Wouldn't confession or being 'reborn - i.e. saved' absolve the need for morality?

Yep. That's why religion got invented in the first place --people wanted a way to feel good about stuff they knew in their gut was bad. How convenient, just make up a god to forgive you for all the crap you do that isn't decent or kind.

The pious Christian knows his own sinfulness and stubbornness, knows there can be no blessing from God today if one does not today turn away from every sin he knows of, and so is quick to re-examine whether he has in fact repented of all sin.

In point of fact, this practice of self-examination has been the driving force of Christian spirituality for generations, and it produced in the centuries since the Great Reformation a style of living that took God’s commands seriously. But in our day this sense of God punishing unrepentant sin in this life is downplayed or ignored. It’s downplayed or ignored specifically by telling ourselves that our sins don’t have consequences because there is forgiveness in Jesus’ blood anyway.

But here is where we fool ourselves. Against the trend of our times (and of our sinful selves), we shall need to be critical and ruthless in self-examination, and I shall need to repent of whatever sins I find, lest God’s hand crush me further.

NOTHING dismisses the need to be a morally good person.

Being moral does not "Save" us but morals show we are transformed into a new "Creation in Christ."

Why don't you try see for yourself?

Then you could share a bit of the experience with us.

With Christianity, you can be a total **** your entire life, as long as you accept Jesus before you die.

Yes.

It makes very little sense. Then again, religion makes very little sense.

No.