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I had lunch today with a friend who recently left the Lutheran church for Orthodoxy. I kidded him about his limited food choices, this being the Lenten season, and given how serious many Orthodox Christians are about fasting. Then he reminded me that by his church’s calendar, Lent has not yet begun. My joke was turned back on me, as he enjoyed pork tacos while I contented myself with vegetarian paella, having forsaken, as my own Lenten fast, the meat of any animal I am not sure was decently treated.
We have traveled a ways, this friend and I, from the time when our faiths were almost purely cerebral, when we prided ourselves on our Luther- and Calvin-tinted libraries. There was a time when we would have scoffed at the notion of a Lenten fast, back when we thought Church history began in 1517. We came to it by different paths, and his will certainly be the more rigorous — no animal products, and significant fasting during Holy Week — yet there we were, two observers of Lent who only recently reveled in our Christian liberty as if liberty from law is equivalent to a blessing on indolence.
(It struck me, as an aside, that this is a particularly American phenomenon — we are a people besotted with our rights, and possessing a denuded sense of our responsibilities.)
I’m not the only Protestant to observe Lent, of course, and by some accounts the practice — in various manifestations that reflect early church practices — is on the rise. Christians have considerably divergent opinions on this, as is to be expected, and as illustrated in the discussion that appeared after Harrison’s recent post, “Super Fat Tuesday.”
My own opinion is that such a trend, if it is indeed happening, is a good thing, insofar as it reflects a broader recognition of our need for repentance. I think such collective practices — fasts, liturgies, catechisms, hymns — can have a profound spiritual impact, if only on our sense that we are in a covenant community, something that we American Protestants in particular sometimes need help with, in the face of a cultural tendency toward individualism.
Do I think the fact that I unthinkingly ate a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit on Day Two of Lent will somehow mitigate against me in the Holy Debit and Credit Ledger? Of course not. Sola gratia. Am I worried that Lenten observance smacks of “Romanism?” No, because if I use that particular bigotry as my guide, I’ll have to abandon the doctrines of the Trinity and the duality of Christ’s nature, among other tenets that many assume to be obvious conclusions from scripture, but which resulted from considerable debate by learned church fathers, all of whom observed — can you see it coming? — Lent.
None of it is proof that I am holier than someone who doesn’t care to observe Lent. I’m moved to fast, and pray more frequently during Lent, not because I am closer to God, but because I have been so far removed from Him, for so much of my life, even after professing faith. Having grieved the Holy Spirit more times than I can count, it gives me happiness to know that there is something I can do that pleases God. So I fast, and I pray, and I do these in particular during Lent because the celebration of our great liberation approaches, and who wouldn’t regard all that he owes during such a time? I pray and fast because these are gifts to God. The miracle is that, in His abundant grace, God makes them gifts back to me, because they draw me closer to Him, and to peace.
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End of an illusion
Tony Woodlief,
How do you know the animals that you do eat were decently treated? Do you use a a checklist, approved supplier or other scoring methodology or do you raise your own animals for food realizing that you cannot ever know how the animals were treated if you don’t raise them yourself?
Thank you Tony for your comments. I,along with your friend, am an Orthodox convert. I had been an evangelical Episcopalian. (Yes, they exist but it gets harder and harder.) My husband and I had been interested in Orthodoxy for a number of years before we converted. To be frank, the idea of such fasting scared us. Besides Lent, it also included almost every Friday and Wednesday throughout the year. The act of fasting is not however a law, it is a discipline taken on voluntarily as a response to “the one who loves mankind” (a phrase used frequently in Orthodox liturgy) and to help us learn to control those passions that impede our relationship with Christ. When it became obvious that we could no longer stay in the Episcopal Church, we were torn between joining a church that had respect for the Bible and Biblical morality, or a church that that believed in the efficacy of the Sacraments. In Orthodoxy we have found both. The first time our priest preached on the sanctity of life, my husband cried. You won’t find that preaching in mainline churches. The first time I took Communion in the Orthodox Church, I cried. The theology that states that it is Christ’s body and blood (see John 6:30-58, Matthew 26:26-30, 1 Corinthians 10:14-22 & 11:23-30) is not found in most evangelical churches. While I would not try to tell others how to develop their relationship with Christ, I believe that my husband and I have found the place where God wants us to be and I know that I am closer in my relationship with Christ than at any time in my 40+ years as a Christian.
On the lighter side, today (in anticipation of Lent) is one of the few Fridays that is not a fasting day. I think I’ll have a ham sandwich.
llama - Kosher beef is (or should be) better treated - or else it shouldn’t be certified/passed by the Rabbi.
