Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Missing the Point about Lent

The Church of England in the West Midlands is opening a comedy club for Lent—The Laughing Sole. The posters sport a fish in uproarious laughter. This is part of the “Love Life Live Lent2” campaign which includes daily text messages of fifty positive “actions to encourage kindness and generosity.”

This kind and gentle approach to Lent turns the focus away from spiritual disciplines to a feel-good attitude towards the community of humankind. The true locus of Lent and spiritual disciplines is God and His grace. Do good actions appeal to human vanity. You can read the full story from the BBC.

On this side of the world, apparently the Today Show is doing a twist on Lent with the “Could You Do Without?” segment. One family lived without modern appliances for a week. This was, of course, completely devoid of any spiritual purpose and more of a sociology experiment. However, it is fascinating that the idea of a fast translates into secular humanist religion.

1 comment:

Gregory Wilbur said...

Richard:

Yes, the punctuation should have been "do-good actions." Obviously I'm not negating the biblical concept of works (see my previous blog on the disciplines of grace and deeds of mercy), but the attitude of the Church of England program appears to be works without faith--more of a karma concept than biblical.

Thanks for your comment!