Penance, a new iPhone app, allows users to confess their own sins and absolve the sins of others with anonymity. In a story from the Religious Dispatches, the app is reported to require every user to play the role of both sinner and saint as they trade ‘horns’ and ‘halos’ from their accounts. The app allows users to select from seven sin categories they wish to confess—one for each of the Seven Deadly Sins. The details of the user’s sin is anonymously sent to other iPhone users, who then reply with a description of the ‘penance’ that the user must carry out to be forgiven. The iPhone app owner’s description says that the app is “structured to create a self-sustaining community rather than be a simple whiteboard for posting confessions.”
Editor’s Note: In your view, is the Penance app harmless fun, a dangerous device, or somewhere in between?