#2 KATHY
” The theology that states that it is Christ’s body and blood (see John 6:30-58, Matthew 26:26-30, 1 Corinthians 10:14-22 & 11:23-30) is not found in most evangelical churches.”
If you mean that the bread and the cup are turned into Christ’s physical body, no, it is not found. If you mean that it is symbolic and you better be right with God before taking part, then yes, it is always there.
I am Baptist but am going to join an EV Free church when we move. The pastor went to Talbot seminary at BIOLA.
#4 Bob Buckles
The Roman Catholic church teaches Transubstantiation, that the bread and wine are no longer bread and wine but only appear to be. The Orthodox Church never gets that specific. It says that they are the body and blood of Christ but that how that is is a mystery beyond human understanding. I take Christ at His literal words in Scripture, “This is my Body.” I believe that it is much more than symbolic. That is why I joined The Orthodox Church instead of the Baptist Church.
Very interesting post. I too, love liturgical practices and think they can be a powerful aid to holiness when practiced right.
#5 KATHY
Is that the only reason? If there are no big reasons, then Yeah! I like it when we christians just enjoy different styles of worship and only argue about small matters of theology. While I take one side of the discussion, I am not sure that God the Father cares too much whether you dunk or sprinkle. ( Although I think I remember that the Protestant man in “My Big, Fat Greek Wedding” was dunked in a wading pool. Did I get it right? Or was that when Sipowitz joined the Orthodox Church in an episode of “NYPD Blue”?)
I guess the only problem I might see in this is that observing Lent once a year could give a person reason to believe their duty is done, and then they can abuse their bodies with all kinds of junk the whole rest of the year. I think fasting is something that should more often be purpose-driven, rather than calendar-driven. (There might be some purpose in having a tradition of fasting, to be sure, but it is absolutely certain it is not the only valid purpose.) Also, being that I am a vegan vegetarian for reasons of both body and spirit, I’d highly recommend that people research the benefits to be gleaned from living without meat all year long.
Every modern day church has liturgy, ( a rite or body of rites prescribed for public worship.)
1) What would be “right” practice of liturgy?
“Right” according to whom?
2) Is there a New Testament church practice or example of liturgy?
3) How would New Testament practices be different from today’s practices?
4) What are the reasons for the differences?
Add to the above in #9,
5) What were the absolute priorities in the New Testament church experience?
6) How are those priorities different from the modern church ,and where did THOSE differences come from?
Philp Schaff, 19th Century Church Historian, in Pagan Christianity, p. 171
“The church, embracing the mass of the population of the Empire, from the Caesar to the meanest slave, and living amidst all its institutions, received into her bosom vast deposits of foreign material from the world and from heathenism…Although ancient Greece and Rome have fallen forever, the spirit of Graeco-Roman paganism is not extinct. It still lives in the natural heart of man, which at this day as much as ever needs regeneration by the Spirit of God. It lives also in many idolatrous and superstitious usages of the Greek and Roman churches, against which the pure spirit of Christianity has instinctively protested from the beginning, and will protest, till all remains of gross and refined history shall be outwardly as well as inwardly overcome, and baptized and sanctified not only with water, but also with the spirit and fire of the gospel.”
John A. T. Robinson, 20th Century English New Testament Scholar, in Pagan Christianity, p. 157
“The real trouble is not in fact that the church is too rich but that it has become heavily institutionalized, with a crushing investment in maintenance. It has the characteristics of the dinosaur and battleship. It is saddled with a plant and a programme beyond its means, so that it is absorbed in problems of supply and preoccupied with survival. The inertia of the machine is such that the financial allocations, the legalities, the channels of organization, the attitudes of mind, are all set in the direction of continuing and enhancing the status quo. If one wants to pursue a course which cuts across these channels, then most of one’s energies are exhausted before one ever reaches the enemy lines.”
I don’t think I fully agree with the John A. T. Robinson quote above.
The institutional aspects of the Christian church remain highly diverse. Some movements and denominations still suffer from being far too unorganized and free-wheeling. Some movements and denominations are indeed top-heavy ad institutional. But there is little gain in churches being unorganized and unstructured and there is little benefit from taking our focus off of programs that meet needs and maintain larger-scale involvement.
Besides, in the 80s it was true that 80 percent of American churches have 80 or fewer people in them. I don’t know if that is still literally true but I don’t think it has changed significantly.
I am doing the Truth Project with some Bible Fellowship ladies at my church and we discussed this. We were wondering where this verse entered into the picture:
1″Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven…
16″When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 17But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” Matthew 6:1,16-18