Article by

The Rev Dr Alan Clifford

LENT – (along with the religion which inspired it) should be given up ‘for Lent’ and forever!

An Oxford organisation known as the ‘Oxford Minority People Gathering’ have complained to BBC Oxford that while Divali, the Chinese New Year, and Ramadan are reported, Lent is not.

I fully understand OMPA’s complaint. This is but a further example of the creeping deletion of Christianity from our culture.

However, a more urgent question is what kind of Christianity do we wish to preserve and promote?

Getting upset about BBC Oxford’s omission of Lent raises a more profound question: why Lent at all? As I argue, there is a strong case for abolishing it.

It is astonishing in this secular age that superstitious observances like Lent still survive.

There’s no denying that in our obesity-ridden society, diet-reduction would be good for the health of all of us. But to turn it into a religious ritual is no part of authentic biblical Christianity.

Lent is of pagan origin, adapted as a 6th-century Papal innovation. It is quite alien to the teaching of the New Testament. While Roman Catholics, Anglicans and others persist in its observance, the Apostle Paul rejects the validity of special holy days and superstitious abstinence (see Galations 4:10-11; Colossians 2:16-23).

Christian teaching does have a lot to say to us on the subject of over-indulgence. However, our Saviour’s teaching on ‘self-denial’ (see Mark 8:34-8) covers every kind of self-gratification, and not just for forty days but every day! Also, arguments against Lent do not call into question properly-understood and correctly-motivated periods of fasting and prayer.

More faithful interpreters of the Bible are represented by the great Genevan reformer John Calvin (1509-64) and the great English Puritan Richard Baxter (1615-91):

Christ did not abstain from food and drink to give an example of temperance, but to gain Him more authority in being set apart from the common lot of men, that He might progress as a messenger from heaven, not as a man of the earth.

It is really quite foolish to institute the so-called forty-day fast in imitation of Christ. For there is no more reason today why we should follow the example of Christ, than ever there was for the holy Prophets and the other Fathers under the Law to imitate the Fast of Moses. In fact we know that no-one ever had such a thought.

They pretend to be imitators of Christ, when they fast every day of the forty, but really they so stuff their bellies at breakfast that they can easily go through dinner-time without food. What resemblance have they to the Son of God?

Neither Christ nor Moses held a solemn fast every year, but both held one only, in all their lives.

For [Lent observers] to persuade themselves that it is a work of merit, a part of religious devotion and the worship of God – this is the ultimate superstition.

Commentary on Matthew’s Gospel, John Calvin

The imitation of Christ in His forty days’ fasting is not to be attempted or pretended to; because his miraculous works were not done for our imitation.

The pretending of a fast when men do but change their diet, flesh for fish, fruit, sweetmeats, etc, is but hypocritical and ridiculous.

As for the commanding such an abstinence, as in Lent, not in imitation, but bare commemoration of Christ’s forty days’ fast, I would not command it if it were in my power…

A Christian Directory (1673), Richard Baxter

So give up Lent and take up the true Christian life! Link up with a faithful and consistent Bible-believing church, and embrace for life-long discipleship our Saviour’s life-transforming saving grace.

Dr Alan C. Clifford
Norwich Reformed Church