Yesterday marked the start of Lent. This is usually the time when non-conformists begin asking (handwringing?) whether they should join in with the fasting or not. Is it okay? Is it basically Catholic? Is saying ‘that’s Catholic!’ even a valid reason given that things like belief in the trinity is also Catholic but we’re cool with that?
Certainly Huldrych Zwingli thought it wasn’t appropriate. In the event with possibly the greatest name in all Reformation history, he wilfully and purposefully subverted Lent and sparked the Swiss Reformation in The Affair of the Sausages. Other than sounding like a work of Agatha Christie fan fiction, the Affair of the Sausages – prompted by Luther’s teaching on sola scriptura – led Zwingli to the belief that fasting was not required of the Christian. In a bid to demonstrate his departure from Catholic teaching on fasting and Lenten practices, and in a bid to reassert Christian liberty on the matter, Zwingli joined in a sausage supper during Lent at the home of a printer who would later publish his translation of the Bible. His printer friend was arrested after a public outcry and Zwingli publicly defended his Christian liberty in his writings.
It just so happens that lent also coincides with Ramadan this year. Much like Zwingli – as I argued here – I believe fasting in a high-density Muslim area is not a great witness so far as Christian liberty and the freedom afforded in the gospel goes. As I noted there:
For what good is it if, in seeking to save Muslims from one form of errant legalism, we ultimately win them to an altogether different one? Pragmatically, it seems unlikely to work anyway. After all, if it’s ‘you show me your legalism and I’ll show you mine’, what purpose is there in swapping one for the other? But spiritually, we do not serve people well by leading them from one form of legalism to another. If my case below is right, to make much of fasting – albeit re-purposed in a Christian way and within a Christian framework – is spiritually damaging. It encourages the very forms of ascetism and apparently spiritual wisdom that is of no actual benefit that Paul explicitly tells us are unhelpful and ought not to pursued in Colossians 2:16-23. Without specific biblical warrant, and without any evident teaching in scripture on its particular benefits, we do well to avoid (at least) mandating fasting for believers, if not even doing it ourselves.
The same might well be said of anybody living in a Catholic-majority setting (as Zwingli did). But even if not in Muslim or Catholic areas, there is something to be said for simply living consistently with gospel principles and avoiding any implication of a burden that Jesus himself does not lay upon the shoulders of his followers.
Nevertheless, rather than re-invent the wheel, I wrote the post below nearly ten years ago. In it, I outline five specific reasons why I think we do well to avoid Lent. Further to what is written above, see what you think. At an absolute minimum, it seems to me that Lent ought not to be mandated and probably ought not to be encouraged. If you personally find it helpful and stimulating, you are free to do it. But I would be mindful of the reasons laid out in the post below. I would also think carefully about Paul’s comment to the Corinthians: “Everything is permissible,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible,” but not everything builds up (1 Cor 10:23). Though we may be free, we must ask whether this is truly helpful or builds up. We must ask it in light of gospel priorities. Both the gospel priorities the Bible would encourage us towards personally and gospel priorities as we communicate them to our neighbours.
Very interesting viewpoint. Honestly I had never consider this.
I have typically found that “fasting” was a beneficial launching point in conversations with Muslims (its they who initiate that though, not me). Sort of worked out as a place to build from.
However, I don’t think its a “necessary” building point.
I had never thought of fasting as legalistic.
Thanks for your article.
Thanks Scott.
My experience has been that Muslims are very quick to want to talk about fasting because it is so important to them. I find using that as a basis to establish common ground is often detrimental to the wider (and, in my view, more necessary) task of encouraging them towards the freedom afforded in the gospel. I have found our emphasis – and I think this is largely Paul’s approach in Galatians – should be towards freedom when dealing with those enticed and trapped in legalism, whatever form it takes.
Whilst I do think there is freedom to fast if you want, I find the biblical grounds for it decidedly lacking and the arguments for its benefits as a spiritual discipline devoid of any scriptural warrant at all. I find it hard not to view it as a Jewish cultural hangover that is permissible but in no way binding on Gentile believers. Without any biblical case even for its spiritual merits – and some biblical grounds that are explicit in scripture that we ought not to lean into asceticism (and I think fasting easily falls under that bracket) – I am hard pressed to find credit in it. Both personally or evangelistically.