Giving Up Atheism For Lent

This was originally a ‘thought’ that I wanted to share this last Lent 2020, but never got around to it, nor had a home for it. It lives here now, for your late reading pleasure.

One critique of the modern Church in American which I’ve discussed with many people is the lack of our actions as Christians in the world. Most folks outside the Church can’t really tell us what it is we do, but they can speak to what we think or specifically, are against. We are known by our brand, and our brand these days is very different than what it should be.

And it’s a fair criticism to level at the American Church. Much of what we are concerned with is a call to believe or think the right things at a lack for a substantial action based catechesis. We hardly balk at other christians who aren’t using their weekends to serve the poor and needy, or put their faith into action in their personal lives, but if you question the reality of God in a Facebook post then your brothers and sisters will say they are praying for you in the hopes of recovery.

Now Orthodoxy is certainly important; without it we would have some wrong ideas about God or about the nature of our faith. Most of the big culture issues we think we are just coming to as Americans, the early church spent hundreds of years debating at length with some of the best minds of their time. In fact, without Orthodoxy we’d probably become just as action-less in our faith lives (see the Universalist ‘God’s got it all covered’ theology). 

But the reality is that we are very, very light on the action-based faith lifestyle in the states. I say this as a victim of it myself. The choice to act or to simply think is a quick and easy one for a society that emphasizes intellect and correct thought around a number of issues. Especially when it comes to the hard stuff like serving the widows and orphans, welcoming the stranger or refugee, or standing alongside those in society who are pushed to the fringe and pressed into misery and slavery by the powers of this world. I can tell you how I feel about it but I can’t remember the last time I actually did anything about it.

So it’s confusing to me that Christians would want to go a step further into the realm of even less interaction with God during the Lent seasons when it comes to action; the one season where we should be doing the most reflection and prayer leading up to the Resurrection.  What I’m referring to is a practice which I’ve seen more and more people, even Christians, engaging in called “Giving Up God For Lent”.

On it’s face (and name) the ideas is so disappointing and saddening to me that I don’t even know where to begin. That our modern church has gotten the Lenten Fast so backward that it would equate ‘Lent’ with ‘reduction’ saddens me deeply. The contextual realties of ‘Atheism for Lent’ feels as strangely tone deaf as suggesting that Muslims try pork for Ramadan or Buddhists give physical attachment a try. As Christians our identity is rooted in Christ. To suggest we give up Christ for a season suggests we give up our identity as followers of his words for the sake of an experimental jog around a different theological block. It feels shallow and vapid.

For all the food and actions we fast from in our Lenten season, the idea is not to create void in us by deleting a chocolate bar or a meal but to invite God into those vacuums and spaces. It’s asking our Father to be the all-in-all that we truly need. To suggest that we can grow in faith and benefit in our walk with Christ by consciously choosing to let go of Him feels like a smug way of dabbling with apostasy. It’s some kind of Freudian slip from the participant that implies there is a personal belief that there is not so much sufficiency in the sufficiency of Christ.

When I think of the countless Christians around the world who are being killed for their faith, persecuted because of their love for Christ, and exiled from their homes because they choose to cling to the Hope of the Resurrection, it’s actually a bit gross to think that we Christians in the west would use our western freedom and privilege to disavow the greatest truth and belief we hold, even for a month or two, as some kind of entertaining or experimental exercise. We are sort of already doing this anyway day to day. Many of us are living in a ‘No God For Lent’ life, in which we are actively giving up God and also ignoring our call to live out our faith in the choices and decisions we make. 

I’d be ashamed to tell my Egyptian Christian friend I was ‘giving up God for Lent’ after he has shared his story of torture and near death, countless times, at the hands of people who hate Christ. The same person who gave up his life in his home country to be able to continue following Jesus. That last thing he wanted to do in jail was ‘Give up God for Lent’. 

What we have forgotten in the American Church is that our Lenten practice is a mystical, holy, and ancient tradition that allows us to stand in a rich river of christian spiritual rhythm. For every meal we skip we are feeling with our very body and soul the great gift we have in creation for our stomachs: Food and drink. For every bad habit we choose to lay down at the Altar, we are seeing how devotion to Christ can transform us into new creations. When we devote time to pray constantly in response to these hunger pangs or temptations, we are consciously choosing to say ‘change me Lord’. You’d be surprised what hungers you lose and what hungers you develop in Lent. 

And maybe that’s actually the fear underneath it all. The fear of change is great. Our sense of individual agency and control is even greater. When asked to take a season to change and let go of our control, is our answer really going to be “No God for Lent”?. We are spiritual control freaks at it’s worst.

As Christians, at the end of the day, every day, regardless of what season, we have to ask ourselves: Did we wake up and consciously choose to follow Christ today? Did we listen to the call of The Spirit when we saw a beggar outside our Safeway? Did we listen to the cries of our neighbor through the walls after a domestic dispute? Did we alter the many small but illusory comforts of our modern life in order to live our lives in alignment with Justice, both economic and judicial? When we are called do we say ‘Yes Lord’ or do we say ‘Just 10 more minutes of gossip with my friends!”?.

We love the verses where Jesus calls us to love our neighbors, and to be a ‘good person’, but we conveniently forgot the harder passages. The passages about camels and needles. The passages about luke-warm water. The passages about suffering and being hated by the world.  Lent, I’m afraid, is all about those passages. Biblical cherry-picking christians are problematic no matter how you describe your theology, politics, or way of life.

The last thing we should be asking ourselves during Lent is ‘where can I have less God?”, and instead be asking ‘Where can God fill where the noise used to be?”. Try asking that one question and follow the thread. I can guarantee it will lead to the harder, but healthier questions we each need in our lives.