e-mail response, the Flamingo Road Church doesn't respond at all, believing that if your confession is sincere, God is listening or in this case reading, and most importantly, forgiving.
John Zarrella, CNN, Cooper City, Florida.
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mea culpa: An acknowledgment of a personal error or fault.
Most Christians1 are familiar with traditional means of confession2, in a booth or face-to-face. Now, the internet highway may be the road to salvation3.
Bearing your soul is just a mouse click away. At this website, ivescrewedup.com, you can type away your sins.
"You know, I mean, you've got a 19-year-old that's struggling with pornography on the web and wants to put it down but doesn't know how."
Troy Gramling is lead pastor4 at the nondenominational Flamingo5 Road Church in Cooper City, Florida.
"No matter how much you or I have screwed up our relationships with God, no long matter how long ago we actually let go of the hand of Christ and kind of walked away to live our own way, it doesn't matter."
Pastor Gramling and several other church members decided6 the internet was a way to reach out.
"You know, I would look at more we're leveraging7 it. You know, in other words, that's the world we live in, as people are doing life on the web. And so instead of trying to fight that, we want to leverage8 that."
But they never expected the reaction. More than 1,000 mea culpas have poured in since the site went up on Easter Sunday. All are kept anonymous9. Church leaders screen them before they are posted. For Ashley Iodice, a church member, it was the perfect form.
"I mean, you can take your laptop and you can just be free to write whatever you want, whatever you feel and you don't have to worry about someone judging you, or someone look at you wrong. So I think that's actually the appeal. That was appeal for me."
One person confessed to stealing $15,000 from family members. Another wrote, "I hate myself, the way I look, the way I think, the way I feel. Everything!" The most common confessions10, you probably guessed, deal with sins of the flesh.
"It seems like the ones people struggle with the most, most are their, as the sexual realm of their life. You know, whether be pornography, whether be adultery. Em, all those kinds of things are what keep coming up and up, over and over again."
There's no way to know for sure which are real and which are jokes. But pastor Gramling says he's confident the ones they post are legit. Some are more painful than others, like this one Gramling believes is from a soldier.
"I killed him only because he shot at me first. The worst was when I buried my K-Bar all the way to the hilt in this guy's throat. I looked into his eyes and as the adrenaline went away I found myself whispering, 'I'm sorry' as the life escaped from his eyes."
"And so it's cool that there are people going, it's cool that we're getting these confessions. But it's, em, it hurts you as you read them because you know there are a lot of people that are hurting and nobody knows."
It is a refreshing11 approach to saving souls says religious studies professor Daniel Alvarez.
"There're many people out there who want to express themselves spiritually. They're afraid to go to the church but here's the church coming out to them. That's vintage Christianity and that should be celebrated12."
Vintage but not completely original. In the movie "Bruce Almighty," actor Jim Carey plays God, and is quickly fed up with the amount of e-mail he's getting.
Unlike Carey, who sends a blanket e-mail response, the Flamingo Road Church doesn't respond at all, believing that if your confession is sincere, God is listening or in this case reading, and most importantly, forgiving.
John Zarrella, CNN, Cooper City, Florida.
===========
mea culpa: An acknowledgment of a personal error or fault.
点击收听单词发音
1 Christians | |
n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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2 confession | |
n.自白,供认,承认 | |
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3 salvation | |
n.(尤指基督)救世,超度,拯救,解困 | |
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4 pastor | |
n.牧师,牧人 | |
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5 flamingo | |
n.红鹳,火烈鸟 | |
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6 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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7 leveraging | |
促使…改变( leverage的现在分词 ); [美国英语]杠杆式投机,(使)举债经营,(使)利用贷款进行投机 | |
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8 leverage | |
n.力量,影响;杠杆作用,杠杆的力量 | |
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9 anonymous | |
adj.无名的;匿名的;无特色的 | |
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10 confessions | |
n.承认( confession的名词复数 );自首;声明;(向神父的)忏悔 | |
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11 refreshing | |
adj.使精神振作的,使人清爽的,使人喜欢的 | |
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12 celebrated | |
adj.有名的,声誉卓著的 | |
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