A Defense of Lent

I have been beseeched by Judah to not celebrate Lent. I’ve considered his arguments and have decided I will continue to celebrate Lent.

The crux of Judah’s argument is that Lent is a Pagan practice brought into Christianity by Constantine’s Rome. He further wonders why Protestant churches would practice such a big C Catholic tradition. I’ll elaborate as best I can.

It may be true that Lent wasn’t officially commanded by Rome until 360, but that wasn’t the first time it was "addressed." Lent was practiced in the 1st century. We know this from reading the Didache, (Lent is referred to as the "Great Fast") one of the earliest Christian works, perhaps even a product of the first apostolic council (Acts 15:28). Further when one looks at some of the sites Judah cites you can find many contradictions. For example Lent is said to be 40 days celebrating Tammuz’s death and resurrection, yet it is also said that Lent was celebrated for 40 hours "falsely believing that only 40 hours had elapsed between Christ’s death and resurrection" and still other sites claim "people did not observe Lent for more than a week," and still others "for one or two days." So was Lent 40 days imposed by a demi-Pagan Empire or in existence before that but shorter?

In addition I would argue that just because something can be found in a pagan tradition doesn’t mean it must have been put atop and corrupted Christianity. Otherwise stuff like this, this, this and this present a real problem. One solution to the whole issue is to look at C.S. Lewis’ conversion at the hands of Tolkien. This problem of myth was a major stumbling block to him, but he eventually saw all these other pre-Christian traditions as an innate human yearning for the truths of Christianity (I may have botched his logic there, if someone can sum it up better please let me know).

Next there is the issue of Easter being celebrated continually on a Sunday instead of moving it around as Passover is. The Restored Church site argues Jesus was resurrected on Saturday night. Scripture is a little unclear as to when Jesus died (as this site insists this would be 72 hours before Jesus rises this is an important fact); John’s chronology puts Jesus’ death on the 15th of Nisan, the other Gospels claim it happened on the 14th. None the less let’s assume the site is correct, Jesus rose on the Saturday, that still means the Jesus movement didn’t know about the resurrection until the women found the empty tomb on that Sunday morning. So I would argue Easter is celebrating the realization of the Messiah’s resurrection. Also, on one of the sites it is argued that the date of Easter is determined by the sun, unlike Passover which is determined by the moon. This is not true, Easter is determined by the moon as well.

As for the overall difference in dates between Easter and Passover this has to do with a very long history between Christian Judaism and Mainline Judaism in which these two brothers ended up squabbling. Mainline Judaism was trying to distance itself from the new cult (as the Romans tended to respect ancient religions like Judaism, but squashed new movements like Christianity) and then Christianity was trying to distance itself from Judaism after the Great Revolt and the Bar-Koxba revolt.

As for Judah’s question of why protestant Churches would practice a Roman tradition it is quite simple. There were two (maybe more) lines of thought around the time of the Reformation, one was that all Catholic practices that went against scripture should be thrown out (this is the Lutheran view). The other was that all Roman practices that were not explicitly sanctioned by Scripture should be thrown out. So, a Protestant church that follows the Lutheran model could look at Lent and say there is no where in Scripture that rejects the practice so it is acceptable.
And I hope that helps. If anyone would like to add something please do.

Peace,
Chris